ROCK STEADY CREW on DANCING WITH THE STARS
When Crazy Legs called me about doing Dancing with the Stars. We were a bit hesitant at first. Normally these events can diminish the street credibility of a real street crew. But as RSC does business. we always test the waters of how much we can push the companies into letting us do what we want, and not what they want. So we made it clear we did not want to do a commercial style corny dance piece, but a raw Battle style piece with real BBOY gear (clothes) and raw street energy. And to our surprise they agreed and wanted nothing less. The only problem we had with the company is that they wanted to use there live band to play James Brown's "give it up or turn me loose"! Now we saw the band and though that it would come out real corny and not do James Brown any justice. so we opted for the original songs including Aretha Franklyn's "Rock Steady" which is like an anthem for our crew. They barely agreed to it. But we were not having it any other way.
As we gathered the Crew for rehearsals, and began cutting music and piecing together short battles. The rule was every RSC member had to create a battle style routine with each other. once that took place, we divided the group into 2 crews, and did Commando style set ups with each other (a commando is when one bboy starts, and another bboy jumps in, then the first bboys steps out and another bboy jumps in place), We did this and inserted crew combinations and solo's. The decision was made by the producers for me to perform a bit they saw me do on youtube. It was a Robotic style dance piece to hydraulic sound fx. So they added a spotlight, and gave me center stage. it was a great setup for me, and I wanted to make sure my POPS were so hard that it would read through the TV audience. So I trained real hard on Leg Pops and Hydraulics.
We had ruff negotiations with the producers going into the event. Rock Steady does not agree with half the legal mumbo jumbo that comes with doing TV. For us the contracts have to be simplified or else the compensation for us will grown. We finally met in the middle and signed, then we ran into our biggest problem only a day into the event. The producers told us that they cannot get permission to use original Music from big artists such as James Brown and Aretha Franklyn. we felt like we were double crossed! we were pissed off. There was no way we were gonna dance to there Band. We argued and fought hard for this. But we hit a brick wall in negotiations. Finally the producers convinced us to at least run a rehearsal with the band and see how it felt. We agreed but were not happy at all. So we get into position and the band started the intro, the singers began to flow over the music, and we were saying to our selves, you know this ain't half bad! haha, by the end of the rehearsal it felt as if we did a live performance with a James Brown cover band that knew what they were doing. So we were happy.
Show time! we put on our Rock steady Tee Shirts with big graffiti tags on the front and got Busy!
Sugar Pop wanted to represent for Locking and did one of the Funkiest Lock solos that year! Bonita was the only Bgirl and had the shortest solo, but at the end of the night, she got some of the most buzz! Crazy legs was featured as the leader of the crew, and one who leads by example. He came down the Apache Line and through burns at all of us. The BBoys solos were set off by Lil Desmond of the Hawaii Chapter of RSC and he was FLYING! Maybe the strongest solo of the piece.
Rock Steady Crew on Dancing with the Stars
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