Rediscovering healthy masculinity through African Diasporic movement
When I was young, the last thing I could’ve possibly imagined becoming was any kind of performing artist, and especially not a dancer. I was a social but shy, history-loving, Black comic book nerd from Newark, New Jersey. I loved to talk to people and learn about their experiences, but the thought of speaking, let alone performing in front of anyone, terrified me. Even at family gatherings, when my family would bust out their favorite two-step or Electric slide during family cookouts, I insisted on staying as far as possible from the dance floor. Even when everyone was cutting up and the dance had freaking directions, as far as I knew, I had two left feet and was allergic to finding the rhythm. At the same time, it was the late 90s, and Michael Jackson’s singing, dancing virtuosity reigned supreme as a King of Pop. I’m sure I wasn’t alone among the millions of children who almost face-planted trying to mimic that inhuman Smooth Criminal lean or tripped trying to Moonwalk in their bedroom mirrors. Still, it would take nearly a decade before the boy in the mirror would take the stage and change his life.
Taking my first steps onto the dance floor
Between 2007 and 2008, I was a sophomore in high school, and the Jabbawockeez were killing it on the first season of America’s Best Dance Crew (the first real dance competition show). For context, I attended a prestigious, predominantly white private high school that, while it had many talented instructors and immaculate facilities for the visual and performing arts, did not have a formal dance program at the time. There also weren’t many organized activities that fostered a sense of belonging, especially for students of color. Still, the school had a wonderful and spacious dance studio that students had access to, so we did what we could, and made the dance studio our safe haven. After school, the studio was the hangout spot where the few black students could all hang out, play music, crack jokes, and dance to the latest Jersey club mixes.
Now for those of you who’ve managed to go the entire pandemic and still avoid the pop culture blitz that is Tiktok, Jersey club is well known as an aggressively catchy, creative, no-holds-barred 130–150 bpm adrenaline rush that’s not for the faint of heart. Even before major music artists like Ciara were sampling the sound in songs like “Level Up” or the “Running Man Challenge” dance took the world by storm, Jersey club music was the pulse of New Jersey parties in the early 2000s.
Culturally, Jersey club gets its musical roots from the 1980s soulful danceable Chicago house music scene and the bass-heavy remixing of the 1990s Baltimore club music scene. What made Jersey club unique though was its youthful appeal (to this day, one of the wildest and most fun dance parties I’ve ever been to was a Jersey club teen party in Livingston, NJ), its signature kick beat, extensive and wildly creative sampling, and its infamous “bed squeak” (which, according to pioneer DJ Tameil, was actually a rocking chair). Jersey Club was notorious for sampling and remixing everything, and I mean everything.
At the heart of the sound were the “street teams” like the Brick City Bandits (named after “Brick City” Newark, my birthplace). Street entertainment teams brought together DJs, dancers, event producers, and promoters to throw parties, create promotional CD mixtapes, and over time, original dances and content. You could find the mixtapes of established artists like DJ Tameil or Tim Dolla and up-and-coming players like DJ Lil Man and DJ Jayhood in most electronic stores, street vendors, or Dr. Jay’s clothing store downtown on Broad Street and Market Street. My friends would bring those handmade CD covers to school and blast them in the studio, excited to find out which songs or dances would be playing at the club that weekend.
Most of all, Jersey club was infectious because there was only one rule: EVERYONE in a Jersey club party dances.
Being a wallflower made you seem weird, and dance cyphers would regularly break out during the parties where everyone, both guys and girls are either throwing it back (read: grinding) on the wall, or battling it out in the middle of a crowd with a flurry of footwork, isolations, tutting, and grooving. I remember countless afternoons watching my friends dance in the studio, as I would sit to the side, mortified not only at my ignorance of the latest moves but also my fear of doing them wrong.
One day, one of the juniors had the idea for him, his best friend, my best friend, and I to start our own dance group inspired by the Jabbawockeez. The initial idea was for us to just perform one routine to an original dance mix for a school assembly. My first time performing had been the previous year, when nine of us came together to do a short hip-hop routine during the annual “Multicultural Day Assembly.” This time, the four of us were going to dance like the Jabbawockeez, but we were going to make it “Jersey Club.” My best friends in high school were both DJs, so we even had our own original mix made for the show.
On the day of the performance, I remember feeling like I was vibrating with nerves. I had performed before, but this was different. The performance took OneRepublic’s Apologize”, a slow, hauntingly melodic pop R&B laid over Timbaland’s world-class production, and infused it with that signature Jersey club adrenaline. Once the song started, it felt like a switch flipped inside me. I can’t remember the routine for the life of me, but I remember the endorphin rush and the heat of the stage lights. I remember the joy of being on stage having fun with my friends as if it were just us in the studio again, and I remember the stunned and awestruck faces of both teachers and peers. Most of all, I remember the moment when each of us had a chance in the routine to freestyle, and my mind went blank. My body moved, and I didn’t care at all how I looked. It was liberating.
My body moved, and I didn’t care at all how I looked. It was liberating.
After that first performance, the four of us decided to formalize the group. We called ourselves the Academiks and went on to perform a few more times, once even at a school assembly in Brooklyn. By my junior year though, the impending transition to college sent us our separate ways. Years later, some of my former teachers would tell me that the performances we created as the Academiks were some of the most exciting and engaging showings they’d seen in their 25+ year career. I had no idea what seed had taken root within me.
Switching up the tempo and learning to lead
Up until that point, I had been an avowed visual artist from the age of 10. Nothing could supplant the idea that I was going to be a comic book artist in my mind. But when I arrived in Hartford, CT during my freshman year at Trinity College, I found myself sorely missing the thrill of performing. I decided at that moment that I needed to find more opportunities to dance. I had also briefly been part of a stepping competition team in high school and so I quickly found one on campus as well. I began to choreograph steps for the team and grew quickly as a leader. Fortunately, I had also become fast friends with another freshman, who also had expressed a deep desire to dance more hip-hop, but saw that there weren’t opportunities for anything other than ballet or modern. So together with two of our other friends, we founded Elemental Movement Dance Crew during our sophomore year of college.
Even without any formal training, I began to live and breathe dance. There were many nights that I slept in the studio, dancing in between doing homework and napping. Most of my close friends had studied West African, or taken Modern, and were immensely talented, beautiful dancers. So I learned by absorbing and incorporating everything that I could. I learned by watching them in rehearsals, by taking the occasional dance class, by watching countless YouTube videos, and by continuing to simply move my body to the music that inspired me.
Suddenly, I LOVED going to parties. Not only because I could follow the rhythm, but because the dance floor was the ultimate teacher. There was no vocabulary, there was no theory or academic practice; it was just about being present and unafraid to make mistakes in the moment.
I learned Merengue and Salsa from watching the Dominicans sway, sashay, and swagger to “Aguanile”; I vibed with the West Indian students and followed along as they ‘wacky dipped’ to Serani and Vybz Kartel. Machel Montano had everyone’s waistline moving to Soca, and modern Afrobeat had just begun its takeover with the international hit “Azonto.” And, if I’m being really honest, it was a confidence boost as a young straight man to dance with young women that WANTED to dance with me because, if nothing else, I was coordinated, and one of the only guys willing to dance at parties.
That’s also when I started to notice a trend where I’d see that young men my age went to parties just to “hold up the wall” or be wallflowers and watch. In response, dance subconsciously became a way to confidently own my masculinity within a predominantly feminine space. The misconception I often see around these African, spinally and pelvically rooted dances is that dancing sensuously meant that there was an implied expectation of sex after the encounter. There wasn’t. Dancing was the exchange, and for me, that was more than enough. That’s when I first began to realize how much I had changed, and how much dancing had changed me.
That’s when I first began to realize how much I had changed, and how much dancing had changed me.
I would lead as co-captain and co-choreographer for Elemental Movement until I graduated in 2014. By the end of my undergraduate career, I had choreographed at least 20 different performance pieces, I had traveled abroad to participate in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, and I’d performed in over 30 productions, including a romantic wheelchair duet with this beautiful, expressive, sassy dancer that was a member of Elemental. The piece incorporated my original spoken word poetry, music that I edited myself, and a slower, more lyrical choreography that felt very different from anything I’d done up until that point. It was the first time that I wasn’t choreographing to compete, or for the thrill. I was creating original movements to express myself, and to focus on the connection between two people, two bodies, telling a story about their experiences. Still, in my mind, I was still just a person who danced, not a dancer.
Finding a new rhythm and reason to dance through Carnival
It wasn’t until I joined SambaFunk! in 2015 that I began performing professionally. SambaFunk! was the first time I had received formal, consistent training in any one discipline, and the first time I was paid to perform. It helped launch my career as a dancer and teaching artist in the Bay and has opened up more doors than I could’ve possibly imagined. It also helped me find a new family and community 3000 miles away from home. Most importantly, it was the first time that all of my performance experiences were explicitly reframed within the aesthetic, cultural, and ideological traditions of the African Diaspora. It was the first time that I could articulate WHY I could intuitively pick up the variations between salsa, samba, and house dance and share them with others, and relate it to the transformative celebration of Carnival. These movements are the only remaining traces I’ve known of my Diasporic ancestors’ shared language, and somehow, my body instinctively knew it, like retracing the steps of a well-worn path in the woods.
In Carnival, to “chip and wine on de road”, or to “mash-up de place” is a political statement of rebellion born in the sugar cane fields of Trinidad, and has grown to represent freedom from the constraints of the capitalist workday. At the same time, it has also become part of their livelihood, bringing millions of dollars and visitors to the “greatest party on earth” each year (pandemics notwithstanding). It’s simple pleasure, like the endorphin rush you feel when you break a sweat while throwing paint on strangers and gleefully jumping on J’ouvert morning to the melodic symphonies of steel pan trucks. It’s all of these things, and I think understanding dance’s versatility is what truly elevated me to a place where I could own my identity as a dancer. It reshaped movement as physical griot storytelling, as history, as liberation, as a lamentation, and as a celebration. So whenever I move now, I tap into the fullness of my experience as a Diasporic descendant. I bring an energetic remix of my musical and cultural origins: Jazz, Hip-Hop, House, Jersey Club, Gospel, Dancehall, Samba, Salsa, Soca, Contemporary, and Afro-Pop. It’s unapologetic, joyful, sensual, powerful, vulnerable, positive, painful, masculine, and feminine Blackness. I’m not a dancer because I’m the most technically proficient. I’m a dancer because, regardless of where I am — whether it’s a marley floor in the dance studio, a professionally lit performance stage, the Oakland First Friday’s street corner, or a crowded club in New Jersey — when I dance, I’m authentically and wholly myself.
I’m a dancer because, regardless of where I am, when I dance, I’m authentically and wholly myself.
Why should YOU care about dance?
I’m sharing my story because, now, more than ever, I’ve realized how important dance is for our physical, mental, and emotional health. It gives me a powerful outlet for potentially overwhelming emotions like anger, grief, joy, fear, excitement, and even despair, and after two years of being disconnected, we all have those emotions in abundance. Dance pushes me to get creative about telling my story and connecting to others’ stories. Yet, I think one underrated and invaluable aspect that dance has contributed to my life is a level of self-awareness as a masculine, male embodied human sharing space with others. Dance in social spaces like clubs requires informed and enthusiastic consent, and many of the issues of violence we face in those spaces, Carnival included, stem from a lack of growth, empathy, and/or understanding in those areas. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that dancing, and in particular, African rooted dances, has allowed me as a man to explore masculinity and sensuality and the perceived femininity of those movements in a safe and sacred space. I believe all people should dance, but I especially believe that more men and masculine-presenting people need to release their discomfort and hyper-sensitivity around being in touch with their own bodies.
I believe all people should dance, but I especially believe that more men and masculine-presenting people need to release their discomfort and hyper-sensitivity around being in touch with their own bodies.
Let’s explore this together.
Now that you have an understanding of my experience and lens on dance, I invite you to join me on an exploration of how dance impacts us all. In my next few blog posts, we will investigate key topics in dance, told from diverse perspectives. Specifically, we will look at how dance translates into creative personal realization, interacts with culture and history, supports mental and physical wellness, unites communities, and provides professional opportunities. Each piece will tap into stories and perspectives from working artists within dance sub-communities.
Through this journalistic project, I hope that my perspective as a dancer and arts educator can help to inform people of all of the unconventional and unique ways that dance enriches our lives beyond the stage and the studio. I welcome you to join me on this journey!
About the Author
Ezra Bristow, in addition to being Bopsidy’s newest contributing editor, is an event producer, educator, and performing artist. You may see him behind the scenes at UC Berkeley, with Joe Goode Performance Group, or with SambaFunk. He also has his own company and dance group, MylesBeyond Entertainment and MasFX. You can follow him on Bopsidy, on Instagram @ezramyles, and at www.mylesbeyond.com.
