The rise and fall of the ASU Bboys-
The project started out as an extracurricular experiement. I began a brakdancing group when I first came to ASU called the ASU Bboys. We were primarily just some dancers that were interested in getting together for practices and maybe competing in local competitions. The ASU Bboys were composed of a junior IDS International Studies major Justin Peale, a Math major J.C. Wansi, and eventually a communications major and friend from the dorms, Riggin Hart. We all sort of met randomly through people out in the NC Breaking scene. We would practice in any space available including outside of the cafeterias, in abandoned classrooms, and if we were lucky enough, an empty dance studio. Random hallways were usually our best opportunity, but eventually we had been kicked out of all these spaces. An interest began to develop in what we were doing that allowed us to invite newcomers in to learn. Some of the interest came in the form of students who either wanted to learn or wanted to watch. Others wanted us to exhibit for the purpose of educating, such as a history major doing a thesis on breakdancing or some local capoeira students wanting a deul performance. Other teachers in the dance department wanted us for dance appreciation classes, masters classes and their students were sent to us from choreography and pedagogy classes. There was enough talk around campus that we had a constant flow of students coming and going weekly to our practices. We began to structure some of our classes to attend to incoming students and eventually it became burdensome, where we were constantly teaching newcomers and retaining no new members. It was frustrating to spend our time in this way. Regardless, this attention could not be ignored. It was heartless and against any sense of integrity to not teach people interested in what we were doing. It was our duty to dispel myths about our art and history and to provide some source of education to the community of students that were interested. I decided to hold a series of workshops that would give students the opportunity of an organized introduction to the history, culture and movement of the dance. My colleagues just wanted our practices back and hopefully some new members that were serious enough to return indefinately. My argument was that we could reach the whole school and weed out the people that weren’t interested further than an introductory knowledge of what we were all about. We would be giving people an opportunity to find out for themselves if they were interested and give them the opportunity for further support if they chose to return. The basic structure was to begin with a brief history of the art as we knew it at the time, give an exhibition of the talent within the group, then to give an instruction on basic movements and close with questions and comments.
The organization of the workshop began with advertizing. We hung up flyers in all the buildings and told interested faculty to tell their students. The dance teachers decided to offer extra credit to their classes for all students who attended. As we got closer to the date, we realized that our initial workshop was turning into something bigger than we’d anticipated. I’d structured the event, but was not planning on teaching, only helping. At the time of the workshop however, we had about 80 people show up. We quickly had to move from a dance room to a gymnastics room and instead of one teacher, I had the then three or four other students from the practices walk around and instruct. The main facilitator was supposed to be our most senior member, a student named Justin Peale, but he was unnerved by the crowd and couldn’t focus or carry his voice. Having grown up acting on stage, my voice carried much further, and I could just lead the instructors to carry out the details throughout the crowd. Eventually I got used to my role and could kind of carry out the direction of this workshop to make it all seem intentional and planned out. Afterwards we were all pumped up and excited at the turnout, but we all knew that the direction and structure of our little group had changed.
The next semester, and into the next year, we battled with the problems of participation and interest constantly. The same frustrations occurred again and again as we struggled with conflicting goals and with what was actually happening at our meetings. We wrestled with the argument of whether or not to become an official club on campus, for money, practice space, credibility, support and consistency, or whether to just remain a group of a few members getting together and dancing. We had to have some sort of response to the attention we received, the demand for exhibitions and the ebb and flow of membership, but we could never get ourselves organized enough to effectively manage any of this until a few outside influences happened. I became a founding member of an organization on campus and our senior member ended his enrollment earlier than expected. Both of these events eventually led to the downfall of the ASU Bboys, and created something totally new, but only after a limineal gestation period in which there were no official practices, no club or members, and only two people on campus that seemed to know anything about breakdancing at all.
Human Interaction 