In the Internet age, dance evolves ... | The LXD

1,329,358 views ・ 2010-03-05

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I'm Jon M. Chu. And I'm not a dancer,
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I'm not a choreographer -- I'm actually a filmmaker, a storyteller.
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I directed a movie two years ago
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called "Step Up 2: The Streets."
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Anybody? Anybody? Yeah!
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During that movie I got to meet a ton of hip-hop dancers --
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amazing, the best in the world --
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and they brought me into a society, the sort of underground
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street culture that blew my mind.
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I mean, this is literally human beings
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with super-human strength and abilities.
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They could fly in the air. They could bend their elbow all the way back.
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They could spin on their heads for 80 times in a row.
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I'd never seen anything like that.
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When I was growing up, my heroes were people like
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Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Michael Jackson.
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I grew up in a musical family.
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02:41
(Laughter)
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And those guys, those were like, ultimate heroes.
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Being a shy, little, skinny Asian kid growing up in the Silicon Valley
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with low self-esteem, those guys made me believe in something bigger.
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Those guys made me want to, like, "I'm going to do that
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moonwalk at that bar mitzvah tonight for that girl."
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02:56
(Applause)
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02:59
And it seems like those dance heroes have disappeared,
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sort of relegated to the background of pop stars and music videos.
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But after seeing what I've seen,
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the truth is, they have not disappeared at all.
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They're here, getting better and better every day.
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And dance has progressed.
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It is insane what dance is right now.
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Dance has never had a better friend than technology.
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Online videos and social networking ...
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dancers have created a whole global laboratory online
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for dance, where kids in Japan are taking moves
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from a YouTube video created in Detroit,
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building on it within days and releasing a new video,
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while teenagers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it
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with a Philly flair to create a whole new dance style in itself.
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And this is happening every day.
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And from these bedrooms and living rooms and garages,
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with cheap webcams,
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lies the world's great dancers of tomorrow.
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Our Fred Astaires, our Gene Kellys
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our Michael Jacksons are right at our fingertips,
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and may not have that opportunity, except for us.
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So, we created the LXD,
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sort of a -- the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers,
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a justice league of dancers that believe
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that dance can have a transformative effect on the world.
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A living, breathing comic book series,
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but unlike Spiderman and Iron Man,
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these guys can actually do it.
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And we're going to show you some today. So, let me introduce to you,
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some of our heroes right now.
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We got Madd Chadd,
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Lil' C, Kid David and J Smooth.
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Please be excited, have fun, yell, scream.
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Ladies and gentlemen: The LXD.
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04:22
(Applause)
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(Video): Madd Chadd: When people first see me,
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I get a lot of different reactions actually.
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Sometimes you would think that maybe kids would enjoy it,
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but sometimes they get a little freaked out.
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And, I don't know, I kind of get a kick out of that a little bit.
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04:41
(Music)
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05:57
(Applause)
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J Smooth: When I'm in the zone -- I'm dancing and free styling it --
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I actually visually kind of picture
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lines, and moving them.
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I think of like, Transformers,
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like how panels open and then they fold,
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they fold in, and then you close that panel.
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And then another thing opens,
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you close that.
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06:24
(Music)
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07:40
(Applause)
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Kid David: It's kind of like, honestly a lot of times
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I don't really know what's going on
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when I'm dancing.
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Because at that point it's just really like, it's my body and the music.
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It's not really a conscious decision,
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"I'm going to do this next, I'm going to do this."
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It's kind of like this other level
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where you can't make choices anymore,
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and it's just your body reacting to certain sounds in the music.
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I got my name just because I was so young.
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I was young when I started. I was younger than a lot of the people I was dancing with.
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So, it was always like, they called me Kid David, because I was the kid.
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08:21
(Music)
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(Applause)
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L'il C: I tell them to create a ball,
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and then you just use that ball of energy.
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And instead of throwing it out, people would think
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that's a krump move, that's a krump move.
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That's not a krump move. You're going to throw it out,
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you throw it out, and you hold it.
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And you let it go, and then right when you see the tail,
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you grab it by the tail, then you bring it back in.
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And you just got this piece of energy
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and you just, you're manipulating it.
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You know, you create power, then you tame it.
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09:45
(Music)
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10:51
(Applause)
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(Music)
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16:45
(Applause)
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