B-Boy Document 2008 (Part 1)

It may be too early to tell, but perhaps 2008 will go down in history as the year of the mainstream media’s b-boy blitz. For better or for worse, b-boys and b-girls have recently received an unprecedented amount of media exposure across the globe. There was, among other things, the surprise success of America’s Best Dance Crew that made JabbaWockeeZ and Super Cr3w household names, the promotional frenzy that pushed Step Up 2: The Streets into the limelight, and the acronym-happy YouTube stunt that pitted Miley Cyrus’s “M&M Cru” against the “ACDC Crew.”

If media convergence has been a buzzword in journalism for a while, then the growing popularity of b-boying across all forms of media certainly is no exception. A fan can watch a favorite b-boy in a movie and on TV, leave him a comment on MySpace, discuss his career on Bboy World, look him up on YouTube, download the song from his trailer on iTunes, and wait for his crew t-shirt to come in the mail all in one bored afternoon.

But even though technology and media have changed a lot since b-boying’s first adventure into mainstream exposure, some things have remained the same. As it was with projects like Wildstyle and Breakin’, b-boying’s primary translator to the public at large is still the big screen.

At the forefront are Benson Lee and Marcy Garriott, directors of the documentaries Planet B-Boy and Inside the Circle, respectively. In the first of our two-part feature, Paul Rogers recently joined the directors in a conference call to get the scoop on the directors’ inspirations, challenges, and fears of possible competition.

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“I feel that Marcy and I have put so much of our time and our lives into this culture, and we both respect it deeply, and it’s so refreshing to see different angles on it.”You two have met each other previously?

BENSON:
Absolutely.

MARCY:
Yeah, we sure have.

And where was that?

MARCY:
I went to one of Benson’s premiere screenings at Tribeca. It wasn’t the first screening, it was one of the ones on the second week, but it was great because I got to see Planet B-Boy on the big screen, with all that energy from the premiere, and he was there with his producer and editor, and afterwards I went down and introduced myself.

BENSON:
Oh yeah, that’s right.

MARCY:
Yeah, it was that day, which I’m sure was just like a huge swirl with tons going on with you that week. And since then we’ve just been in touch by phone and e-mail.

Was it surprising to you that there was another b-boy documentary being released near the same time?

BENSON:
No, not really. As a filmmaker, you understand that when you have a subject like b-boying, which is so dynamic, especially when not too many people are covering it, you’re not that surprised that other people are doing it. But with Marcy, when I heard about her doc, I was really excited because you always know that other filmmakers are going to provide their own angle on it. And when I heard that she was focusing on a very regional aspect of b-boying, which is down in Texas, I was really, really excited to see her film. And I was able to see her film through… I forgot, which festival was that, Marcy? Lincoln Center?

MARCY:
Oh yeah, yeah, that was Dance on [Camera] at Lincoln Center.

BENSON:
Right right, so I was able to see Marcy’s film at Lincoln Center at that festival, and I was just floored because it was such a personal insight into b-boying. And how it affects, not just globally, b-boys around the world, but also regionally in really small towns. And she focused on a relationship between two b-boys, which I thought was really touching and insightful. And she really was able to show something that my film wasn’t able to show, which is how it works on a much more personal level. Because we had so many subjects in Planet B-Boy, that you got a little slice of what people were going through throughout the world, but Marcy’s film provides a very deep insight into how personal it is with some of these b-boys. And regardless of where you are in the world, how much of an impact it can have in your life in a positive way.

Were you surprised that there was another b-boy documentary around at the same time as yours, Marcy?
LINKS OF INTEREST
 
 
Planet B-Boy Official Site

 
 
Inside The Circle Official Site

 
 
Planet B-Boy Review

 
 
Inside The Circle Review
MARCY:
Same thing — I was not surprised. In fact, I had heard about Planet B-Boy, and also All Out War just on the b-boy discussion boards. So I knew it was out there. But when I went to see it at Tribeca, I was so curious as to how much our films would overlap. And I don’t know, Benson, if you remember this, but the first thing I said to you when I went up was like, “Hey, you don’t need to worry about our films overlapping. They’re totally different.”

And it was great. It was a huge relief to me because that was my only concern. Because I love b-boying so much and am committed to it so much, I think the more good films that get out there about it, the better. So I also welcome and even explicitly support other films. But that was my only concern — was what if they’re just really similar to each other. And when I watched it, it was just a fantastic film, and it was totally different from Inside the Circle. So, and you know this already, Paul, you can watch them back to back and you’re going to have a completely different experience on each one.

BENSON:
Absolutely. I feel that Marcy and I have put so much of our time and our lives into this culture, and we both respect it deeply, and it’s so refreshing to see different angles on it. And you know, b-boying is so much bigger than … I mean, it’s a culture. So one or two films will never truly represent the movement itself.

The other day, an Iranian-American b-boy reached out to me, and he was telling me about how he went back to Iran, and he actually found b-boys there. And it showed that the reach is just phenomenal for this dance culture. And to see how other people are reinterpreting the dance, how it affected their lives within their own social political cultural context — it’s just amazing. And that’s the thing about this culture and this dance form, is that it really lends itself to interpretation and at the same time it also unifies these kids around the world. I think that’s the secret to the success of hip hop culture. It allows youth from other countries to reinterpret it and bring their own culture. And I think that’s just amazing.

And I can never get sick of watching enough b-boy movies. You know there’s a b-boy movie about the Hmong, which is a Laotian group in California. And then there’s an old school b-boy documentary that not too many people are aware of that was made in East Germany, back in the day when there was East Germany, and how b-boying infiltrated the communist block there through the movie Flashdance. And how it just kind of grew in a little cell over there. And I’m trying to get my hands on that doc as well. But it’s just really amazing to see how other people reinterpret it but are also connected around the world through this.

What were your first experiences with or impressions of b-boying?

MARCY:
I would say that before I started the project, which was in 2002, which was almost six years ago, my exposure to b-boying was pretty much the high profile stuff that had been around in the ’80s. I had actually not been to a b-boy event, and I had no idea how big the scene was. But I had very, yeah, all I knew was through the filter of the mainstream media. And I think that’s one reason it hit me so strongly. When I started finding out, it just blew me away how big and vibrant the scene was, and I think that’s part of what got me so excited about doing a film about it.

BENSON:
Well, it was very limited to what I was exposed to during the ’80s, when I was in high school. I was like one of those many kids who thought that b-boying… actually, I didn’t really even know what b-boying was, until I started this project. I just thought it was break-dancing, because I saw those movies like Flashdance and Breakin’ and Beat Street, and for me, it was just break-dancing, and everything was just clumped together. So when I rediscovered it in the late ’90s, that’s when I was like, “Oh OK, this is originally called b-boying and it has a deep history and all that kind of stuff.” I had a very preconceived idea of what it was that was packaged by the media, essentially.

Was there an “a-ha” moment where you knew you wanted to make this film, or was it a gradual process?
“It was so intense and so emotional and so real, and I just saw so many things being played out in the circle that I really had that moment of, ‘I’ve got to find out more about these guys, what’s behind their dance, and try to translate that into a film.’”
BENSON:
I wanted to do this since ‘98, which is when I discovered Battle of the Year. And at that time I was just an audience member, or a person who had loved it in the ’80s, totally mesmerized by it, who was sort of like a closeted break-dancer back in the day, but I didn’t have the community around me because I lived in the suburbs outside Philadelphia.

And when I rediscovered it over a decade later, I was just floored that it was still around and that it was really organized and international and so on. As an audience member, I was just shocked that it was still around, and that it had evolved to the level that it did, and then as a filmmaker, I was like, “Well, if I don’t know about this, then there’s probably nobody else that really knows about this above-ground,” considering that it was very much an underground thing in the ’90s.

So I realized, “Wow, these guys are the most phenomenal dancers out there, and they’re not trained dancers and nobody knows about them, but everybody knows what break-dancing is, and they should know about that.” And that’s sort of what spawned the whole idea to do the documentary. But it took many years until I was able to actually raise the money and commit to making it. Six years, actually.

But you knew you wanted it to be about Battle of the Year specifically?

BENSON:
No, originally I hooked up with a promoter in Korea, Charlie Shin, who pretty much is running all the major events in Korea. I went to Korea because I wanted to have one model for what the film should be about, and since Korea was a new country and they had pretty much exploded onto the scene in early 2000, I went there to do some research. And I met Charlie, and Charlie actually told me that I should do Freestyle Session.

Just so happened that while I was out there, they had the first Freestyle Session in Korea, and so I met Cros, and I asked him if he’d be interested in doing something like that. And he said that he had gone through so many problems with just getting venues and stuff with the previous Freestyle Session, he wasn’t sure if he was even going to hold it the following year. And so even though I discovered Battle of the Year first, it felt just really beyond me, like too big of a task to handle because it’s such a global event. So I wanted to start with focusing on the American b-boy scene, and Cros had Freestyle Session Japan and so on, I thought that would be enough, that I could handle that. But then he told me that he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to pull it off the following year. And then he recommended I talk to Thomas Hergenröther, and I said, “OK, maybe I should go that route.” Because that was originally how I had rediscovered b-boying, and so that’s when I talked to Thomas, and that’s how I got into Battle of the Year.

Was there an “a-ha” moment for you, Marcy, where you knew you wanted to make this film?

MARCY:
There was an “a-ha” moment… it’s funny because you wonder if those happen in real life, but I really did have one. Because I had met Romeo [Navarro] and some of his old crew, and I had gone to some of his practices, and I was kind of in the process of deciding whether this made sense. But then the “a-ha” moment came for me really strongly when I went to B-Boy City 8, which is 2002, and that’s chronologically the first b-boy event that shows up in the film. And I was shooting, I had my camera, but it was the first time I had seen a battle live, and for me, it was just magical. It was so intense and so emotional and so real, and I just saw so many things being played out in the circle that I really had that moment of, “I’ve got to find out more about these guys, what’s behind their dance, and try to translate that into a film.” And so that was the night I decided, was the night at B-Boy City 8. And what’s cool is that the night that the “a-ha” moment came… there’s actually footage from that night in the film. And you know that’s the night when Josh and Omar have their initial confrontation. And so, a lot happened that night, but I didn’t really grow to appreciate everything that happened that night until months later.

You had no idea that your film would concentrate on Josh and Omar at that point?

MARCY:
That’s exactly right, I had no idea, I was kind of filming randomly. I definitely noticed their two crews… I noticed Masters of Mayhem and I noticed Jive Turkeys that night and how talented they were, but I didn’t know who was who in the crews. All I knew was Romeo, and Romeo had a crew called Swing Team, and so I had met Romeo and the Swing Team people, but I had not met Josh or Omar that night.

And this was really kind of a cool thing, because as I got to know them and talk to them and understand them, then I would keep going back to that footage, and I would keep seeing more and more of what was in the footage from that night. And it was kind of a cool process of just discovering, and it fit perfectly with the whole inspiration to make the film. Because the whole inspiration was about pulling back the layers to get underneath, in terms of who the real people were and what the real issues were. And so it’s like that process being lived out in real life as I grew closer and closer to them and learned more, I could go back and see more and more of what was in that footage. And then that became part of the film.

Did you know you wanted to make this personal of a film from the start, or did this start off as a documentary about b-boying in general and then evolve into this more personal story?
“As a struggling artist, there’s so much we have in common, from a filmmaker to a dancer. It meant more to me than just learning about b-boying; this project was also about life. And that really made it worth it.”
MARCY:
That’s a great question. What I wanted to do, right from the start, was to go really deep into personal stories, not as a way of just telling that one story, but as a way of showing people a much bigger story. That’s just my personal philosophy of filmmaking, is that it’s only by going deep into a specific story that you can really feel the emotion or understand the bigger picture. Because you have to touch people’s emotions for them to really understand something, and it’s hard to touch their emotions unless you go deep.

If I made a film and just stayed on the surface and was like, “Wow, look how cool this is, here’s a battle!” people wouldn’t feel it. So I did know from the start that people would need to go really deep into some personal stories in order to make that real… to make that big picture real.

And so after I decided to make the film, then it really was like, “Now, aside from Romeo — because I knew Romeo would be in it — who else can be in it, who else should be in it,” and I knew it had to be someone young and coming up. I knew it had to be about their struggle to become known and to meet their own goals in dancing. It wouldn’t have been as powerful to start with someone who was already in their mid-twenties and had accomplished a lot. It really needed to be about someone who was trying to make things happen for themselves. And that’s what led me to Milky and Omar.

Seems like you were very lucky choosing those two. They’ve both become very successful in the scene.

MARCY:
You’re not kidding. I was very lucky. And the only little piece of it that I can take credit for is that I could tell they were really talented — that was really clear. But being talented doesn’t mean that they would stick with it, or that they would be recognized, or you just never know. People drop out for all different reasons, so 99% of it was just being blessed with the project, but there was just that 1% of, “Oh my God, these guys are good.”

And then, also of course knowing that they originally were on the same crew and best friends, but that they had now joined their two different crews and had some tension between them, that just kind of sealed the deal for me. Because it’s like, they’re young, they’re talented, they have an interesting story between them, let’s see what happens. And that’s when luck took over.

Did you find the b-boy culture open and receptive to you initially?

MARCY:
Yeah, I was surprised, actually; things were totally comfortable for me personally from the start with all these guys. I was in and out of practices and events and their houses, and right from the start, I was very accepted, particularly as a person, which was a really cool thing.

The only thing that took a little while was… because I was looking to make an in-depth and personal doc, there was of course a decision process for each person on whether or not they wanted to be a part of a project like that and open their lives to it. And in the case of Josh in my film, he agreed right away. With Romeo, Romeo and I basically hung out for a few months first and talked about what the project would be about and make sure we would be aligned, which was really smart on his part, before he said, “Yeah, this sounds great, lets go ahead.”

And then Omar actually took the longest. I had approached Omar early on, and he talked with his crew, and they were like, “No, no we don’t want to be a part of this film.” And my approach is to never ever push for anything. I’ll ask, but then I’ll accept whatever the answer is, so I just said, “OK, that’s fine” and just kept moving ahead. And then Omar actually came back to me like six months later and said, “You know what, I changed my mind, let’s at least start with one interview.” And it was great, it was great. And in the meantime, I think in the interim he had seen my first film, which made him feel more comfortable with what…. you know, again the issue wasn’t about me as a person, it was just, “What does it mean to be a part of a film?” And he saw my first film, which was about a boxer, and I think that helped him see how I express myself through films, and so he came back to me and said, “Yeah, I’d like to be a part of this.” And from that point on, he was in 100%, just like everybody else

BENSON:
My experience was actually the opposite. It was really, really tough, because I had so many subjects that I had to approach, and one of the most humbling experiences for me, being a person from the media, although I had some experience through my own sort of personal interest in break-dancing, was that I had to relearn everything that I knew. And one of the things I learned was how much the media had actually exploited b-boying and sort of co-opted it and really just kind of ruined it in the ’80s. And as a result, I became the face of the media, and I brought my preconceived ideas of what it was about and what I could do for the culture and blah blah blah, but that was shot down pretty quickly by a lot of the people that I met. And I took a beating for a little while. Like I went on Freestyle Session, and I really became suddenly the voice of the media who could potentially really exploit the b-boys.

But it was a really good experience because it made me much more cautious. It made me think on a much deeper level in terms of what my obligation was, what my role is as a filmmaker. Because this is my first foray into documentary, you know, I’d only done feature film before that. And so, there was a lot I needed to learn, in terms of how to approach subjects, and what my moral obligations were in terms of portraying a culture. So there was a steep learning curve for me.

But I was really glad to have gone through it because it made me a better documentary filmmaker, in my opinion, and it also made me learn that this is a really special culture and I had to put myself in their shoes, which is very important for any documentary filmmaker, I think, when they’re dealing with people. To have that sort of insight and care is really important. Especially when you do respect the culture, and you do want to portray it in a positive light. Like one of my subjects, Ken Swift, he’s one of the toughest b-boys to get into a documentary. Because he had gone through some pretty bad experiences with some other documentaries from when he was telling me.

And so, like Marcy said, you have to accept that you can’t force people to do anything. But you have to have tenacity. And time does help, especially when you’re committed, to show other people that you are serious. Ken was one of the toughest people to get on board, and I think what was really, really worth it for me, was that after the documentary came out, that Ken was actually very proud of how it turned out. And I’m very deferential to him; he’s one of my personal heroes, and when I think about him, he’s one of the first people I ever saw when I saw Flashdance. So I’m really honored to have all the experts in my film, including Storm and Trac2. What was great about it is that I’ve learned more about life, actually. As a struggling artist, there’s so much we have in common, from a filmmaker to a dancer. It meant more to me than just learning about b-boying; this project was also about life. And that really made it worth it.

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Tags: benson lee, director, film, inside the circle, interview, marcy garriott, movie, movies, planet b-boy