Liquid Pop Collective Interview, 5/10/2003
I wrote this piece for an arts/entertainment weekly while I was in college. A couple of years into my dance career, I came to know various members of the Liquid Pop Collective. Liquid Pop Eric, Code Red, and Fu Man Chu were kind enough to let me interview them during their heyday.
Could you give me a little history of Liquid?
Fu Man Chu: Dang, that’s a toughie. Liquid is the really tricky one. So many different hypotheses, no definitive answer. From my own personal perspective, liquid was sort of a natural progression from glowsticking. I simply put down the sticks one day and was forced to work with what was left, namely my hands. However, liquid’s “history” is a point of much debate.
Liquid Pop Eric: Kind of the same for me. I started to party in NYC back in ‘94 but did not get into dancing seriously until late ‘95. I remember seeing kids doing something that looked like liquid but would consider it its first baby steps outside glowsticking.
Code Red: I saw liquid first being used with glowsticks but also with maglights. It was a different style, though. I think liquid grew the fastest in the NYC/NJ area but has begun evolving and taking on other flavors regionally.
Eric: Yeah, we have seen quite a few in our travels.
Fu: Indeed, different regions will claim different origin stories.
So would most of the LPC agree that liquid was mostly derived from glowsticks/maglights, rather than from waving?
Fu: Well, waving is the other school of thought. Liquid and waving mechanically are very similar. However, there are differences both in the abstract sense and in the physical sense between liquid and waving.
Eric: There is no smoking gun either way.
Red: There are some little hints of liquid-esque movements in waving and popping but it is so miniscule.
Fu: Well, I see it simply as they share a common thread in thought. Historically, it will probably be accurate to say the same thinking behind waving influenced liquid.
How about the history of digitz?
Fu: You should handle digitz, Jared.
Red: Digitz, the style began forming around at the Tunnel in NYC. When I started going in ’98, it was a few years in, but it is kind of ambiguous as to when it came about exactly. The dude who deserves the credit for it is Mario. I would consider him and a few others first generation.
Were you first generation, Red?
Red: I was second. I was at a party and my boy was like, “Yo, have you seen this guy Mario yet?” I was like, “Nah.” He showed me, and basically I started to learn it. So I am second.
Fu: I’m third generation when it comes to digitz.
Did the rest of the LPC learn digitz directly from Mario or from Red?
Red: The LPC basically learned the breakdown of digitz from me and also this other cat Joe that we used to chill with.
So Red and Joe bring digitz to the LPC around what year?
Red: 2000?
Eric: Late ’99. I seen Joe at I Have a Dream in February of ’99. That’s when I first seen digitz.
Red: Yeah, right in between the salami and provolone of ‘99 and 2000.
Eric: That summer, I met Fu at Starscape, and that summer, I met Jared at Electric Circus at Exit in NYC.
Was the LPC an official crew by the time of Starscape?
Eric: No, it was the FDA. [laughs] It was a big joke.
What did FDA stand for?
Eric: We told people like 1000 different names at every party – Fat Dancers Association, all stupid stuff, just having a good time.
Fu: Fu’s Dance Academy, Funk Dat Ass.
Red: Freaky Deaky Anal.
[laughter]
Eric: It was not until the fall of ‘99 we became LPC.
Fu: Almost spontaneously I might add.
Who were the original members of FDA, and who were the originals in LPC?
Red: I remember getting a call when I was visiting Cali about the official name.
Eric: I came in at the end of FDA.
Fu: Well, originally for me it was just Sean (D-Strange), Sami (Grimm Boogie aka Ben Grimm), and myself.
Eric: Then I was added.
Fu: They didn’t even know how to dance at the time though so it was all fun and games. Then we met Eric.
Eric: Then Jared and Joe.
Red: I came in basically around the name change, a little before.
Eric: Oh yeah, and transient members Kimmie and Doodie.
Fu: That’s when Doodie used to come and get down, too. That kid, haven’t seen him in ages.
Eric: They had other things going on so Joe, Kimmie, and Doodie left.
Red: Doodie was dope. He was ill at mannequin and glides.
How did Frequency and Relic come to join?
Fu: Frequency and Grimm have known each other for years.
Eric: Well, Frequency was a real surprise.
Red: Yeah, kind of a prodigy so to speak.
Fu: He couldn’t dance for shit at first. Then a season later he was the best in all of his local clubs.
Eric: The guy was a friend of Sami (Ben Grimm).
Fu: Yeah, they went to school together.
Eric: When we met this kid he was all small and geeky, I have to admit.
Fu: I even met him a few times before he started to dance.
Red: Frequency went into the game thinking popping was just waving. So at first, that was all he practiced. That is why he is so good.
Fu: Yeah, I remember seeing him get entrance with waving during one of our trips to Baltimore. He just stuck with it and never looked back
Eric: We seen him 8 months later at a party in DC we were performing at. “Oh my god, who is this kid!” He put on like 20 pounds of muscle and practiced mad hard. The kid’s a beast.
Fu: Relic, on the other hand, trains with Frequency.
Red: Relic was disturbing the first time I saw him, crazy body movement.
Eric: Yeah, disturbing is a good word.
Fu: Relic and Freq live near each other and practiced together so after a while we suggested bringing him in. Relic is a mad man though.
Red: Sick robot…
Eric: Yeah, that’s the crew as of today - Fu Man Chu, Code Red, Relic, Frequency, D-Strange, Grimm Boogie, and myself.
Red: Yup.
Fu: We have a few more people in the works at the moment, nasty ones too.
Going back to Digitz, how did it come to be incorporated with Liquid, Tutting and other styles?
Eric: Us. What did Sean (D-Strange) call it? He called it ‘chameleon’ to describe the style.
Fu: It’s an easy style to adapt to your needs, since the rest of your body is generally free if you need it to be.
Eric: And it can add a lot of depth, becomes so complex you can dance with it.
Red: I see digitz can be used as small little accents to things. Though it tends to then become more of a trick style when it does, its techniques still are used.
Fu: It was simply a matter of making things as complicated and complex as you could at one point. That has both its benefits and its pitfalls. You end up doing stuff that is so abstract and so attuned to the eyes of someone who’s been doing digitz that other people won’t get it. It will be too subtle, too far out there in some cases, although to our inner circle it will be sick.
Red: But that’s also why we try to educate those about it. Give it vocabulary and shit too.
Fu: Indeed.
Eric: Most people who are not familiar with digitz miss the really cool stuff.
Fu: It’s almost selfish.
Red: Think about when popping came out. Peeps were like, ‘What are they doing, having seizures?’
Eric: No fun if you keep it all to your self.
Fu: We wanted others to understand it so we’d have more people to play with, more ideas, a larger pool of thought figuring stuff out.
Eric: Word. I would like to see kids doing it 10 years from now and be like, ‘I had a hand in that.’
Fu: Cultural diffusion if you will.
So you’ve been working to spread the styles of digitz and liquid and evolve the artform. What sort of things have you done?
Eric: Travel and do it. We went to Toronto on a whim because someone called the crew out. Drove 8 hours to Toronto to prove a point. Went to Cali and got jumped by 12 heads in white gloves.
Red: Yeah. That was dope though. It is nice to see other crews trying to rep liquid and help it evolve.
Eric: [laughs] 12 to 2, no problem Jared.
Red: The video has been our biggest accomplishment, and we travel like a mofo.
Fu: Teach, teach, teach! Seek out and touch those who seem like they may grow from it. Seek and destroy if need be, if for no other reason than to spark some sort of energy.
Eric: …which I feel we have.
Fu: I’d like to think so. Still not sure exactly how much, though.
Eric: We shall see in Detroit.
Fu: This year at DEMF should be a good gauge as to how far things have come. When I go out to generic clubs now, 2 out of 5 dancers do some sort of liquid.
Red: When we first started dancing out in this one club (motion) in Philly, no one knew about digitz.
Fu: Nope, not a soul.
Red: After a little while, we would watch and see like mad heads tryin’ to figure it out. Now we got heads out in other countries tryin’ to learn. So it is spreading, and it is a good feeling that it is.
Eric: It was for real a dying art, liquid too.
Red: Yeah at one point, about 6 people existed in the scene that did digitz.
Do you then see liquid/digitz gaining the respect that popping and locking have gotten, or are we still a ways away from that?
Eric: Let’s say we are tolerated. You think, guys?
Red: I don’t think the amount of time is important. it will take a while, but it is gaining its respect among those who are doing it and learning about it.
Eric: I mean we have impressed every other major crew in our age bracket, but that’s because we do funk styles too. So we do what they do, but they can’t do liquid or digitz. It’s a trump card in a way. It allows us to have access to ideas that they just can’t see, but they are catching on.
Red: Basically, learning everything we can to make better what we do also helped us gain respect among those we have come to look up to in their own domain.
Eric: So time will tell if we stay ahead of the curve.
Your crew has seen a few major deals put on the table (i.e., MTV, Ultra). Could you tell me about them?
Red: We get a lot of offers, but a lot of times, people we deal with are irresponsible people.
Eric: …or people who have an agenda.
Red: MTV was a bust, because they were kind of looking to just rip off what we do. So we were like, ‘hell no!’ We get offers to go to Europe and Australia and shit, but like I said, people don’t take care of their end first, so not everything works out.
Fu: Yeah, a lot of offers are just fluff, smoke and air.
Eric: …and BS, crapola, shitze, etc.
Red: Hopefully, something will come through fully. In time, I guess.
Fu: Like, there’s something there, but they haven’t really thought through the logistics of it.
Red: We haven’t gone on a full promotion tip yet. It’s tough while we are so spread out right now.
Fu: Yeah, school and work wear me down, personally.
Eric: Word, I feel that.
Fu: I’ve just devoted myself to physical training in the meantime.
So you’re crew isn’t looking to dance full time, or has the right offer just not come up yet?
Eric: Well, personally I have come to the conclusion that I like to dance, but not to make a living at it. It takes the fun out of it for me.
Fu: Well, we go in fluctuations.
Red: I am planning on making it full time. There is so much you can do with it if you set yourself up right.
Fu: I have my days. Some days I’m on one side of the fence, sometimes I’m on the other. I agree with Eric though in that the money takes most of the fun out of it.
Eric: I would rather teach, throw events, support, etc. Not so much to be in the spotlight dancing, but be involved.
Fu: Teaching is where it’s at.
Red: Offers for a whole group are rough, but if a great one came in then that would be sick.
Fu: Yeah, but the offer would have to be good enough to tear us away from our lives ya know.
Red: Money can hurt it, true, but we are in a society that money actually runs us and not the other way around.
Eric: I make good money, hell yeah. Art does not pay, bottom line!
Fu: Nope.
Red: See, I disagree, art can pay, but it is extremely hard to make it pay.
Fu: Indeed.
Eric: If I knew I wanted to be a dancer at 16, yeah, I would have went to school for dance.
Fu: True, having the education would be helpful.
Eric: Resume gets you in the door. We are street dancers, not trained professional dancers.
Fu: Street dance is the rawest, but the resume is important. That’s another thing that tends to take the fun out of it sometimes, though, at least for me it does.
Red: I will leave the public with this hint of advice: network, network, network!
Eric: Yeah, true. I think you will end up getting the shaft on the money because you don’t have the skills on paper. You have to be fake with heads to get gigs, to pay your bills. Nah, I’ll pass.
Red: Depends, the problem sometimes is that the people who are the artists don’t take the time to protect themselves and learn about what they are worth and all that.
So what are your plans for the future as a crew?
Fu: DANCE!
Red: DANCE!
Eric: Dance, be friends, hang out.
Fu: How’s that for a change, huh?
Eric: This whole thing has happened organically…let it ride.
Red: The best part about the crew is our friendship. We fight like brothers but always have each others backs.
Eric: Yeah, friendship…to the point I want to strangle some people.
[laughter]
Fu: Yeah, we just want to get down and enjoy each others movement at this point.
Eric: I am the size 12 of motivation in this crew.
Red: I would like to get into some more projects, but I think it will take us to get out of school and be a little more regionally close to each other.
Eric: I hear that, but if one of us makes it we all make it. I hope to see one of us reppin’ in a video, production, or Broadway show.
