Filipino Hip-Hop Dance Group Does it Old-School Style
Asian Week, News Feature, Eugenia Chien, Posted: Dec 11, 2004
"Hooo! Hooo! Hooo! Hooo!” It has been less than a minute, but the audience at the San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest is growing impatient.
The raw energy in the auditorium is temporarily calmed when a group of young men appears on the still dark stage — all you can see is a straight row of white bucket hats. The spotlight hits the hats, and the men, dressed in classic black Adidas track suits and white gloves, break into smooth hip hop dance steps, bringing the audience to a roar.
The group is Chain Reaction, an all-Filipino Bay Area dance crew that has been mixing street dancing with roots from the pure days of hip hop. Now in their 20s, they met each other in high school and through friends. After seven years of dancing together, the group has formed a unique bond and style that has continued to delight fans.
They have performed at the San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest for the past three years. They have also opened for well-known hip hop groups, including the Black Eyed Peas, The Root’s Rahzel and Souls of Mischief, and appeared in many music videos. The dance crew receives requests to perform every week.
“Their combination of hip hop movement and lyrical instinct makes them one of the best in the Bay Area,” says Kim Cook, program director at the San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest.
Dancing to funk and jazz beats, their bodies perform movements that are tight and fluid. The men’s sneaker-clad feet seem to glide and barely touch the floor. Their maturity shows in their choreography — it is not showy but confident, subtle and thoughtful.
Comedy also made its way into Chain Reaction’s performance at the festival. The dancers playfully pretended to zip up their pants and teasingly winked at the front row.
“They’re hot. Super hot,” says Monika, 21, a Chain Reaction fan at the festival. “I think it’s the gloves,” she adds.
Dancing seems innate to the members of the groups. Dancers Dennis Infante and Francis Nepacena both recall watching MTV’s Yo! MTV Raps when they were young and imitating the moves they saw.
“My cousin would take me to parties where people would session (dance in a circle). I was the only kid there,” Infante says. “Then they would push me in the middle to dance.”
A long way from their days of imitating what they watched on MTV, the crew now incorporates break dancing and freestyle, house and funk-style dancing. Audiences can also expect to see typical street dance moves like popping and locking (see below).
Music is at the source of the group’s passion for dance. Members of Chain Reaction emphasize the importance of knowing the roots of hip hop and other music they dance to; knowing the pioneers who spun the first vinyl behind a turntable is important to them.
Many in the group identify with the “good old days of hip hop when it was at its purest,” according to Infante. He rolls off names like KRS-One, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest in describing the music of their inspiration.
“I started dancing to KRS-One’s ‘Step Into A World’ video,” Nepacena says. “The roots of hip hop are the foundation that we are sitting on right now.”
Infante agrees. “Once you learn about what was before you, it helps you in trying to create something off of that,” he says.
As the group matured, the members have incorporated different styles of music in their performance. “Dennis schooled us a lot on music we might not have heard of,” Nepacena says. Infante is often at Amoeba Records scouring for music; as a result, the group samples music anywhere from acid jazz to rock. At the San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest, the group danced to the funk beats of Soulive and the progressive instrumentals of RJD2.
The brotherhood they’ve formed shows in their practice ritual. At the beginning of practice, Nepacena says they stretch and share events of the week with one another. “We use practice as a way to share problems and share our personal lives,” he says.
The members “vibe off of each other from practice,” according to Infante. But by “practice” he means not just in a dance studio; they like going to dance clubs together, where they can be inspired by other dancers. “Clubs are another sort of practice for us,” he says.
Some favorite hangouts include the DNA lounge in San Francisco and parties held by the entertainment company Massive Selector.
“The best compliment comes from other dancers,” Nepacena says.
In the seven years that they have been dancing together, their families have come to know each other and consider everyone extended family.
The close bonds also mean that they enjoy a popular familial pastime: long road trips. When they drive to Los Angeles for performances, “all hell breaks loose” in the 15-passenger van, according to Nepacena. “We make fun of each other and joke around.”
After years of dancing together, Chain Reaction is still going strong. But now the group has a different goal. “The test for Chain Reaction isn’t so much to be the dopest dance group. The test is to put our different styles together,” Nepacena says.
While the group has aspired in the past to be well-known in music videos, the dancers now see their challenges differently. “We’re not trying to be better than other dancers — we want to outdo ourselves,” Infante says.
The members of Chain Reaction are Dennis Infante, Jay-R Salazar, Edison Urbi, Redentor Icasiano, Francis Nepacena, Noel Nepacena, Christopher Ilumin Catral, Pierre Salazar, Joey Milo and Jose Deguia.
Talk the Walk
At the San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest, dancers bent their joints in every imaginable way to perform various moves. Dennis Infante and Francis Nepacena, members of Chain Reaction, help us break down some of the dance terms.
Popping: Quick isolated moves combined with pauses that make the dancer’s body look as if it is “popping.” The sudden movements can be executed with the triceps, forearms, neck, chest and legs.
Locking: Combinations that can consist of a series of points done by extending the arms and pointing in different directions. “Like Fred Barry in (the 1976 TV show) What’s Happening!” Infante says.
Strutting: Combinations of many different styles of movement that can be fluid or robotic. Nepacena says, “It looks like you’re not really dancing — you’re acting something out.”
Boogaloo: Combination of moves in an “abstract fluid motion” in different direction to the beat. The steps and moves include sharp angles, hip rotations and using all parts of the body.
Session: Gathering together in a circle to freestyle dance.
B-boying: A misnomer for break dancing, it is acrobatics on the dance floor. It is “being able to do things with your body that you wouldn’t normally do,” Nepacena says.
Additional source: Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon for the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame’s Roots, Rhymes + Rage: the hip hop story exhibit.
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