Liz Narration: We’re in that exciting time that only happens every four years. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. The underdogs versus — I don’t know — the goliaths? It’s a time of nationalism and even a hopeful showcase of democracy at its best.
No, we’re not talking about the election.
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As I record this, the 2024 Summer Olympics games have just started! This year, the Olympics have introduced new competitions, including kiteboarding, skateboarding, and surfing, just to name a few. But the one that caught our attention here at Pulso is breakdancing. And not just because a few folks on our team — Mark, we see you — have had a history doing footwork to classic breaking songs like Apache. We’re excited because it’s been a long road for breakdancing to get here. So we wanted to look back at not just the Latino origins of the artform, but what this signals for other artforms that were once marginalized. How much should we be celebrating the inclusion in the Olympics of this formerly underground dance that was built by Black and Latino youth? And how much should we aim to keep some of these artforms in our own hands?
In today’s episode of In Confianza, we talk to two dancers who work in artforms that sat side by side for decades — breaking and vogueing. While breakdancing seems to have reached some version of mainstream acceptance, vogueing continues to function as a dance that evolves solely with the conditions set by its queer community, and NOT by forces outside of it. We’ll talk with these dancers about the origins of these artforms, the ways Latinos help build them, and whether aiming for the gold should be the GOAL when it comes to artforms built by our community.
I’m Liz Rebecca and you’re listening to In Confianza.
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PROMO BREAK
Liz Narration: Ana “Rokafella” Garcia seems like she was born to breakdance.
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Growing up in Spanish Harlem, the child of Puerto Rican migrants, she was immersed in the sounds and styles of hip hop from a very early age. Since that time in New York City, she’s grown to be a professional dancer, a professor, filmmaker, and the co-founder of Full Circle Prod Inc — New York City’s only non profit Break Dance Theater company, originated with her husband — veteran Bboy Kwikstep. With the inclusion of breaking in this year’s Olympics, we thought of no one better to, for lack of a better word, break down what this means for the artform and the Latinos who helped build it.
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Liz Interview: What’s your first memory of hip hop?
Roka Interview: My brother — he was the eldest. He was the male. So he had a lot of freedom. He was out there. And he brought the first record to our home — Rapper’s Delight. And I loved it. It was just different. And even my parents were like, “qué es eso, oh my God.” I felt like it was something that was permeating the neighborhood. I’m growing up in El Barrio. I’m on 112th and 5th, which is almost borderline Spanish Harlem to African American Harlem. Even as I was going with mommy to La Marqueta, which is on Park Avenue, and it stretched from 111 to 116. We would have to walk by people or washing their car. Whether it was rap or not, maybe it was dancehall. So we were exposed to other people’s music. It was evolving. There was like more vocabulary. Being in the circles at this time, you had to know how to pop or boogie, or you had to break. It was really starting to become the thing that everybody wanted to see. It was becoming more and more like on the floor. The music was starting to dictate who was in the circle.
Liz: Did you also start dancing in that time?
Roka: I was more, like, on the side at this time with my dancing skills. Because I was still just observing and watching but believe you me, I was taking mental notes. At this moment, I’m like 10, 11, 12, my father loses his job. We move to a place called New Brunswick, which is not El Barrio. It is so different. I was like, Oh my God, I resented that so bad. I really was a terrible teen at this moment because I was angry at my parents for like stripping me of the cool environment. But I’m still too young to come to New York City. And unless you’re in like a Puerto Rican or Black neighborhood, you’re missing the boat. Now it’s different. The internet, tik tok, you can catch it anywhere. You can catch the vibe. Pero at that time I really felt like I was removed. I don’t come back to New York City until 1986. And instead of El Barrio, we moved to the Bronx. So now like freestyle is like, pfft, in it’s heyday. It’s like, the shit. It’s like freestyle. It’s house music, loft music, garage, New Jack Swing. I was dancing House. When I came to breaking, I came later. I came in 94 when it was pretty much on life support. It was dying. No one was doing it except for the hitters. They were dancing old school styles. So they were boogieing and they were breaking and they were the only ones doing it at that time. So I’m sensing nostalgia even as I’m coming in. There’s an erasure that’s happening and I’m, I’m witnessing it in my life. And me and my husband, at that time we weren’t married, but he was like, we can’t let breakdancing fade. And I was like, cool, I’m with you because I can’t let other things fade either.
Liz: So many evolutions of so many of the rhythms that you grew up with. And I was hoping that we could get technical for a second so that you can describe more for our audience, how the body moves in breakdancing.
Roka: Breaking has its own rules of engagement, but I feel like it was the first to set the tone. Everything else that came after copied. Except for voguing. Voguing is runway. Voguing doesn’t happen in a circle. I think that the top part, which is the intro, we call it top rocking. Top, T-O-P, rocking. R-O-C-K-I-N-G. Or without the G. That part is super rhythmic. You’re dancing to music. We have to see that you’re on beat. The floor parts, they’re more syncopated; you’re hitting some of the accents. And then, once you start to spin, you have to keep an ear out for when you’re about to finish. When you’re wrapping up that spin, your ear has to start to tune in more to the beat. And I’m talking from personal experience, but I’m also sharing when I am judging a dance contest and there’s breakers, I’m also looking out for that musicality, which incidentally is a category of criteria for the Olympics.
Liz: Do you think breaking has gotten the respect on its name that it deserves within hip hop or within dance more broadly?
Roka: I’m a professor now at the New School. Quickstep is a professor at the Queens College with CUNY. There is this weird conversation that has to be had about our resume and our longevity and our intuitiveness. People are resistant. They still want to relegate us to these people who were just grew up on the streets, had no parents and are not educated and are just ruthless. And maybe some of that is true, but that doesn’t determine like how smart I am or how easy I am to get along with you and to work on this masterpiece that we are going to make happen in this theater, in your theater that new people are going to come to see people that don’t generally come to see what you’re programming on the regular. Breakdance is still something that people look at as, “oh, that’s the eighties,” or, “oh you guys just do tricks.” No, we dance and there’s a lineage. We can connect it to Salsa and Capoeira and even Bruce Lee with Wushu and Kung fu and African dance from West Africa gumbo. And I don’t always wear the flag, but when I need to I’ll put a, the Puerto Rican wristband on, or my Puerto Rican earrings just to make a point.
Liz: You’ve said in the past, Roka, we see a lot of Puerto Rican or Dominican people finding it harder to stay true to their roots in the way that many Jamaican or West Indian people in New York do. And I thought of this as you were sharing, still the lack of access for breaking and so many of the genres that are important to you and to so many others, into these more mainstream spaces. Do you think that that lack of connectedness is part of the challenges of why it’s still hard to permeate these spaces like Broadway, like the floats on the parade?
Roka: Yes, you hit something right on the head. And that thing is that we are kind of programmed to distance ourselves from our roots. So, just a little story, right. Sometimes even at home, I’d do like a little move in the sala. My father would be like, “Deja eso, eso es de los morenos.” And I’ll be like, “mami’s dad was Afro, was real trigueño, you know.” So that’s a little story, about the disconnect. My mom’s dad was Black, so I’m sure that she had to grow up knowing she was a quarter rune and dealing with that. Sometimes they would say, my parents would say, “eso es primitivo.” We have been programmed as colonized people twice. We’ve been colonized twice to always feel like our stuff is inferior and the oppressor’s things are superior. And we want to ingratiate ourselves with our oppressors. So that we can have an easier life, and so our kids can have an easier way. We need to have those conversations. And we need to be comfortable with where each one is entering the conversation. Maybe you’re more indigenous. Maybe you’re more Spaniard. It’s okay. We’re here. We’re struggling. Let’s help each other.
Liz: You know, we are talking to you in the summer of 2024. It’s just weeks before the Olympics. And this year is different because one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you and have this episode is because breaking is officially a category in the games. And when we’re thinking about that, it can be thought of in a couple of ways, right? One it’s like an underground culture that is now being recognized by the mainstream and you’ve talked about the challenges that that has had for the genre and hip hop over time that you’ve observed. So I’m curious about your opinion — what do you think about breaking being included into the olympics this year finally?
Roka: I’m excited that it’s creating a global visibility for our communities. Each country at this point has its main competitions to determine who’s the best, so I feel like the Olympics isn’t solving or supplying something that was missing. I feel like we have our own thing. We have tried to fortify a lot of local scenes, especially in America, to let them know like, no importa, it doesn’t matter what the mainstream is going to do with it. You stay strong, dig in your heels and become the go to for culture in your community and in your state, in your country, you know. Be the pillar because it might get corny, it might get corny. I do feel though that in the past 16 or so years, It has been put into this competitive platform that is devoid of culture. We need to go back to African American Latinos being in the decision-making seats in the positions. We need to have this generational dialogue. We need to know that the elders feel relevant and involved. We need to know that young people aren’t being just pushed to win contests. Anyway, so I’m excited and I’m watching and I’ll still be here after.
Liz: At this point in your life, you’ve done so many things. You’ve also worked with so many organizations: the Smithsonian, the New School, Sarah Lawrence, at after school programs, you’ve traveled the world. And we were really struck with a statement that you made which sounds almost like a mantra that you can apply to everything that you do. You said in the past, “it’s a very revolutionary act to revere the past.” And I find that just such a powerful statement. I’m curious how that statement shows up in your daily life and how we as Latinos or as folks immersed in hip hop culture can we live that sort of mantra every day?
Roka: Wow. I can’t believe I said that. That is at the core of pretty much everything I do. As I’m growing up, I’m sensing that my parents are devalued. And people are like, “Oh, your parents are old. Oh, your parents have a weird accent.” Or, “your parents — they dress funny.” And I’m feeling like I have to defend them or chime in. I’m starting to realize the kind of work that they really put in — them and their generation. I wanted to always uplift the generation that came here with nothing. So we would be the bridge. We have to try and be inspired by that and do the same thing. But also grow with young people and their new manifestations and new styles. And when I’m no longer here, I’ll pass my bag full of these things to the next person who can champion for the past because wow, we Latinos have been through a lot and we still want to dance. We still want to drum. We still want to get in front of the camera. So it is a mantra. It is where I’m at.
Liz: Throughout this conversation, we’ve talked a lot about your parents throughout this conversation and I would love to end with some reflection about them. We know that as first and second generation kids — there can be just so much pressure — to meet certain expectations of our parents who immigrated here. Your father passed away last year, and your mother in 2014. I’m wondering, what was their lasting impression of you showing them yourself as an artist?
Roka: I think my parents accepted that I was an artist somewhere in my 30s, you know when I was actually established in New York City, and they would come to see me in spaces that were like, wow, you know, Lincoln Center, whatever. Or even like we were at the New Victory Theater in 2002 with a three week run. And they came to it. They were really impressed at how I’m making connections. You know, we brought a conguero to that theater to play for us some more Yoruba rhythms for us to educate the audience. Like this is us too. I think my parents saw how it was being elevated and they loved it. I think they felt like they succeeded. I feel like they left this earth feeling satisfied. They witnessed the passing of the torch and that all their hard work was valid. And that’s the one gift I wanted to give them. Because I think that they we’re humiliated a lot out here. And I reminded them, even on their deathbed, “I’m so proud of you, you did it. I’m yo, I’m in awe. I could never do that. I could never just go to Germany and set up shop. Y’all did that. And I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you.” Almost like something was mended. Something was healed.
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LIZ NARRATION: When we come back, we’ll talk to a dancer who’s building a vogueing community not just in Puerto Rico, but in all of Latin America.
This is In Confianza.
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PROMO BREAK
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LIZ NARRATION: Edrimaelle Delgado, who goes by Edrit, is one of the founders of Borivogue, a collective of dancers in Puerto Rico building a ballroom culture scene in the Caribbean. Edrit came to vogueing in his teens and has been working to bring it to fellow Puerto Ricans, as well as aiming to build more ties to fellow dancers throughout Latin America. Today, Edrit talks to us about the special history of this artform, the ways young Puerto Ricans are putting a new spin on it, and what he would do if he had his own Olympics of voguing himself.
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Liz: What are some of your first memories of dancing?
Edrit: I used to dance in front of the TV watching Big Momma’s House 2. They have a scene of Big Momma dancing. I always liked to dance, but my parents didn’t take that too serious. And I think it’s because of a fear, obviously, of my sexual identity, gender identity, my sexual orientation. So, I found dance again at 18, when I was at the university. And I started doing living statue in Old San Juan. When I clock out, I go to the ballet school and pay my classes. I used to do ballet, contemporary dance, salsa. A lot of dancing and styles.
Liz: That’s called chasing your dreams, Edrit, and not taking no for an answer. When was voguing and ballroom culture part of the picture then for you? What captivated you from the genre when you were first learning about it, especially since you had access and exposure to so many different genres.
Edrit: So I used to say that I’m self-taught in voguing specifically. It came to me very naturally and I start doing poses and moving through the poses, and then I start looking for information on YouTube. Vogueing can make you access what you want to be — how you tell me your story of your life? How you tell me your own gender journey? I think it’s an ongoing discovery. I don’t dance as I danced five years ago, and that will keep changing, you know?
Liz: Ballroom. Tell us more about that history that is, I think, so important for our listeners to know about.
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Edrit: Ballroom is a culture that was developed by the Black and trans Latino folks, specifically in Harlem, New York. It was basically derived from the ballroom culture from the 40s and the 50s that is very influenced by the pageant drag scene. At that time, the voguing category doesn’t exist. It was more about fashion, about walking but then Paris Dupree and other people started posing in the runway categories. And that new way of moving, they call it Vogue. People usually think voguing is the movement, but the movement is ballroom. Voguing is one category. It’s one expression inside the ballroom community because you have face categories, fashion categories, runway categories, you know. People are in ballroom for different stuff.
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Liz: Tell us more about the concept of houses, the hierarchy within this world so that people can get a better picture.
Edrit: The seventies, the eighties — there were people living in the street for being trans or for being gay because the family didn’t accept them. We didn’t have a safe space for being. At that time was very much about taking care of each other because we didn’t have a home. The real meaning of the houses — they were a way of surviving. This mother or father figure that adopt us, that invite us to form part of this family and group is also the person that introduced you to the scene, that introduced you to the culture, that teach you the art form.
Liz: Yeah, it’s a whole structure, en muchos casos, replacing a structure that many people didn’t have before. Anything that you can tell us about any specific moves and what they mean?
Edrit: Wow, how do you describe movement? The shaking — it’s a movement originated with the fan queens. And they like to do dramatic stuff like shaking their titties, or shaking their head, like they were being possessed or something. And other ones prefer to be sexy — more soft and they brush their hair and they go to the floor very slowly. And it’s like another energy, you know? And now, the Fan Queen performance has these two energies — you’re very dramatic or you’re very soft.
Liz: Hmmmm, I love that. That is a beautiful description, Edrit. Thank you. Tell us now about Borivogue. It’s a collective in Puerto Rico focusing on this form. How did it originate?
Edrit: I created this space because I was needing it. If I didn’t create it — no estaría donde estoy ahora, you know? Creating a space for us to share knowledge about ballroom because we didn’t have a direct reference. Another purpose of La Borivogue is to get in contact with other scenes in Latin America and United States to bring resources, to bring teachers and to bring knowledge and to connect people to other scenes. So we can all share knowledge around the culture. And through this knowledge, I’m now traveling to compete in other spaces — mainstream balls in the United States. I’ve been in Mexico, and Dominican Republic. And it’s because I create the platform to teach myself and I teach myself, teaching others.
Liz: Something that you’ve told us, Edrit, throughout the conversation is how this art form really allows you to be your full self and how no two dancers are the same because everyone puts their personality into it. How have some of your dancers Puerto Ricanized the scene and the way in which they’re dancing?
Edrit: So there is a lot of particularities and characteristics that make our scene very particular. Mixing Puerto Rican Bomba and Afro folklore culture with voguing that is also an Afro-derived urban dance too. And the aesthetics of the noche puertorriqueña jíbaro with voguing aesthetics.
Liz: Are there any elements of anti-colonialism in there?
Edrit: Of course, of course. Sex exciting category is a beauty category in the mainstream scene, and it is usually around la belleza harmonica — standard beauty. It’s skinny but look to us if you’re a woman. And we try not to focus on that because we know that what we think is beauty it’s race and racism and colonialism. So we try to be more body positive and be diverse in the body we represent. And a lot of people say that ballroom doesn’t need to get with politics, but in the context we’re in right now in the world, no tenemos nada que perder. Voy a decir en español. Somos una plataforma cultural que ha tenido mucho impacto en Puerto Rico y que han movilizado y unificado a la gente queer para darles una identidad. Y para serles parte del país. Porque la gente queer hasta el momento siempre habían sido los marginales de la lucha política de nuestro país. Y la borivgue fue la primera plataforma que unió la comunidad para decir que la gente queer es parte de este país y no tan solo elementos del arte bien cabrón si no que tenemos alguien importante que decir. Eso que nuestras vidas es parte de este país. So…aprovechamos esa coyuntura del arte para también ser políticos en esa aspecto porque sabemos que muchos ojos nos están mirando.
Liz: Ooooof, es importantisimo. And just to summarize here, what Edrit was sharing is that Borivogue has been such an important platform to unify the queer community on the island that how could they not show up in this moment of continued colonization by part of the United States when the island is on the brink of economic collapse and in a moment truly of crisis and to not include those rights and privileges that the queer community is demanding as part of the country that they were excluded from perhaps before being so organized. To do it in a way that is public and that is accessible and to practice it in public spaces, I think is part of this, right? Why is it important for these art forms to be done in public spaces?
Edrit: Because people need to understand that queer people are part of the quotidian life. If we are really part of the society, we should be able to do whatever we want to do in public. I insist and have activities or practices or classes in public spaces. First, because in Puerto Rico the parks are always empty. The plaza doesn’t have electricity service. Or the park doesn’t have someone that can clean up. Part of the social collapse and economic collapse is that the government doesn’t take care of the public areas. So people don’t go to the outside. And people are scared of being assaulted, of being murdered outside, you know? So, the only way of bringing security is the people be in the public space. But I also believe that we need to be outside and not only us, the breakdancers, the salsa social dancers, people that do different stuff, can use the public space to reclaim it. To say to the government, “hey, we’re still here. This is part of my health.”
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Liz: We’re recording this episode in 2024, a few weeks away from that big sporting event in Paris in a couple of weeks. And this year for the first time, breakdancing is going to be included in the Olympics. That was also a once marginalized artform developed by Black and Brown residents of New York City, similar to a ballroom. So we wanted to ask you if there is a space for ballroom culture to be included in an institution like the Olympics. Why would you want to see that or maybe why not?
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Edrit: Hip hop and breakdancing have their own competition forms. Ballroom has their own competition forms. And you put in a competing platform in the Olympics, it changes a little bit its purpose. Vogueing it’s not only about the stance and the pirouettes and the physical ability, it’s also about expression and about what you’re bringing to the runway about your gender, about your journey, about your history, about your magic. Also breakdancing too — when I see breakdancing, for me, it’s like, “Whoa, you came from the street. I can tell the history in that movement.” How are you going to evaluate that? For me, como, competition at the end, it doesn’t show us who is the best. It can show us who is the best only in a technical way, usually the person that wins is not the person that get into our heart, you know?
Liz: If you could have your own version of the ultimate ballroom competition in Puerto Rico, if we want to call it the Ballroom Olympics, we can use that term as well. Imagínate you have as many resources as you want and you can just make your full vision become a reality. Tell us what that vision would be.
Edrit: If I have all the money of the world, I will invite people from Latin America to come to judge, to come for competing. I’m so sad. I always see my community that have so much talent, but doesn’t have resources. For me, bringing my people with me to other places of the world to take classes and to develop their artform, to increase their level, to be better here in the island. You know, como create a truly ecosystem that can sustain for itself. For me, that’s the ideal project. For me, that’s the ideal ballroom.
Liz: What is the role of mainstream spaces in supporting artforms like ballroom and voguing? Is there even a role for us as allies, for me as an ally, to support?
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Edrit: Ballroom should be for and from Black people and queer people first. But it’s also for everyone that recognize the importance and priority of Black trans folks. Allyship is very important for the community because that is the people that can defend us in the world. Ellos puedan ayudarnos o podemos ayudarnos en conjunto. At the end, we want people to recognize our work, our talent, our effort, and our contributions to the world.
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LIZ NARRATION: This episode was produced by Charlie Garcia & Mark Pagán. Editing by Mark Pagán. Audio engineering, scoring, and mixing by Charlie Garcia and Mark Pagán. I’m your host, Liz Rebecca Alarcón
You can subscribe to In Confianza wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what you heard please leave us a review on apple podcasts and tell a friend to give us a listen.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for joining me, Pulso Fam. We’ll be back next week, in Confianza.
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