I.aM.mE inspires next generation
STAGE: America’s Best Dance Crew winners are still popping out fresh dance ideas
When I.aM.mE Crew won the sixth season of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew in 2011, Brandon “747” Harrell realized a long-standing dream of national and international recognition for his distinctive brand of hip-hop dancing.
“You could say that we are all in this as our main crew and that’s where the ideas come to life,” said Harrell. “Now we’ve got second-generation I.aM.mE members coming along now, too, which is pretty great.”
Given that the name stands for inspire, motivate and energize, it makes sense there would be subsequent generations coming up. For almost a decade, this crew has been spreading joy and excitement on the dance circuit. Whether in the competitive realm or in performance, I.aM.mE is all about entertaining and pumped to be bringing its latest moves to Canada.
In 2004, Harrell, Di “Moon” Zhang and Phillip “Pacman” Chbeeb came together to form the award-winning Marvelous Motion Crew. The group was well-known for its popping and tutting (finger-dancing) chops. When MMC ran its course, it disbanded. The original trio joined up in 2010 with equally acclaimed dancers Olivia “Chachi” Gonzales, Emilio Dosal and Dzajna “Jaja” Vankova and formed I.aM.mE to take on ABDC: Season of the Superstars.
The group won the televised competition, achieving previously unimagined online presence for its stellar, athletic performances.
Those can take their toll on any dancer, so some members have gone more into the choreographic aspects as others were brought into the crew. It’s a different reality than the originals’ street-level backgrounds. Many of the newer talents have acrobatic training and more.
“When we’re doing our kids shows, we really want to focus on the style that we coined or originated, which is our visually connected popping,” he said. “The original crew all looked different, came from different backgrounds and all had jobs to do, but
came together to make something great. It’s that message we want to get across to kids, too, and it’s really positive”
He notes hip-hop movement is pretty impossible not to get excited about. With its mix of “helicopter-flying” acrobatics and intricate, bendy bodywork, the form was tailor-made for flexible young audiences to get excited about. The absence of a ballet-style rule book means you can really express yourself and Harrell says that’s what drew him into
the form.
“Hip-hop dancing has grown even more huge on an international level since we last toured Canada in 2016 with audiences getting exposed to all this amazing talent from Japan and Korea,” he said. “We didn’t really have our “brain-bang” style going to the same degree on our last tour, but you can be sure that this time we’re taking it to the crowds.”
To stay fresh during the difficult America’s Best Dance Crew schedule meant the crew had to be fully
rehearsed before filming. Harrell was living in Shanghai and teaching dance when the call came and the other members gathered from around the globe. Once the audition was done, they went into serious production mode.
“We prepared 100 of our brainbang moves that had to each last at least 10 seconds and make a picture within a picture within a picture and recorded them all.” he said. “In four months, we did it aiming for five new ideas developed per rehearsal and it
was really hard. This was before we even knew if we made the show or no. We were just putting in the work and hoping we got the call.””
These days, all the members find themselves known on the global scene and rightfully get called to choreograph around the world. Harrell’s move to China was actually to choreograph for a few up-and-coming crews working their way into the public eye on the club circuit. He was instantly impressed by how many students took his classes.
“I would get 50 or 60 students, which was impressive in Shanghai at the time,” he said. “It wasn’t a very developed scene and I guess I was catching them up on what was current in the U.S. at the time. The last time I went back, it was a total change with all these incredible crews and dancers.”
When he started dancing as a high school student in Houston, he didn’t know it would take him to so many interesting places. Now he’s able to inspire the next generation to bust a move at the Granville Island Stage in this 50-minute-long performance.