Funkanometry — the ones that we want!
Vancouver Island duo has all the right moves, and all the TikTok followers to prove it
Duncan's Carlow Rush, 19, and Nanaimo's Jacksun Fryer, 18, make up Vancouver Island dance duo Funkanometry.
Since coming together, the two have become social media sensations with 400,000-plus followers on TikTok. Credit those impressive numbers to the humorous and complex duets the two dropped when they appeared on Season 3 of NBC's World of Dance in 2019. Making it to the higher levels of the competition before being eliminated kicked off international interest in the crew.
They have ridden the buzz to the next level.
From shooting promotional videos for everything from the Mid-Island Co-op to a local ice cream joint and making surprise appearances everywhere from a wedding to an Island hospital, they leave smiles everywhere they dance. A Sept. 10, 2021, routine set to Grease's You're the One That I Want shot on the sidewalk by Victoria's Fan Tan Cafe on Fisgard Street is at 1.9 million views and counting.
At the time of World of Dance, Rush was almost 10-inches taller than Fryer and the two took advantage of this difference to play off moves that could only be managed due to the height difference. It was both creative and frequently funny.
But there is no question that these two are serious technicians.
A breakdown they posted explaining the Grease routine shows two talented and astute artists gelling creatively to the point that they practically finish each other's sentences. It's funny to see, considering they first met competing against one another.
They talked to Postmedia News about the pop, wiggle and boogie of being hyped dancers:
Q So what does it feel like to be blowing up bigger than ever during COVID-19 when you don't get much chance to perform?
Jacksun: It's kind of crazy recently, with the numbers going so much bigger. I never would have thought that millions of people would still be really excited to watch us do what we do as a duo. But it just keeps blowing up online internationally and locally, too.
Q That local connection seems to have international draw as the video for your surprise performance at Paul and Cassidy's wedding keeps topping your weekly views.
Carlow: That one is probably our most-talked-about video and not like any of our normal ones. We weren't expecting it to go off or even posting it. He hit us up through our website and we figured we'd never done something like that so why not? Then he said he wanted to be in it, too, which was also different. But we did a few hours of practice and there it is. He was a really cool guy.
Q How did you two meet?
Jacksun: We actually were at different studios and we competed against each other a few times, but then came together in the same 10- to 12-member hip hop dance crew called Maestro with Joe. People were already saying that Carlow and I should try- out being a duo pretty early on.
Carlow: I eventually came up and started training at the same studio and, after about a year, we decided to give it a go as a duo. The thing worked right away when we started competing in 2017, a few years before World of Dance, when we ended up doing pretty well. Honestly, World of Dance wasn't even any kind of goal during that time.
Q So how did you wind up on the hit show?
Carlow: We were down in L.A., my very first time down there, at a big event that our choreographer put on with a bunch of his friends. Apparently, the scout from the show saw us and told A.J. that he thought we should audition.
Jacksun: So we auditioned in Vancouver, me with another crew as well as the duo. The duo made it and, even after signing all the papers and a lot of rehearsing, it didn't seem real until we hit the biggest stage of our lives.
Q OK, what happens next?
Carlow: We got our initial fans locally, and a lot of them are still with us, as well as the big jump after doing the show. That was the first wave of Funkanometry. Now we are just dedicated to keep on making videos for our fans with our videographer, because they seem to really uplift people's spirits at this time.
Jacksun: From there we did social media videos that we weren't pushing that hard. We dropped our merch line and then took a break when the pandemic hit because we couldn't see each other for a while. But once things opened up again, we went hard with the socials and had a feeling that 2021 was going to be a big year for Funkanometry. And it is.