The Groovy G’s are one of Vancouver’s best dance crews specializing in popping. They have opened for the Jabbawockeez, won competitions like Driven to Perform, and have been teaching and spreading the dance scene to the rest of Vancouver. The justalilhype! crew had the opportunity to sit down for a brief interview with five of the crew: Jamieson De Guzman, Jessey Kwong, Hector Chu-Joy, Trevor Chung, and Johnny Wu. Missing from this session was Jeff De Guzman, Shu Chai, and Jonathan Gotengo.
Can you describe the Groovy G’s to our audience for us and can you tell us how you guys started up?
All: Groovy G’s stands for Groovy Gentleman. Basically, we’re a popping crew that’s mainly focused on freestyle popping, performing and competing as well. We spread the love for this dance in Vancouver and reach out to the rest of the West Coast. We are passionate about this and we hope that we can keep growing the scene here in Vancouver.
Jamieson: The Groovy G’s started out in my garage, with just two or three of us. We started just popping’ and inviting anyone that was interested, and through all the people that have come and gone those of us who are solidified in the crew are the ones that truly loved the dance and stuck with it out of pure dedication and love for the dance.
What inspired you to become a dancer? Are there any dancers you look up to?
Jamieson: I think with everyone, we all got our own idols and stuff like that, but for the whole crew, I think its unanimous when I say Popin’ Pete and Electric Boogaloos is our main idol and mentor in this dance. They gave us a lot of inspiration that helped guide us in finding our style. We also look up to various groups from Japan and the United States.
What do you think is the link between Fashion and Dance? How it is connected?
Jessey: You dress good, you feel good. If you feel good the you do everything that you would normally do, better.
What are Groovy G’s goals? What do you want this crew to achieve in the final run?
Jamieson: The only real goal for us is to spread the dance, spread the scene. There’s a lot of people out there, and we’re sure there are tons of people that are interested in what we do, and what we can do. We have to make it available for the people to get it. Right now, the scene is there and it is growing, but aside from the dancers in our community and their friends, there are still people who have yet to know about it.
Jessey: Creating more and more quality events for people is our way to spread the word and grow the scene. The goal is to get the people who are interested to be excited to come and watch. Also, for those who want to learn, hopefully they will be inspired from these events to become dancers.
Johnny: In terms of personal goals, we definitely just want to up our own personal level of greatness and skill, and see as much of the world as we can. We always have to up our own level, no matter what, because at the end of the day, it’s all about the dance.
What was the one show or event that you feel totally got people saying “shit, that’s tight. I gotta look these guys up”. Basically, the one thing that got your crew’s name out there?
Johnny: I think with Driven To Perform 2007, we won that competition, and I think that’s what really established set us out there in the scene. The Chinese Varsity Club at UBC was also a big connection to us while we were on the rise. We were able to take part in their Supaskillz Talent show and we were able to do a few workshops for them, which really helped us out with garnering attention of university students.
Jamieson: There was a time in 2004 where we just did a string of shows, and we got better and better and people just kept knowing more and more about what the Groovy G’s can bring. Prior to that, there really was no popping crew, just crews focused on mixed genres like hip-hop and R&B and stuff like that. But since we were the first popping crew, we became known from that.
What kind of music do you dance to?
Jamieson: for most poppers, especially when they start, they pop to oldschool funk music. Artists like Zapp and Roger and George Clinton are popular.
Jessey: Of course, there’s nothing wrong with dancing and grooving to hip-hop and other genres. In fact, a lot of us are into doing other styles, like Trevor, he’s into the R&B and Hector and I dance to the hip-hop. I dance to top 40 music all the time.
Johnny: True that. It doesn’t matter what you dance to actually, As long as there’s clap-
Jamieson: And a solid bass line.
Johnny: That too. As long as there’s clap and a solid bass line, we can pop and groove to that, and that’s all it takes.
Funk, old school hip-hop, and anything with a beat and clap is what you said you guys pop to. What artist or artists do you think captures the soul of Groovy G’s?
Jamieson Dub-C (WC), Snoop (Snoop Dogg), Original Funk, George Clinton, and people like that. Everyone is different. But like we said, we’re branching out.
DJ Teppi is one of the main DJ’s for Groovy G’s. Can you describe his relationship to the group and how does his style of music and mixing techniques connect with your crew’s style?
DJ Teppi ran a club event known as Tenka which featured dance performances and other stuff. The original connection between DJ Teppi and the Groovy G’s was that DJ Teppi wanted to grow the dance scene, and then he met up with us and we did a few shows, and he started promoting for us and vice versa. Pretty soon, DJ Teppi started spinning funk music, and started getting better and better, and even now, he’s still getting better, learning to choose the right music for the right event.
Jamieson chuckles: He can spin it with one turn table.
Stepping back and looking through other big cities like Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, clearly Vancouver is just a small player to the big city club. Can you guys comment on what the status of Hype is in Vancouver?
Jamieson: Definitely with Japan and HK and what not, the parties are crazy and all that. Comparing it here…
The Groovy G’s are still growing, the scene here is still growing. The energy is good here. Can we be comparable to the big scene?
Don’t know about that but we are growing. Just because we’re smaller, it doesn’t mean anything. We are brand new, and we are lucky; we have access to everything, and yet still hidden. If I were in a big city, and my idol was in town, it would be pretty hard for us to get any time with these guys. You may say that because we’re small, we don’t get any visitors, but not true. We get a lot of well known people dropping by, and we stay well in touch with the world community. With big cities, we find a lot of big ego’s but here in Vancouver, it’s pretty down to earth.
There’s such a different culture throughout communities, even with our closest Canadian neighbors: Montreal and Toronto. Is there anything that you see is missing from Vancouver and you would like to import it from the world culture?
Johnny: More exposure. There are tons of people that love to dance, but no way to spread the dance to the mainstream. Even if it is to come watch or participate, just come out, and know about it.
Jamieson: in the UK, France, all over the place, there would be like 10,000 people coming out to watch a battle. Here, its already satisfying for the Groovy G’s to get a crowd of like 200 or 300 plus people, but it’s still small. Right now, venue is the biggest thing. We always run into problems of stereotypes and prejudice, always thinking that the crowd that a b-boy competition or a popping crowd means trouble or no good. They don’t see that these people are gathered here for one reason: the dance. To combat this, we hope to work with more groups, more collaborations.
In a few years, what do you hope to see happen with the scene?
Jamieson: Scene, three years from now, we want the scene to be bigger with a more positive environment. We want it to be self nurturing -
Jessey: It’s self sustaining, not self nurturing.
Jamieson: Yes! Self sustaining. We still feel like we got to keep feeding it or else it will stay consistent, not really growing, or it may even diminish. We hope to see more people stepping up the game and taking initiative to throw events, competitions, seminars and workshops and what not. We’re throwing the events, but all people are doing is attending. We want people to feed off what we’re doing and use it in another form.
You guys are idols in many eyes to the community. You make the next kid say to himself or herself “yea, I know I can do it too”. Can you give all those emerging crews and dancers some tips and pointers?
Jamieson: Keep an open mind. Although this is pretty broad and general, but its good and relevant.
Jessey: Always have that drive to learn and better yourself in new ways, whatever the way is.
Jamieson: Remember where and why you started in the first place. Have fun with it.
Johnny: As you rise, keep your head on straight. You get distracted and side tracked, in the end its all about the dance. Always work hard and reach your max potential.
Jessey: It’s all about how you get there, not where you are.
Trevor puts his hand to his chest: That was good guys, touched my heart.
HYPE is such a broad word, and we want everyone’s opinion on this. To the Groovy G’s, what does HYPE mean? And how is dancing hype?
Johnny: To us, hype is energy and excitement. It’s the interaction between audience and dancer and the energy in the room when people are dancing. It’s almost electric. It’s what brings people out to our events. If you ask any dancer, they would rather dance in front of a hyped crowd of 25 than a silent crowd of a thousand.
Jessey: Watching someone get down and do their thing on the floor, if they got the energy and the feel for it, then you feel their energy. Then when you go do your thing, the energy you feel from them, you translate that and flow it into your own dance. That’s Hype.
Jamieson: Yeah, synergy and working together is what its all about.
Check out Groovy G’s latest news and events through their blog: http://groovygs.blogspot.com/
Photography by: Nico Mak