3 minute read
Optical Illusion Dance: Trick of the Eye
Three of the world’s best street dancers, one mind-bending performance
There are few worlds as seemingly unconnected as New York-born street dance and traditional Slovak folktales. It might seem surprising, then, that Marcel Valko – aka Miniboj – the creative director of streetdance production company and clothing brand The Legits, chose to film his most recent project at a fairy-tale art experience in Slovakia.
Tricklandia is a modernart gallery crossed with an amusement park – an imaginary world designed around the stories and myths of Slovakian villages and castles; a game between artist and audience that’s formulated to deceive you into seeing things that are not really there.
Boogie wonderland: street dancer Dassy Lee performs in Marcel Valko’s hallucinatory video, shot at Tricklandia
A couple of years ago, while walking around Tricklandia, an idea struck Valko: “What if I use this dream-like location to create a dance video?” He flew three of the world’s best freestyle street dancers – Dassy Lee, Angyil McNeal and Kyoka Yamamoto – across the world to perform their outstanding choreographies amid its optical illusions and misleading scenarios. In the performance, nothing is how it first appears – it’s all in your head.
The Red Bulletin spoke to director Valko and dancer Lee about the process of creating this magical spectacle and introducing freestyle street dance to a wider audience.
Kyoka Yamamoto confounds gravity in the Turned Over Chamber
Q: The Red Bulletin: What inspired you to use Tricklandia as a location?
A: Valko: I first discovered the experience with my kids. There are just so many visual elements there. My filming style is to always be as weird as possible, and I thought, “There are not many places in the world like this. I have to do something with it.”
Q: How was the experience of shooting in such a unique and surreal location?
A: Lee: It was awesome. There are so many rooms that move around you and look crazy. It was difficult to dance through, though; everything is mirrored, so I was hitting walls because I couldn’t see where to go. We got pretty nauseous dancing in there.
A: V: The illusions make you feel dizzy when walking through them. It feels like they’re pulling you down, and they disorientate you. We used one room that’s upside down, and one that’s made entirely of mirrors – even the crew were falling about in there. There’s also a ‘never-ending room’; we knew freestyle popping would look really good in there, but it was still hard to show on camera just how crazy it actually was.
Q: What’s freestyle popping?
A: L: It’s a street style of dance. You use all of the muscles in your body to contract with the rhythm of the music. It can look very robotic sometimes.
A: V: Most people don’t know the difference between popping and hip-hop dance. It’s hard for a mainstream audience to understand what they are. In my opinion, popping is way more difficult than breaking, because it’s a dance based on contractions. You can practise popping like crazy for a whole month and not really see any progress. With breakdance, you learn a basic six-step and at the end of a month you’ll know it, even if it’s a bit sloppy. With popping, you practise and practise and still see nothing.
Valko’s film makes full use of Tricklandia’s illusionary installations
Q: How important is the music to your creative process?
A: V: It’s always the most important point. Once I’ve figured out the music, I can start with everyone else. It inspires me for what I’m going to shoot. With this video, it was different: I already had my vision, which came from the crazy location, so I just needed to find the right music to fit it.
A: L: It’s important to have timing throughout the track that is always changing – and to have a strong beat. It’s all about being able to use our bodies to play with sound in an authentic way.
Q: How important was it to feature three female dancers in the video?
A: V: These girls are the best poppers we have. They killed it. They’re better than most of the male dancers.
A: L: A lot of street dancing is dominated by men. There aren’t that many female dancers. It was awesome to see different styles of strong women dancing in one dope video. If we can show this more, maybe we can inspire more women to come and give it a go. It will show people there are lots of different types of dancer you can be as a woman. Watch the full Tricklandia performance at redbull.com
