Inside the Circle

“If you can hold yourself down in battle, you can hold yourself down in life.” – Romeo Navarro

INSIDE THE CIRCLE won the 2007 Audience Award in the Lone Star States section of SXSW.

Hurling themselves into a swirling vortex on the dance floor, boys and young men miraculously spin on heads, hands, forearms, elbows, shoulders, and backs. These are the b-boys, 21st century cultural descendants of the break-dancers of the 80s. They and thousands of other b-boys and b-girls have taken the original style of breakin’ and spun it into a whole new art form, combining old school break-dance with capoeira, power moves, and gymnastics. As they enter the cypher – the dance circle – they top rock with intricate and rapid steps before throwing themselves into the gravity-defying zone. This mélange of dance styles is relentlessly wedded to the beat of deejay mash-ups of 70s funk, early 80s hip-hop, and massive percussive breaks from all over the globe. With confidence, youthful fearlessness, and years of training, the b-boys have created new forms of grace and power. Marcy Garriott’s explosive new documentary INSIDE THE CIRCLE examines and celebrates the aesthetics, athleticism, philosophy, and lifestyles of Texas b-boys in particular, while simultaneously revealing the global nature of b-boy culture.

The major thread running through Garriott’s documentary is BBoy City, a massive dance competition, celebration, and conference held over a 3-day period in Austin, Texas once or twice a year. Attending BBoy City 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, the filmmaker captured the best battles of those competitions and steadily got to know a wide array of dancers. Some she visited in their hometowns outside Austin for interviews and scenes of their daily lives, while others she accompanied to competitions in Europe. With over 400 hours of high quality digital footage, Garriott meticulously extracted the stories she wanted to tell, focusing particularly on the lives of three b-boys: Romeo Navarro, Omar Davila, and Josh Ayers, all well known beyond the boundaries of Texas.

Romeo, founder/producer of all BBoy City competitions since the first one in 1997, is a tireless dancer, teacher, promoter, and philosopher of the b-boy lifestyle. Younger dancers Omar and Josh, both stars within the b-boy world and friends for a number of years, had suffered a falling out by the time Marcy began filming in 2002. One of the emotional threads of INSIDE THE CIRCLE weaves through their former friendship, antagonism, pain, and tentative reconciliation.

With vastly different personalities, Omar and Josh bonded through b-boyin’. Omar, with a loving mother and a hard-working father, has a good home life, but his father feels that he should leave the dance floor and move on to college studies to “make something of himself.” Ironically, Omar has already become an “internet household” name because of his mad dance skills. Throughout the international b-boy world he is already a major player. His power moves on the dance floor literally knock the breath out of viewers as he ignores all the laws of gravity and powerfully spins and whips his body through the air. No human body should be able to do what he does with impossible spins and angular freezes that make every muscle scream. Recognized, praised, and envied, Omar brings crowds of hundreds (thousands in Europe and Asia) to their feet as he slices and dices the air with his own feet. As an opponent in battle, Omar is a cool Ninja warrior who not only performs with amazing power and grace but also practices intimidation of his opponent, all while keeping the beat. Determined and dedicated, Omar fully intends to see just how far this b-boy business can take him. It has already taken him to Mexico, all over Europe, and through much of Eastern Asia as he wins competitions, earns quite respectable prize money, and serves as judge for other b-boy events. With clothing sponsors Omar has shown that it’s entirely possible to make a righteous living through being a b-boy. Garriott’s documentary provides a fascinating look at this self-assured young man, one of the major b-boy talents of this era.

Josh, with his own unique b-boy style and immense skills, comes from a broken home (father murdered on a highway in the West, mother not understanding or supportive of his dancing). In fact, throughout much of the film, he is homeless, wandering from friend to friend, from Austin to South Texas and then to Florida, where he has a chance to put his life together on his own terms. However, Josh admittedly has always been quick-tempered and not too concerned with the consequences of his actions, a personality and attitude that have gotten him into trouble with the law. Assaults on both a teacher and his mother and joy-riding a golf cart come back to haunt him just as he is finding a new life with his own apartment and a job dancing at Universal Orlando Resort. If he loses all his newly found (and hard-earned) success, classes in anger management won’t be enough to keep him from doing something else foolish. Aware of his low-self esteem – “I’m a walkin’ flaw” – the young man discovered his authentic self on the dance floor – “It feels good to dance, keeps my mind positive.” Ironically he emphasizes his ethnicity – self-titled “Gringo Josh” and “Milkman” – in a b-boy community where ethnicity is so very unimportant, where you are how you move, how you dance, not what the color of your skin is, not who your parents are. Much of the b-boy world reflects a beautiful blend of Latinos, Asians, Blacks, Whites, and Native Americans, competing fiercely on the dance floor and then hugging one another after each battle. Josh seems to be carrying a lot of baggage from earlier in his life when other people obviously did emphasize ethnicity and ride him for being “white.” However, as fate would have it, Josh does join a dance crew from South Texas, whose young Latino members still think about ethnic divisions. Nonetheless, Josh’s dance skills override even their provincial views.

Interwoven through Omar’s drive for dominance in the b-boy world and Josh’s troubles with the law are the latter’s wistful memories of his friendship with Omar. As teenagers they practiced together for hours every day and danced in the same b-boy crews, taking on all challengers. They were a dynamic duo in their own right and learned from each other while pushing toward new, more daring moves and combinations. Josh considers Omar his inspiration – both when they were younger and even now as Omar finds success in so many other countries. Omar also remembers how they learned so much from each other, especially by taping their practice sessions and then analyzing them together in order to move toward perfection. Competition against others and cooperation with each other made them strong, bold, and hard to beat. With such a difficult home life, Josh obviously thrived on this tight friendship.

However, during one of Josh’s jail visits, Omar was invited to join Jive Turkeys, a premiere dance crew of Texas. As he says, “I will never stop dancing or hold myself back for anyone else.” When Josh was free again, he discovered his friend’s defection. Losing that connection seems to have taken something very precious away from Josh, but he picked himself up again, as he so often does, and hooked up with the Masterz of Mayhem, a young South Texas crew on the rise. Around the same time he met Charles Rotramel of Youth Advocates in Houston, and that youth leader’s understanding of human nature became vitally important in getting Josh onto the right path. Attorney Malcolm Greenstein, long a tireless advocate for justice, also began to unravel Josh’s various legal problems.

Throughout all his travails and moodiness, Josh remains strong and often witty. He opens up a lot of his wounds to Garriott. Yet, he is not at all a tragic figure. In fact, his move from troubled youth to successful young dancer offers a lot of hope. Other filmmakers might have been put off by his initially guarded personality, but Marcy looked through that façade and uncovered the real person inside. Watching Josh and Omar, separately and locked together in battle or tentatively making attempts to reconnect, is another fascinating thread running throughout the film.

A good friend and mentor to both Omar and Josh is Romeo Navarro, who could without exaggeration be considered the Bruce Lee of the Texas b-boy world. Dancing since he was a child, Navarro can expound about b-boyin’ for hours on end. Passionate and obsessed, like any great artist, he knows hip-hop cultural history, not just the part he has lived through since the mid-80s, but also the earliest history learned from older b-boys from the 70s and early 80s. A frequent traveler to New York City and the West Coast, Romeo is an ambassador extolling the wonder that is Texas b-boyin’ – a fantastic combination of East Coast old school up-rock and spins, West Coast power moves, and a whole roomful of innovations created by merging the two and pulling in other dance styles from black & white Hollywood films of the 30s (the Nicholas Brothers in particular), Brazilian and Chinese martial arts, gym classes in high school, nightclub housin’, and individual creativity. Besides producing and promoting BBoy City every year, Navarro teaches b-boy dance classes to kids, teens, and college-age students. A former gang-banger, Navarro never stopped dancing. Some of his homies caught on and followed him right out of the gang world onto the dance floor; others stayed in “the life” but still respect him for all he has accomplished in Texas cultural circles with BBoy City.

Throughout Garriott’s documentary Romeo is the eloquent voice of the b-boy, the philosopher king who understands the power of the dance, how it changed his life, how it can prevent younger teens from even flirting with the gang lifestyle, and how it can give meaning and joy to any life. He believes wholeheartedly in b-boyin’ as a complete lifestyle, not just in the dance cypher, but everywhere – a way of living and being with its own language, dress codes, attitudes, music, relationships, art, poetry, and even jobs. As he says so lyrically, “If you can hold yourself down in a battle, you can hold yourself down in life.”

Besides focusing on these three young men and the changes in their lives over a four-year period, Marcy Garriott intersperses intriguing glimpses of other b-boys. Of particular interest are the Masterz of Mayhem, the crew that Josh joins even though they live in the Rio Grande Valley area of South Texas and he lives over 300 miles away in Austin. M.O.M. [a sweet little homage there] is a young crew that scrapes together enough money to come north for every BBoy City event. Marcy has various interviews with the Masterz, whose heart and tenacity come through quite clearly. Scattered in towns all across the Valley, they get together and practice their dancing as often as possible. When we see them win the BBoy City finals their first time, it’s almost impossible not to get teary-eyed and shout “Hallelujah!” But they are also the crew with the most humor. Curly Fries in particular is a natural-born comedian with a perfect mix of irony and innocence – “I’m afraid if I get a job, it will take up my time [from dancing].” Once Josh joins their crew, they are thrilled (and a bit scared of his awesome talent). Stickapotamus is more philosophical about what they are doing, while Steve, the founder of the Masterz, is the heavily pierced, loving father of a baby. Along with the rest of their crew they exemplify that energy, joy, and rawness that are so essential to b-boyin’. The staggering talents of French and German b-boys are also showcased in the scenes set at IBE in Rotterdam and competitions in France, with Ossama a particular standout.

The documentary shows the viewer that battles between individuals or crews is the primary form b-boy events take. Generally each dancer goes out onto the dance floor to represent his crew through his skills. Some dancers may just do a particular move quite well – “king of headspins” – but the most successful dancers can do it all, seamlessly mixing an astounding array of up-rockin’, power moves, and freezes. They may pray as a crew before the battle begins and they may hug their opponents after the battle is over, but while they are on the dance floor the competition and taunts are powerful. As Omar says, “It’s called a battle. It’s not called friends dancing against one another in a circle.” His is the hardcore winner’s attitude that has taken him all over the world and earned him “good money.” Dedicated b-boys generally have an amazing ability to compete with all their heart, soul, and body on the dance floor and then easily socialize with their competitors minutes later. The friendly, social aspects of the b-boy world are quite notable. Cool in every imaginable way, they are extremely warm in friendship.

In a little over 20 years the b-boy phenomenon has dramatically evolved from a group of young kids spinning to jambox beats on a large piece of cardboard spread on a city sidewalk. Now b-boyin’ is an entire culture, certainly a major element in the hip-hop world of rap, deejays, and graffiti artists, but one with its own individualistic style of dressing, talking, moving, and being. Even their music, as mixed by sensitive deejays who understand what makes b-boys move, is outside of mainstream hip-hop. Certainly many b-boys listen to rap in their cars, but gangsta rap in the 90s slowed the tempo down and forfeited the beat that b-boys need to shine. Later, DJ Screw and his imitators drowned listeners in a slow drip of syrup and provided a soundtrack for other activities but not for dancing.

Certain b-boys have really examined and analyzed the culture they live in and promote. Marlon of Houston’s HaviKoro crew says poetically, “B-boyin’ is defiance of every dance. It’s defiance of what you think is rhythm. It’s defiant of what you wanna see. It’s expressing yourself. It’s supposed to be raw. It’s an explosion of who you are.” And who they are is often wondrous to watch. These young men, some still teenagers, walk into a club or party, shining with charisma – like athletes, singers, and musicians. They have a confidence hard won through practice and perseverance and talent. Most b-boys come from working class backgrounds, some 1st and 2nd generation Americans. They are hungry for recognition and have fortunately found their playing field on the dance floor. Too masculine to take a chance on “modern dance” (don’t even mention ballet) and sometimes too lithe and small-framed for traditional sports or too individualistic for team sports, they have found and created the perfect combo of sport and art.

Marcy Garriott’s INSIDE THE CIRCLE offers its viewers a rare opportunity to enter an almost magical, certainly uplifting world that many don’t even realize exists outside of hip-hop video backgrounds. At a time that so many young people are being cynically sacrificed in a meaningless conflict abroad or are battling one another in the streets of our cities, one can lose hope in the future. Spending nearly two hours with the young people in this documentary renews one’s hope that some of the youngstas are finding their way on a path of their own making. Through her thoughtful, beautifully photographed, powerfully edited film we can also find ourselves inside the circle – of prayer, competition, crewmembers, friends, family, observers, and connections beyond our individual selves. – Chale Nafus, Director of Programming, Austin Film Society

[A disclaimer: I have been aware of the production of this documentary since its inception, but I shot no footage nor conducted any interviews. Allthough I was lucky enough to see various rough cuts of the film along the way and was encouraged to give my opinions, this documentary is entirely a creation of Marcy Garriott. I feel that I can be entirely objective about its qualities. ….Chale]