On the second floor of a modest two-story brick building in the heart of downtown Wheaton, a group of internationally renowned urban dancers gathers weekly for practices, jam sessions and classes in groove, breaking, hip-hop, b-boy and b-girling, popping, house, whacking, punking and krump.
The studio is the home to Urban Artistry, which celebrates two decades at the forefront of documenting, teaching and performing urban dance forms.
“We are intergenerational … we mix the old with the new, as we create a place where people prioritize dance as scholarship but also [honor] the communities that these dances come from,” says Urban Artistry founder and executive Junious Brickhouse.
UA is not just a studio to learn popular dance moves. It’s a community that brings together across age, racial, economic, religious, gender and other defining identities who express themselves most authentically when moving their bodies to urban contemporary music forms from pop to hip hop, funk to house.
“We help sustain those communities because if you invest in your communities … they, too, pay back and start building and mentoring the next generation,” he says, while also passing them on to the next generation.
Tracing the History of Street Dance
The term urban dance is as fluid as the dances that fall under that rubric.
“It’s such a layered thing,” says longtime house dancer Leslie Liao, a UA board member whose portfolio covers development.
“Because all these styles are not the same, but they’re related,” explains the Rockville resident and lawyer, “I think it’s problematic, obviously, to lump them all together and say, ‘Oh, they’re all hip-hop.’”
These dances were born in clubs, at community center and basement dance parties, on street corners, high school gym and rec centers dances at a time when many teens and young adults, especially in areas with fewer activities and economic advantages, felt ignored or disenfranchised.
Just a year ago, in 2023, the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx, New York, was celebrated around the country on its 50th anniversary. For Brickhouse, a leader in the urban dance field and master of the freestyle form called house, now is the time to collect the histories of these dances from the founding generation of 20th-century urban dance forms. And that’s what Urban Artistry is renowned for.
A self-trained folklorist, Brickhouse, a long-time Silver Spring resident, explains, “I want people to understand that all of these [urban dance] forms are from different places and are represented by different communities. When you think about them, think about them as origin stories; they have communities of origin. That means … a lot of stories to tell. And while hip-hop as an umbrella term for all of these [dances], it’s just poor scholarship to call everything hip-hop.”
Brickhouse came of age in Norfolk, Virginia, dancing. He attributes his love of music and dance to his mother, Linda Marlene Brickhouse.
“We didn’t have a lot of money, so that was the thing that we shared. I grew up dancing culturally. My mom was really into music, and she loved dancing. Growing up in communities of color, where kids were seen and not heard, art, dance and singing were something where we could get a pass. We could express ourselves.”
Brickhouse and his sister performed on the local talent show circuit, though by high school he focused on sports, then joined the Army after graduation.
During his Army service as a member of a rapid response team for NATO, which took him from Fort Sill in Oklahoma to Augusta, Georgia; Germany; Kosovo; Bosnia; then Afghanistan, Brickhouse continued to dance, using it as a way to decompress, connect with other service members and meet locals during off hours. Even 30 years ago, urban dance forms like breaking, popping, locking and house were already established in Western Europe.
“In Germany, I was already mostly doing underground work in the ‘90s – you know, dancing for DJs, doing battles and competitions, stuff like that. I was in the military, so dance wasn’t my career then.”
Following his service, he found his way to Montgomery County and a DOD civilian job, enabling him to immerse himself in club culture in Washington, D.C.
On founding UA, Brickhouse recalled: “I had all of these younger people asking me to help them – they were entering dance battles, trying to travel with dance to see other places, but there was no infrastructure.”
Using his administrative and logistics background, he created a program to help young adult urban dancers in the area build skill sets for cultural sustainability; Urban Artistry was born.
Mentoring the Next Generation
Now adult students don’t only have clubs to learn how to dance; UA offers classes for children, teens and adults. Its flagship program, though, focuses on deep mentorship, typically geared to committed urban dancers in their 20s through 40s.
Brickhouse matches each mentee to a mentor with expertise in the student’s preferred style. But meetings, which might happen at a club or in the Wheaton studio, encompass far more than physical dance skills.
“They learn how to do program management, start a business, help their communities in ways that make sense to them,” Brickhouse says.
As well, mentorship requires a deep dive into researching the historical evolution of these dances. That means one-on-one private tutorials, as well as access to UA’s extensive private video archives.
Additionally, a new series, the Professional Development and Sustainability Exchange, open to the public, offers workshops, trainings, panels and speakers for developing business-savvy dancers.
Bethesda resident Kevin Frederick has danced for 19 years. A recent Montgomery County transplant, he began taking classes at UA in August.
“The community here is definitely open-hearted and welcoming,” says Frederick, a physical therapy technician. “Each teacher has an amazing level of skill here. Sometimes dance teachers are just doing their job, but here [at Urban Artistry] they’re really passionate and have an insane devotion. They’re really trying to build the culture and keep the integrity of the dance.”
Before his move to Bethesda, he lived and danced in Germany but says he appreciates the community atmosphere at UA, rather than the more competitive nature of urban dance in Germany.
Mengli Sha, a Ph.D. economist from Rockville, has taken classes at UA for three years where she studies locking and crumping.
“It’s a very good way to express myself. My crump teacher is a good mentor, and I feel good every time I come,” she says. “It’s not only about the style; crumping is about life.”
She also appreciates the friendships she’s formed by taking classes one or two times a week.
Saturday Jam Session
During a recent Saturday afternoon jam session, dancers ranging from children to teens, young and middle-aged adults, formed a circle – a cypher in street lingo – in the rectangular second-floor studio, as DJ Dee Clark modulated the high-volume, pulsating beat.
In turn, individuals would enter the circle, inspired by the music or previous dancer, throw down their best moves, playing off the other dancers’ showcase moves then inventing their own.
This went on for three sweaty hours without a break, the windows steamed up, sweatshirts were shed, earrings flew off and the dancing continued.
From the angular gestural articulations of vogue, to the high-throttle fist-pounding energy of krump to syncopated floor work of top rock and acrobatic head spins and falls, the studio vibrated with creative perpetual motion. From beginners to pros, each dancer extrapolated a specific artistic stamp before giving way to the next.
While Brickhouse, now 50, notes that since the pandemic closures, the organization has produced performances due to rising costs, but continues offering classes, jam sessions, and competitions. But it’s the emphasis on community and preservation that keeps him going.
From June 2-4, The Professional Development and Sustainability Exchange takes place at the Silver Spring Civic Center with a series of panels, workshops on artistic excellence, business practices for urban dance artists, cultural sustainability, and legacy preservation.
“Understanding what kind of music came from what city and what was happening in the
sociopolitical landscape of that city all helps you understand why these art forms evolved the way they did,” Brickhouse notes. “That helps you connect to your own experiences, and helps you bring out your authentic self-expression.”
Liao, the board member, terms her experience with UA as life changing.
“I’m not born into this culture. My family is from Taiwan. My parents know very little about this. I came into [urban dance] because it was just cool. I love to dance and I love music, but when I met Junious, he was the first one to really talk about cultural preservation and leadership.”
“Being a leader and being successful as an artist does not mean being the best at it,” she continues. “It doesn’t mean winning every battle. It means creating space for people to come together to do this. It means reaching out to folks, who may feel like they don’t have a place in this culture … that we make a place for them.”
For information on Urban Artistry events and classes, visit urbanartistry.org.