Category — Op Ed

[Publisher's note: This is the 2nd in a series of Op-Ed posts by Derrick Allen. Derrick, an established and respected Hustle Professional who performs, judges and teaches Hustle writes in, discussing further, Hustle's unique New York DNA. The Op-Ed platform is an open platform for readers to contribute. I invite others to submit drafts for Op-Ed posts, go here to see guidelines for submission and fill out the form. Publisher]

In my last post, I spoke about why so many New Yorkers love the Hustle and how the “kids” of New York helped introduce this dance to the world. Now some people may have taken exception with that statement. After all, the world is a pretty big place and weren’t there more than a just handful of people doing this dance? And well, many people influenced and contributed to this dance, right? The answers to these questions are both yes…and no.

Yes, there were thousands upon thousands of people from all over the metropolitan area and the country doing the Hustle. Thousands from Westchester to Long Island, from Florida to California and beyond were stepping out onto the dance floor. Many others taught, borrowed and stole moves from each other as well as other dances. Some excellent dancers that were simply incredible to watch are only known in local places where they hung out; and for better or worse have become a footnote in Hustle history.

Ultimately the marketplace helped establish who the players were, and how they would become the face of Hustle to the eventual tens of thousands that were trying to emulate it. So no, there really aren’t more than a handful of dancers who can truly say they were the “face” of the Hustle, & be honest about it. These are the people who allowed themselves to be judged, applauded, embarrassed and even booed. They doggedly worked at perfecting what they were doing. They were creative, innovative and different in how they presented and performed this dance. These are the people who stepped up and decided to take the risk and the challenge of putting themselves out on the dance floor, in both show and competitive environments over and over again.

And to be honest, some really couldn’t do this dance that well. They where just good performers with maybe a great acrobatic trick, others were better dancers than they were performers, and some…were all of the above and more. Still, fair or not, the marketplace, through the public’s responses to their performances, was the final judge and jury. The marketplace has been instrumental in determining how some of these people would become the face of the Hustle and others would not. That’s not an elitist or myopic statement – it’s just a fact.

To make my point, how many people remember Michael Jackson’s electrifying performance of “Billie Jean” on the Motown 25 television special? The year was 1983. For millions it was the first time they had ever seen the moonwalk done. People talked about it for weeks and months and imitators galore sprang up everywhere. Forget the fact that the moonwalk had been done by pantomime artists for who knows how long and had been done by Break Dancers from all over the country for years. (I remember seeing it done in a club in LA while I was competing in the Playboy contest in 1979). Can anyone tell me who invented the moonwalk? Was it in some little club or street corner…somewhere? Does anyone know where it had been used, done or perfected with absolute certainty for the first time? No, I don’t think so. It took Michael Jackson and a knock out performance on national television to popularize it and he did it so well that he became synonymous with it and it with him. The marketplace decided that he, Michael Jackson, would become the “face” of the moonwalk.

The same can be said for the Hustle. Without doubt there were many contributors to this dance in direct and indirect ways. But why was it that a handful of kids from New York were able to dominate as the face of this dance called Hustle? Forget about the personalities and personal feelings toward any particular individual or the caliber of their dancing or even lack thereof. The question is, why did the general dance marketplace 9.5 times out of 10, time and time again, choose someone from New York or someone with a “New York look”, as the face of the Hustle?

Well, as I mentioned in my last article, in the beginning there were no dance events, socials or Pro-Am Competitions to build your name or to showcase your ability. Your skills were honed in the clubs and the club competitions are where you demonstrated and spotlighted your talent and abilities. It is where you got your credibility, your “street cred” so to speak. Although there were hundreds of contests and promotional events held in the mid-seventies and eighties from all over the country, there were only a handful that stand out as true landmarks in my opinion.

I consider them landmarks because they were predominately built around showcasing the Hustle or “Disco” and meet all of the following criteria: 1) the size of the prize or contract, typically 5k or higher, 2) large national or regional (3 states or more) exposure, 3) caliber of the competition and/or the number (10 or more) of contestants and 4) the impact that they had on popularizing this dance.

When these criteria are used as benchmarks you will see that the results all have a common element. That is, as a matter of historical fact, they were all dominated by the kids from New York. Without question, it would be these same contests or events that would put a face on this dance that is still evident today. Because no matter what you think of the personalities or even the dance abilities of the players, the bottom line is that you can’t take away or dismiss their accomplishments.

And these accomplishments are significant when you weigh their ages, lack of formal training, the poise that was needed to perform on these large stages, the newness of what they were doing and the fact that their accomplishments have withstood the test of time. (Some are still being talked about and in some cases still performing some 30 plus years later).

And to answer an analogy from my friend Chuck Fetta, yes there were many signers of the Declaration of Independence, but there were only a handful that had the courage, vision, initiative, drive and took the risk to make the signing happen. (Check out the HBO series John Adams – it’s really great.)

Again, I want to make clear that I’m just trying to give some perspective as to the how and why New York is the defacto standard for how the Hustle is done and became such a dominate force in Hustle to this day. It is not my intent to detract from any unsung heroes who have contributed to this dance in other ways. Nor am I advocating that winning a dance contest or dancing on a TV show automatically makes you a Hustle expert. Far from it! There is many a great teacher that have never won a dance contest or performed anywhere. But they have a true understanding of the dynamics of this dance, the theories behind touch dancing and how to communicate these things.

The facts are that from 1977-1981, as the dance took off, performing at a major event or winning a major contest was note worthy because they were groundbreaking, fresh, and new. They paved the way and set the standards by which people would be evaluated and helped shape the public’s perception of this dance. Perceptions that would last long after those events occurred. Some may even argue that some of the perceptions weren’t always in the best interest or the long term health of the dance, but that’s another discussion. So, for better or worse, like it or not, the names that continually pop up repeatedly were people from New York.

So I want everyone to sit back, take a breath and try to “hear” where I’m coming from in detailing how New York dominated the Hustle dance marketplace for so many years, set the standard for the dance, and how the marketplace helped determine how some people became the faces of the Hustle.

End Part I
Derrick Allen October, 2008

[Foreward: In support of Hustle and the good we can accomplish when we constructively dialogue as a community, we have created a platform for Opinion Editorials. Since so much has been said in recent months about "fixing" Hustle, we're setting the stage for constructive participation in this on-going dialogue. This first post chosen will address some pejorative statements made against New York on user groups on the Internet (with the assertion ad nauseam that music speed is the major problem in Hustle). Derrick Allen an established, respected in-demand Hustle Professional who performs, judges and teaches Hustle writes in, discussing Hustle's unique New York DNA; as well as providing us with some first hand observations from having been part of the evolution since the early days of Hustle in New York. We look forward to your comments and participation.]

The Uniqueness of Hustle and Why New York Loves It
By Derrick Allen

There has been a lot of talk lately of New York style Hustle, the lack of a younger generation taking up the dance, and its “social utility”, i.e. people who look at it and want to do it. With all of the back and forth, I’ve been asked to comment about the uniqueness of the Hustle and why it has even lasted as long as it has and what the future holds for the dance. However, like many things in life, in order to know where you’re going you have to appreciate where you have been. Before I begin, let me state upfront that this is not a historical piece per se. There just isn’t enough time or space to do that and acknowledge every single person and event that occurred. I’m just trying to give some context and perspective based on my first hand relationships and direct experiences. So here’s my take on where we’ve been, and how The Hustle has been dominated for so long by so many New Yorkers.

First you have to understand that New York City is the birth place of The Hustle. If you talk to 10 different people from New York, you’ll get 10 different responses as to how it started, how it developed and who was responsible for it; but, the one thing that every one of those 10 New Yorkers will agree upon is that The Hustle started here, in the Big Apple. To be sure, it rode the wave of change of popular music that occurred during the early seventies and went through several evolutions, however; around 1974-1975 something stuck, and it developed into something more than just a fad; it actually became a dance. And what made it unique was that it was the only dance at the time that could be done to a wide range of popular music. So it became something that could be done in the clubs, and it brought back “touch” dancing which hadn’t been around in the pop scene for more than a decade since the Lindy.

Once Saturday Night Fever exploded on the scene in 1977, the dance craze received a fresh shot of adrenaline and The Hustle was here to stay. However, the portrayal of Hustle in the film was nothing like what we were doing in the clubs of New York. To many of us purist Hustle dancers, the film was sacrilege and we couldn’t stand it for that reason. A lot of us actually hated it because it was a caricature of what we did and were doing in the clubs and with the dance. But the rest of America bought it and the movie became a social phenomena. Still, although we hated how the dance was portrayed, we did like the way it recreated the dynamic of going out and dancing all night to the wee hours of the morning. (Remember breaking night?)

Clubs were everywhere (discos are what people called dance clubs outside of NY – we called them clubs) and along with the clubs came the contest; big ones too! It was nothing to compete in a preliminary and make $500.00 cash just for winning the preliminary not to mention the thousands that would be awaiting the lucky winner of the finals. Looking back now I chuckle as the “Tony Manero” story from Saturday Night Fever, that living-for-the-weekend-to-go-out-for-the-love-of-the-dance, played itself out in real life among a small group of street dancers. Kids really, sneaking into clubs with fake ID’s and doing our best to look like we were 21. Some of those “kids” with names like George Velázquez, Billy Fajardo, Lisa Nunziella, Eddie Vega, Lourdes Jones, Sandra Rivera, Maria Torres, Arte Philips, Hector Berrios, Debbie Ferro, Tony Marolda, Susan Marolda, Ralphie Ramirez, Maria Gomez, David Padilla, Miguel Marrero, Floyd Chisholm, Nellie Cotto, Ricky Quintana, Lee Rafrano, Scott Nurse, Suzanne Lambro, Keith Merriwether, and well - myself, yours truly Derrick Allen.

We ranged from 13 to about 18 years of age, with little to no formal dance training. (I believe as far as the guys go, Billy Fajardo had the most formal dance training having been trained in classical ballet with the American Ballet Company). Still, for the few that did have formal training, Hustle was their first exposure to any type of touch dancing. Having nothing else other than the belief in ourselves and the desire to be the best, we all sought to excel every time we hit the floor. There were no dance events, socials or Pro-Am Competitions to build your name or showcase your ability. The clubs of New York are where we honed our skills and the club competitions are where we demonstrated and spotlighted our talent and abilities. Although we knew we had something that was new and hot, we all lacked the experience on where and how to capitalize on the new dance craze. But then again we were kids, mostly from the streets of New York with New York common sense and street smarts. So remember that point as it will put into focus the actual accomplishments of some of these kids that I will touch upon later in this series.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were other individuals, older people who had business savvy and saw what was happening in the dance market place and figured out ways to capitalize on it. The two groups I believe that deserve the most credit for tapping into the Hustle dance phenomena, for setting the ground work for making it commercially viable and eventually becoming a conduit for teaching others in the business were Jack, Jeff and Donna Shelly and the late Ralph Lew and his wife Lucille.

As former Fred Astaire dance instructors, Jeff and his brother Jack used their knowledge of the dance business to open a series of dance schools featuring the Hustle. Now the Shellys weren’t the first to put the dance into a teachable format, nor were they the first ones to teach the dance in a dance school setting. They were significant, in that they were the first to open a chain of dance studios built around Hustle as the featured dance form, which was appropriately called “New York Hustle Dance Studios”. Actually, I believe the Shelly’s were the first to coin the phrase “New York Hustle” and they helped provide a structure for teaching the dance. They were key players in moving the dance toward being a legitimate commercially viable dance form. The Shelly’s were the first to have a series of three instructional dance records (no video back then) called “Do The Hustle” which sold over an unheard of quarter of a million copies. (By the way, the count back then…&1,2,3 &4,5,6). They touched many young dancers along the way. Hustle giant Billy Fajardo credits Jeff and Jack for “teaching me the business”. My personal introduction to a “structured” dance environment also came during my 2 year association with the Shelly’s out of their Brooklyn studio. They were also well known for their weekly appearances on the nationally televised dance show “Soap Factory Disco”. (I guess you could call it our “American Bandstand”). The Shelley’s and their dancers, along with Billy Fajardo and his Disco Dance Dimensions, were one of the earliest performers of the Hustle to appear for a nationally televised audience on a consistent basis.

Ralph and Lucille Lew were known for their “Ralph Lew Dance Review” and introduced thousands to the Hustle and helped showcase the dance. Ralph used his musical editing background to upscale the music and costumes and presented our street dance as a true main stream commercially viable “Las Vegas” style act. Ralph utilized his Latin music connections such as, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmeri, Celia Cruz, and Vince Montana, to open venues to showcase the Hustle. Through Ralph, some of us appeared in such prestigious places as Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, Westbury Music Fair, the casinos of Atlantic City and the resort hotels of the Catskills and the Poconos. Anybody who was somebody in the hustle dance scene back in the mid 70’s and throughout the 80’s, at some point in time, worked with Ralph. If you didn’t, then you either didn’t rate or you simply weren’t around back then; period.

For those of us kids that were there and helped shape and define this dance, we knew we were more than something that was just a part of pop culture. We had the rare opportunity of being able to create a piece of pop and dance culture history. We didn’t belong to it. It belonged to us. We owned it. Because don’t make any mistake about it, just like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album revived the whole music industry, our dance, The Hustle, helped revive the dance studio industry. It was our dance that brought people back into the dance studios. It was our dance that revived touch or partner dancing. . It was our dance that the movie “Saturday Night Fever” was centered around. It was our dance that people paid for and wanted to see and do.

To be sure, there were many other people and places in the country that tried to capitalize on the “Disco Dance” phenomena. They had their Discos. They got hooked on the “Saturday Night Fever” craze. They called our dance “Disco”. They had their contests. They even wore white suits and did the 3 year old “Bus Stop” line dance. But none had the impact, longevity or success like the kids of New York City. The kids who helped bring this dance form to the world. It is why we love this dance so much. And it all started here, in the greatest city in the world, the Big A - New York City.

Next: The Market Place, the Hustle and NY Dominance

© Derrick Allen – August 26, 2008