Lay Zhang offstage: Street Dance of China 3 and more

The Beginning

“After recording the whole season, the biggest reward is that I have realized dancing is something that will stay with me my whole life. I hope that I can still dance when I’m 60. I also think that meeting this group of friends through the show is another reward, I’m really touched.”

This is what Lay felt when he thought back about Street Dance of China after the finale.

The “teenager Lay” probably had no idea he would have such an experience. At that time, street dance for Lay is “those handsome and cool guys and gals, older brothers and sisters who dance on the street wearing their caps”

Most people know about Lay’s dancing after his debut, but he actually already had a lot of interaction with these “cool guys and gals” before his debut.

“I followed street, I watched the people who dance and learnt from them. I started with Popping; everyone was doing Popping back in the days.”

“Our school was pretty amazing, The High school Attached to Hunan Normal University, we had club activities since early ages. Everyone was dancing, so I was figuring it out myself how to “pop”. Around middle school. 7th or 8th grade, I can’t really remember.

“Did you choose it yourself or you just sort of ran into it?”

“No, I watched videos from others, and I liked it. I asked my parents to let me learn Popping. I was dancing around in my school club. I actually became the vice president of that club in high school.”

“Wow, official position.”

“Yup, an official position, with no actual use. I didn’t gather many activities.

After that is leaving for training in Korea, and then I realized ‘Wow, everyone dances so well. And the teachers, they are amazing~~!”

Leeway and Balance

“My teacher were Kin. Oh, and Kahn, and Monster Woo as well.”

“I think that each and every one of them had given me a lot of help. If it wasn’t for the foundation that they taught me during my learning process, I wouldn’t be able to dance like now.”

“They came over to teach us foundation. I think that choreography is an expression that combines all these different types of dance. Choreography is not a style of dancing, rather it is an arrangement that brings all these elements together and uses that to expression music.”

“Yes, just like how Urban was classified as a style of dance in SDC3 for the purpose of easy understanding, but in reality, this is not a dance type. Urban is arranging the moves so they’re at the right place and expressing the right song.”

“Yes”

“Oh I have something that I wanted to say for so long but couldn’t find the right words. ‘The right moves put at the right place. I think the first criteria is to have the right music.’ This is really what I’ve been trying to deliver, I really can’t say things clearly.”

“I took Popping very seriously at that time, but they didn’t make Popping the main focus. After all K-pop groups do more Routine dancing. We started learning with them first, but later on we only do Choreography. Because at that time, we were preparing for our debut, so we had to prepare for routines and our group. And I focused a lot on ‘balance’. I wasn’t like other trainees there, they had a lot of leeway. Their parents probably had some plans for them if they were to return home, but I did not. I decided to go there, and if I didn’t make it to the debut, then I have wasted all these years. So, I had more pressure than others.”

There are two keywords in that part: Leeway and Balance

Balance is word that Lay has been using constantly these years when talking about dance, it was the trendy slang for a while.

“When did you know or come in contact with this word?”

“Through Michael Jackson.”

“Because I kept asking myself why all of his moves only look good when he did it, and I started to study his moves.”

“I realized that when you dance, there is always this one angle that looks so good no matter where you’re taking the picture or watching from. So, I did this pose…

And the pose was (start making his gestures).”

Anyway, it was one of those Michael Jackson signature pose.

“Once I made the pose, I just stood there, and used my phone. It was still that type. Oh I was using Nokia back then, the one where you can turn the bottom part”

“That’s a 3250”

“I put my phone on a table and started watching myself. I tried to turn around to find that ‘balance’. Once you find it, your moves will look good no matter where you’re watching from.”

“I didn’t have many classes during that time, and so I thought ‘why not add something to it?’, and I kept posing like that for an hour.”

“Others were probably thinking what an idiot I was. A little, isn’t it?”

“An hour is probably a little exaggerated, but kept doing the same pose for an hour, pushing my limits.

One song is around 4–5 minutes, once I was done, I got a 30 seconds break, and then continue. I slowly realized that I can return to that exact same spot whenever I raised my hands.”

“Muscle memory”

“My body remembers that pose. Took me around a week. Once I think I got it, I moved to the next one.”

“I couldn’t do the pose in the beginning, had to constantly fix it. But then later on, it was like okay I got it. I had to focus on the pose one by one, but then I started to get a little annoyed, just thinking about how many more I have to go to. I went through so many poses with weight added, but it became a little annoying and I didn’t want to continue posing anymore. And so I tried to take on some other types of dancing, it was still urban dancing, and choreography. But it still didn’t look right. I had to slowly figure it out by myself again, kept doing it day after day. After around a year and a half I think, I was a trainee for around 4 years. I trained like that with weight for about a year and a half. Suddenly one day when we were having our evaluation, our trainee evaluation. Everyone was clapping and was like ‘WOW’. I didn’t think it was that good, but everyone was going ‘wow, you improved so much~’. It worked. And so, I replaced the 3-kilo dumbbell and sandbag with a 8-kilo dumbbell”

“Where did you tie it to?”

“I just held on to it, thinking that it can probably help me improve even more. I just practiced while holding an 8-kilo dumbbell, for around 3 days? And I got hospitalized. My waist got misplaced.”

“That’s when I realized, this method was a little bit too harsh. Think about it, the 3-kilo dumbbell practice succeeded, and it was right before my debut, so I wanted to be even better. I was thinking I didn’t want to practice for too long either, I only had 24 hours. If I kept practicing with the 3-kilo dumbbell, it wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t go home much during my trainee days, mostly practicing in the underground practice room and the 8-kilo dumbbell happened to be right there, a pair of the dumbbell. And I went, okay let me try the 8-kilo then. You can’t really hold them for an hour, probably around 30 minutes. I started with 30 minutes, not a big deal, my waist was little painful but it got better the next day. I went on for around 3 or 4 days, around that time I think, I suddenly couldn’t move. I was like “Um…” and then I fell. I went to get it checked out, they said that it was spinal disc herniation. I did it myself, couldn’t blame anyone. It got a little out of hand.”

When our conversation got to this point, I then realized why is he so persistent about the word ‘balance’. A big part of it is probably due to this incident.

Another part is from a professional point of view, it is indeed very important. On the other hand, for someone that had no leeway like Lay at that time, this was his only shot.

Anxiety and Plateaued

“Have you ever been anxious, or more accurately, have you ever hit the plateau during these years of dancing.”

“When I was learning ‘Lit’, I found that I couldn’t make it looks like, you know, krumping. I couldn’t make the dance moves look like Krump. I have been doing Urban for ten years and I feel that I have been doing a great job with Urban. You can challenge me anytime for Urban and I would nail it. However, I couldn’t do Krump. For example, Trix were dancing beside me, I felt that my balance was better than him, but I still couldn’t Krump. I talked to him, and I asked ‘What is the reason???’

It gave me such a headache; I was so upset that I couldn’t sleep for days. Why couldn’t I do it? I’m so good at Urban, right? Krump can be disassembled into several single moves, but I still wasn’t able to do it, because there’s a foundation to Krump.

Its power and controlling. They are all there, it has its special structure. Its bounce is totally different with Urban, you couldn’t learn it based on previous experience.”

“But it’s not your first time getting in touch with Krump. Didn’t you have lessons with Monster Woo and such?”

“It was only for a short term when I first started training with them. I only attended couple courses and then got back to group dancing.”

“Honestly, it was just a base building...Not even a good base.”

Every dance type has its own grooves, even though Lay has few experiences in some old school types, he still mainly practices urban in most times. But Urban is actually a way to ‘arrange’ the set of the dance, it doesn’t have an original basic groove.

So, he can only learn Krump from very beginning.

“When I decided to invite a choreographer to teach us the dance of ‘LIT’. Because I have Kasper on my side, so I asked Trix to choreograph ‘LIT’ and give it to Kasper, then Kasper and I will deal with it.

Kasper is a choreographer, but we found that we couldn’t learn it at all. We can’t manage to make it looks alike even though Trix was with us. So that’s the pressure, it got me quite upset, so I decided to focus on this new dance type this time.

So since around last October, I started to learn Krump from the very basic.

I asked Trix to give me more time after every class to focus on the foundation of Krump. I started from bounce and keep practicing on it every day nonstop.

Trix also accepted my request. Because he usually just moves on the next move when he finishes teaching one. But if my bounce was not good in that day, I would spend the whole two-hour class to practice bounce, it was totally different with what we usually do.”

“It was quite similar to when I started lifting.”

“Oh yea, totally similar. I started doing that again late, practice dancing with sandbags. But the sandbag is not 8 kilos anymore, I can’t do it again. My back already went out once, it was enough. I wear the waist protection every time I’m dancing with the sandbag now.”

“You actually already have very solid foundations for Urban. What is the impression about street dance that you had before you started to learn Krump?”

“I was more interested in choreographed and arranged dance, because you can have many people getting together in one piece. Maybe it is hard to judge when you’re just watching one person dancing, but you will be able to tell when everyone gets together. But there had never been any types of dance that I couldn’t learn. Krump was the only one, it fired me up.

There’s a line in ‘LIT’ that ‘I’m the king in the music world’. If you can’t even make the moves look like a king, how can you call yourself ‘the king’? I have that requirement for myself. I have to master Krump.”

“So you chose Krump because it ‘provoked’ you?”

“Yes! I kept asking ‘Why couldn’t I do it?’”

“What I heard is, because you wanted to apply some Krump’s elements to the choreography of this song and the MV. Why did you decide to use Krump?”

“I’m the producer of the whole album. I made all the beats and when I completed that song, I noticed that BPM of this song is slower. Because the current choreography was usually filled for all the beats. I wanted to make this song a bit more chilled, such as the singing and such. So, I kept thinking about how I could present this slow BPM song to make it stronger.The only dance type that I could think of was Krump.”

“What is the BPM of this song?”

“120”

Becoming a captain

“What were you thinking when they asked you to be the captain?

“I didn’t really have a thought, but I asked if I could be a candidate instead. You wouldn’t be able to get rid of it. Seriously. He would come to me at the beginning of every season. Until the third season, I really got no more excuse, so I asked him to let me be a candidate. I thought that was enough. So, I told the director to find a possible way for me to become a candidate. He took some time. We stalemated for a month or two? But it still ended up with him asking me to be the captain.”

STALEMATED, for a month a two, to discuss about a possible way to be a candidate.

“How did you feel when you first met everyone?”

“Hello, hi teachers”

“I wanted to first deal with the auditions. I didn’t really know who the masters were. But whenever the crowd cheered, I immediately knew, that must be one of them”

Another problem was that we had a wide range of dance styles at my block. I met a master in popping, Xiao Long. I was like he deserved a towel, but there were limited numbers. So… you couldn’t really help.”

“You’ve got the most towels. Other blocks were more limited.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Battle

“So, about the captains’ battle…”

“I was looking forward so much to that! Otherwise, why would I practice Krump?!”

“Did you battle before that? I remember you said it was your first battle. Did you know what to expect in a battle? Did Trix teach you?”

“I had no idea.”

“He told me how to listen to the beats and the music, how to use combo and such. For example, we had a set of combos. I could either use it in the middle of the battle, or at the beginning, all up to my own feeling. And some basic knowledge about battle. Body touch is allowed, but you can only touch the one who dances the same style as you. If you two are dancing different styles, you can’t touch each other. That’s a strict no. You can’t do Krump and then come up to someone who’s doing a different style. But if your competitor is also doing Krump, then that’s cool. I said ok, I got that. But I didn’t know how I should react when others touch me.”

“That’s why you were so surprised at that time”

“Exactly! I thought I could do one more round so I circled around. But I realized that Jackson hadn’t danced yet, so I came back. I wanted to dance for another round after everyone was done, but the judges said stop…”

“I saw that battle in person, all kinds of screams.”

“ That was so lit, right? But the move was not on the beat. Actually, it’s different from what I heard on the scene. Where did you see it? In front or behind?

“I was next to DJ Alone.”

“Yeah, you can see it clearly. I touched all the rhythms and beats. What you saw was what I heard. But it’s different when it aired. A little disappointed”

“Which part from the aired version that didn’t match up with the music?”

“ It’s the third part, gigigigigigigigigi ei!”

“That was your first battle, how did it feel?”

“Awesome! I wanted to continue, but the production team didn’t hold any more battle.”

“Did you see the comments from the dance community?”

“Yes, and everyone seems to think highly of it. I thought, well, please don’t. There’s still a lot for me to learn. That was just a cypher. I hope I can win a place through my own efforts so that I can live up to their high comments. But now I think it’s OK.”

The Core Weapon

“When you were grouping the team, it didn’t go quite well. a little fixated I would say.”

“I tried everything I could think of. Like telling them how my team would be, would you like to join? I’m gonna invite that person too, would you like to come together because I also admire you a lot. I talked to a lot of people, but I missed failed with three. That’s why I was little confused, I guess. After that I was like what am I going to do, seems like my plan won’t work. What should I do, I don’t know what to do! And finally, I just let it go, it is what it is. If they’re meant to be mine, then they will.”

“You seemed as if you were in a freestyle battle. You prepared a routine but they dropped the wrong music”

“Yes! I was like half giving up on the freestyle.”

“You ended up having more choreographer in your team, was it something different from what you expected?”

“Oh hey, it’s actually not that bad! haha something like that. I told Huang Xiao I would be inviting him, Gaigai, Wang Tao all together, and they said yes. I didn’t know in the beginning that Huang Xiao also liked me. I just told him ‘I really like you, please wait for me’. I only knew after his interview that he praised me for my dancing.”

“His work with Qiao Zhi is really…”

‘Savour tea, savour life.’

“Oh? Are you from the same place as Qiao Zhi?”

“No, I’m just imitating him. ‘Savour tea, savour life.’”

“Wow that’s exactly the same. Even your tone is the same. ‘Savour tea savour life’”

“That ‘Twin’ performance was amazing, were you involved with the planning? Or did you let them take care of it entirely? How did they come together? How did Huang Xiao think about teaming up with a BBoy?”

“Yin and Yang. I proposed the theme, Yin and Yang. And I separated them into the power group and a gentler group. They worked together quite well, so they just kept teaming up since then.”

Huang Xiao ang Qiao Zhi is kind of like Zhang Jianpeng and Xiao Jie, the perfect two.

In the history of street dance, BBoy has usually been that one design to make the performance standout, and then they would usually disappear to the back. We rarely see any performances that has a focus on BBoy.

“So this time when Huang Xiao and Qiao Zhi teamed up…”

“They have such a strong ‘ship’ isn’t it? You like that performance of them don’t you?”

Wait, hold on, what did you say? Ship what?

“Among your team members, is there anyone that you have a strong impression of?”

“Huang Xiao don’t talk much, I usually recommend some music for him. He usually will have his own judgements and opinion on them. I actually really enjoyed those Chinese style performances that they made. I’m usually okay with all the Chinese style performances. I would still give them some opinions, if there was any. They were all pretty good, in the end, the competition was theirs.”

“Qiao Zhi, he’s even younger than me, but he’s having such a Zen life. Through his texts and our conversation, it seems like he’s been through a lot. No wonder it feels really different being around him, he’s very mature.”

I think the best part is that all the dancers from He Xing Wu Qi see me as their friend.”

If we go back to ten years ago, that ‘no-actually-use dance club vice president’ from a Changsha middle school probably could never imagine such an encounter at the age of 29, with those dancers he saw us ‘cool guys and gals’.

“After participating in the show this year, what is your impression about street dance community?”

“They’re very loyal friends, they respect talents, and take friendships very seriously. They’re very real. Some of them, like Teng Zai, are also sensible. We have so many people in He Xing Wu Qi, like Apple, she’s a assertive choreographer, and sometimes very stubborn, just like myself. She also has her own charm when she does dancehall, and Wei Lin also, she has a bright future ahead of her. Her moves and coordination, balance and aesthetic, are all very good.”

Beside the birthday party they threw for me, my strongest memory would be our rehearsals. Everyone has put in a lot of effort to bring the audience the perfect stage for “Descendant of the Dragon.”

About Krump, and what comes next

“In my opinion, it might not be correct, you’re a little stubborn, always hiding the things inside and a bit stressed sometimes, but you need a way to release your pressures. You don’t usually pick up a dance type randomly. You must have felt that the moves are suitable, and you just naturally been attracted. When you are practicing, it is not simply for the sake of practicing, you actually want to find a way to release.

“Sounds like it! Yes, that is the way that I express myself. Practicing dance sometime is quite simple, you just need to follow your routine, and that’s it. It’s just a little bit tired, but when you feel tired, you won’t need to think too much, but it’s still too tired…”

“I have some practicing clips; do you want to have a look?”

“Yes, sure.”

And next, please imagine a 1-minute clip that can be named as ‘Late night, road side, semi naked, krump.avi’

“It’s just a pure arm swing practicing, that was the last round. I actually have practiced many rounds before that, just practiced with one song at a time.” (He proudly scrolled down dozens of clips from his phone album.)

“When did you start to think about promoting Krump? Why did you want to do that?”

“Because that’s what I promised Trix. I told Trix that I will help him promote Krump if he comes teach in China.”

“So it was actually a deal? *laugh*”

‘Because to ask him to give up on his works in Korea and come to China directly, he would be worried that I’m a scammer.’

‘Why?’

“Of course, he worried about it. It’s quite normal, he was probably thinking if I was messing with him”

“Because as an artist, many people will feel that you are hold a high-income job so that you are not a reliable person. Actually, it’s not true, I really hope that you can teach me about it, and I will help you promote it. And now, I think I’ve done the deal. Haha.”

“What do you want people to know about Krump?”

“Krump is a dance that might looks violent, but it’s not”

“It actually the type of using your body language such as Arm Swing, Storm, Chest Pop or some connecting grooves to present how the power going through every move. I hope that people won’t have too many misunderstandings or hostilities towards it. Actually, krumping can be really dope, and…it can match any musical style. Like for the battle, I used Krump for four songs. You just need to listen to more music and practice more. But I still hope that everyone can practice Breaking more, to join the Olympics Game.”

‘Right, that reminds me that you are the promoting ambassador, you need to promote it every time.’

‘Yes, it’s a routine, including learning other dance types. Chinese street dance and dancers are getting stronger, I hope that I can see their wonderful dancing on the formal competitions.

I also hope that everything I will be doing for Chinese street dance promotion can be supported by everyone, and street dance can be more widely recognized, loved and highly participated.’

“Let’s talk about how your experience has been with practicing Krump”

“Krump takes time, you got no other choice. Even if it’s just that one move, you have to keep doing it several times to grasp the feel of it. I’m sure that I have improved even more than when you guys saw me in the battle, I think. But you gotta ask Trix to see if that’s the case. But it takes time, that’s for sure. You can’t just say ‘I get it’. You can get the theory behind it, you have to. But you have to understand and try every single move, imitate that feeling. But everything takes time.”

Before “Street Dance of China” finale, Lay has released a poster, for a competition.

The competition is quite interesting.

First of all, this is a pure underground street dance competition, the judges are the top dancers in Chinese street dance industry. And it also features MPC, the last time I’ve seen it in the street dance competition was Winkey in R16 few years ago.

The competition has two parts: freestyle and routine dance, which is quite standard.

Unlike other normal underground competitions, Lay Zhang is on the judge list.

It must be the first time that a top artist being involved in the underground competition official announcement, especially as a judge of the competition.

This year, we’ve heard a lot of people coming into the studios and asking that ‘I want to learn that…the dance that Lay Zhang did it before’. Although it might sound a little utilitarian, but Krump in China has never had such a great opportunity in any moments of last ten years like right now. There are so many people getting to know this dance, paying attentions to it and being involved in it.

“Give me some more time, I got many things to do recently. Once I set up my Krump crew, I will promote it to the public. I just need more time.”

“Are you like a team or something?”

“This is for teacher, not a studio, it’s only for coaching teachers. I will invite those good dancers to come, I would have to practice it anyway. I will be able to coach some young dancers and have them practice together. If they can do it well, they can potentially be good teachers.”

“Because Krump is still in the very early stage in China, many people want to learn it, but we have very few dancers that purely do Krump. We must have a group to master it first, then they’ll be able to share their skills with others.”

“It is getting better, trust me, everything is getting better than before.”

Time flew and we didn’t even notice we had been talking for 1 hour already.

Unlike the artist image in the front of the camera, sitting in front of me at that moment was a version of Lay that was relaxed and real. And such an ‘eight-grader’ (chunibyo) when he talks

If it wasn’t for the pandemic, he might have already worn a Xiang Yu mask and joined a round of Krump battles oversea.

The most impressive part is, when I asked him why he wants to promote Krump, I was expecting that he would say something beautifully drafted and official, but he just straight up told me he had a deal with Trix.

You know that feeling when you wanted to find fancy words to add on but couldn’t.

“Ok, last question, if you have a chance to pick again, do you want to be the captain or candidate?”

“The candidate.”

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Original interview by NeedAYeah via WeChat

Translation by XingTweetTRANS