My usual dance partner in the era of high-energy, Hip-Hop dance (think Kid-n-Play, Scoob & Scrap Lover) was Andre Perry. On this day, he had some kind of indoor track event, so I had to do this with the homie Shawn Mooney. He often added some extra beats between actual beats in his head, so I was hopeful we’d tamp those things down with some choreography and a few days of practice. We had a routine nailed down before auditions and couldn’t wait until our turn to do so.
Auditions: The auditorium was packed as almost everyone at Peabody thought it be a good idea to participate in the talent show. There were singers, dancers, rappers, a rock band, a comedian and a poet. “Next!”, Mark C yelled, and then we hit the stage. Our rapper, the Brooklyn born and raised, Drayton “Secret D” Jackson. He grabbed the mic and ripped it for a second with some reggae. He then stops the music. He then introduced us, Step by Step, and we did our dramatic intro and then the audience at the auditions went wild. We continued our routine for a minute and then we did a complex move where Shawn would quickly pull me up to then jump over him. He pulled too hard… I jumped too high and went off the stage and tumbled… I kept running out the auditorium, embarrassed.
We made the cut anyway and tightened up our routine for the actual show the next day. Just recently Mark C made the video available and I’ve posted only a minute of so of our performance below.
