How defeat doesn’t declare an end, it echoes opportunity

Suavé & the Hip Hop ConnXion

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable…Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Passion is a word that is almost solely used in context with love in everyday language. The world I came from often used the word “passion” when it came to an insatiable desire to pursue the thing you loved whole-heartedly, never ceasing, until you have perfected your craft. A career in dance was never usually the goal, it was the LIFE in dance that you aimed toward. It was a life on a stage, a life to teach others, and a life to share it with others. And passion becomes inevitably compatible with inspiration. This is essentially how I learned how they come hand in hand.

Suavé, the man known by a single name is native to the UK and came here in pursuit of a soccer dream. This is only slightly ironic considering that the last 17 years as the Executive Director and Founder of Hip Hop ConnXion, has built a reputation in dance that stretches the globe. And although he had formed a crew with friends in England, he says, “in England soccer is always the first passion. Because soccer is the biggest sport in the world.” America may not know this to be true, but that is indeed a fact.

Suavé is responsible for four branches of Hip Hop ConnXion that includes a company in Aurora and Wheeling, IL known as HQ and/or the Elite team, the downtown HHC branch, another located at the Indiana University campus, and lastly Kalamazoo, Michigan. HHC also also sub-companies, an intermediate team he calls Hip Hop Force and currently on hiatus is the under 12 group, Future Force. He is responsible for training dancers that have appeared in music videos and film. He has also trained vocalists and choreographed for artists like Jesse Schramm (ABC’s Nashville), entertains as a solo DJ or as an emcee/entertainer with A-Z Entertainment. He also produces the annual The One Showcase where he brings in dance companies from Chicago and abroad and has been known to dabble in some dramatic plays using dance and co-directs promotional dance videos. Aside from teaching classes around the area, he also hosts workshops all over the country and internationally having been to places like Norway, Trinidad and Tobago and Colombia (to name a few). He was once part of Total Entertainment as an entertainer and also Culture Shock Chicago as an Artistic Director. There was even a time where I saw him train models on how to walk a runway properly. This man knows no ends and is one of the most well-known Directors of hip-hop dance in the Chicago area. He has led his teams to various competitions with the highest acclimations being at Hip Hop International, often held in the West Coast. There, hip-hop teams compete both regionally and internationally. HHC has taken awards a number of times, the best being 2^nd in the USA and 4^th in the World through the adult division, and 1^st in the USA and 2^nd in the World in the varsity division.

For someone who knows no bounds he often has HHC test the limits.

Truth be told, overnight success is not how this came to be.

His dreams of pursuing soccer to some degree in the United States, were almost immediately met with obstacles after facing two knee surgeries and back and forth travel from America to England. “By the second time I had surgery, I had already been out of soccer for a year. And in England once you’re injured, there is a waiting list of people ready to take your place.” The hardship didn’t end there. “I got here in 1995 with Camp Counselors USA so I didn’t have to pay for the summer I was here,” he continues, “I showed up at O’Hare airport and I was supposed to stay with some people, and it turns out that one of them had mono and I couldn’t move in.” With having so few connections he went through a short list of 20 phone numbers he had on hand until the very last person said he could stay for a few weeks. This would continue on for months, crashing couches, staying in spare bedrooms, and some months would be spent sleeping in his car. For work he started as an entertainer for a local DJ company paying him “under the table” working weekend gigs and continued the pursuit in becoming a soccer coach.   Suavé would eventually learn that an individual couldn’t be a soccer coach without the proper credentials from a college or university. In his words, “I’m from England. I’m from one of the best teams in the world. Why do I need certificates if American players suck?!” As fate would have it (and it often does), an opportunity as a dance teacher arose at Studio Two. Here he would find committed students wanting to do something more than just take class.

Suavé’s dance style resonates a vintage style that had regularly been seen in street hip hop films from the 70’s and 80’s. His choreography is often reminiscent of films like Breakin’ or Beat Street with elements of pop, locking, isolations, with a flavor of house. This may all sound like a foreign language, but the key is to visualize Turbo and Ozone with a flair of Fred Astaire. All of which he draws inspiration from. Suavé’s arrival in the states was not considered to be a monumental time in hip hop music. 1995 was a tail-end of gangsta rap with songs like “Gangstas Paradise,” or relevant artists like Ice Cube, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, and Goodie Mob. In order to better transcend a classic style to a more modern environment, Suavé often used R&B and Dance artists popular in England to bring another flavor to the states. However, he didn’t shy away from old school hits from Earth, Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan, or even into a rougher street sound like DMX.

The owner of Studio Two, which had become the main hub of where Suavé taught hip hop classes and home of the HHC, was considering selling the business. And with Suavé wanting to keep his commitment to his students, he would be the one to purchase it. He took on the challenge so “the kids would have a place to stay.”

As he became involved with the successes of running a reputable dance company that would help feed the attention of the dance studio he obtained, he would still face the difficulties of what it meant to balance these things. “At the time I thought that was smart thinking, but I didn’t know how much was involved into running the studio. It was predominantly hip hop and most studios don’t run that way but I had a strong enough hip hop program. I realized it was too hard to maintain the studio because I was traveling a lot. In order to run a studio I needed to put 95% of my time into it. For most of the 10 years I owned it I never paid myself. How I got by was by being a DJ at night clubs, still doing the DJ entertainment thing with A-Z and Total Entertainment.” Also happening around the same time was differences between the artistic directors, “the biggest frustration was when my director left and started his own company and half my dancers went with him and half my dancers stayed with me…and that was probably the most difficult part in the life of the company. The hardest time of my existence. It felt like a betrayal…” When the surprise came that one of his key directors would exit the company, he found a silver lining, “it also showed me that I could run a company even if I lost my best people because I was training future leaders with hip hop force and future force. That was our biggest accomplishment. I didn’t want to focus on the negative. Most of the dancers that left ended up contacting me to apologize for everything that happened.” He spoke of how he needed to share with the team how he lost a director, but that it wasn’t a matter of avoiding contact altogether, it was about continuing with the message that is embedded in the Hip Hop ConnXion.

It started as just a dance class for 12 to 15 year olds to have an opportunity to regularly perform. Suavé would use his connections through Total Entertainment and Culture Shock Chicago to make that a reality. It was in March of 1999 when he formed Hip Hop ConnXion in the hopes of giving kids an opportunity to pursue a dream while giving him a new one to value. Later, after achieving awards and acknowledgement from the dance community, the mission of HHC became one of inspiration. It reads:

Our Future Is Here Today

The survival of dance rests on the shoulders of our youth.

Teach them well and our future will be strong.

You can choose to start educating tomorrow,

or you can choose to start educating now.

We choose to start now!

Since 2000, the HHC had worked with a number of affiliates that worked with youth outreach performing workshops and school assemblies for at-risk youth. With the reputation that the team had been building, HHC became a well-known entity among youth in the Chicago area. As the team stands now over 17 years later, Suavé reflects on his surprise on the way the company has sustained so many years. “I never looked at it as it becoming a business. I never looked that far into the future. But I kept holding auditions and people kept coming.”

The goal of Hip Hop ConnXion never deviated from the mission statement over time, in fact, the goal only became further elaborated to reflect the achievements that both Suavé and HHC have internalized:

-To carry across the positive message of dance and movement.

Dance and movement is an important part of expressing yourself. Set yourself free. Dance for the world. Dance for YOU!

-Stay away from the negative influences of drugs

Drugs are the obstruction to a clear mind. Be strong and wise enough to “Just Say No!” In order for the world to grow healthy it must remain drug-free. It starts from the children. Keep them clean and they will grow to spread the word, and eventually help to educate the next generation on the harmful effects of drugs in our communities.

-Education is fundamental

Education is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to wisdom. Be wise, stay in school and go as far as you can to achieve your potential. Knowledge is the most powerful tool in the world. Make it yours!

-Believe in yourself and you will achieve your dreams. All dreams CAN be reached!

Be confident in who you are and all you do. Know who you are inside and believe in yourself. You can do ANYTHING you put your mind to. If you believe, you can succeed.

A final thought that I have forever claimed in life that came from my mentor, “It’s not about who you beat, but who you inspire.”

Suavé is very matter-of-fact. As I listen to his story, I imagine the struggle and likely the emotional setback someone goes through meeting every kind of bump in the road. Most often than not, when people share this kind of burden, whether or not its in their past, you can read it on their faces the pain they endured. I’ve never known Suavé to be like that. Not emotionless, but rather a personification of one of his most overused statements, “it is what it is.” “One of the biggest things with me is with having to be a leader you have to lead by example. Its not about the difficulties you have its about how you handle them. Tomorrow gives me another chance to be better. I try not to let too much get me down.”

Looking back on the way my dance experience started, it wasn’t until I met Suavé that the thing that I loved doing served a bigger purpose. However, I wouldn’t know what that was until a few years into my time as a Hip Hop ConnXion dancer. It was the embodiment of utilizing my passion to inspire other. And even now as I watch new blood perform on the stage with this company, its evident what draws them to perform as well as they do. It’s in this time that you learn what true leadership is.