Fly Dance Company: straight outta Houston, these riveting dancers bring hip-hop beats to the sounds of Stravinsky and B.B. King

Dance Magazine, July, 2004 by Christie Taylor

Four young men walk into the Ector County Coliseum in the West Texas oil town of Odessa, looking more like a bunch of street savvy guys than an up-and-coming dance company. In low-slung pants and do-rags, the members of Fly Dance Company draw stares as they enter to warm up for the evening's event, billed as a concert by the Midland-Odessa Symphony and Choral. In a few minutes, they will turn concertgoers' concepts of classical music--and hip-hop dancing--upside down.

Isaac Barron, George Casco, Javier Garcia, and Rock Williams have never performed to a live symphony before, and their nerves are slightly on edge. After stretching out and heading backstage to iron their costumes, they quietly join hands in a quick prayer before taking their places to dance.

Fly's concerts are a swift-moving mix of teamwork and solos. Although their first bandstands take the audience off-guard, the clapping eventually gets steadier and louder, especially for Williams' robotic movements. They build formations that require incredible strength, and feed off each other's high energy. After the performance is over, they greet fans and sign autographs.

Five years ago, three of Fly's members were still practicing hip hop in the halls of their suburban Houston high school. Today, they lock, pop, and spin on stages in cities all over the world, twenty-six weeks a year. Although audiences might initially wonder what hip isolations and head spins have to do with music by Stravinsky and B.B. King, the Fly dancers relish the opportunities to shatter hip-hop stereotypes.

"People looked down on us because we didn't have formal dance training, but they didn't know us," says Casco. "Now, we'll be at festivals or workshops with members of other companies like Paul Taylor 2, and they're asking us to show them stuff."

When Casco met Kathy Wood, a Houston choreographer, he and his friends finally got their opportunity to shine. Wood gradually recruited the dancers to form the current group. (Fly had an earlier incarnation.) Since then, they have endured sore wrists, aching necks, and battered knees. Still, they are working to make Fly a nationally known name. "It's important to us that we work hard," says Casco. "We've been through a lot to help build this."

Fly Dance Company has performed in Paris and at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. They are in demand for performances, workshops, and outreach activities all over the country. During the 2003/2004 season they traveled through more than 1 S states from Anchorage, Alaska, to Rutland, Vermont, in a season that included 7 workshops, 58 concerts, and 127 outreach activities.

Fly has a mission: They want to educate audiences about hip hop and make a positive impact on their community. "There is more to hip hop than rap music and graffiti," says Casco.

Part of Fly's appeal is their harnessed athleticism. Like ballet dancers pulling off extra pirouettes or loftier jumps, they strive to balance longer, spin better, or lift each other higher up into a formation. On tour, the foursome interact like brothers, fiercely protective of their makeshift family and acutely aware of each other's personality.

"We might blow up at someone, and three minutes later we're having fun," says Casco. "We don't hold grudges."

Enduring on-the-road hardships is made easier because they are passionate about what they are doing. They feel that if they can convince one student to dance instead of doing drugs, Fly Dance Company will have fulfilled its mission.

"We want you to experience the good parts of hip hop," says Williams. "We want you to see that even though it's a street culture, it's a culture for everyone."

Christie Taylor is a Houston writer.