Meet Solrush
“ Dance was the only thing I was able to count on to support me mentally and emotionally. I live my life not for myself, but for my family and family only. Dance is one of the things that allows me to have a reason to live my life for myself. Since I discovered this, my bond with dance has only become stronger and still continues to grow up to this very day. Whether I become well known or not is completely irrelevant to me. From now until the day my body can no longer move, it will forever be just me and the music. ”
Growing up I was a quiet kid. Very shy and unpopular; although I never had a hard time making friends. As a child, I would spend a lot of my free time watching cartoons and playing video games. Drawing became my first passion and talent around this time in my life. My first encounter with dance came during a time in my middle school life when making music was my main interest. One day while my friend and I were making our music together, I saw him do an arm wave and glide like Usher. To me, just those two moves made him look like a professional. So of course, I would try and do the same but he was always better. Then one night during our middle school homecoming, I saw him enter a dance circle and go all out doing moves I would have never imagined he could do. To me it was so cool, but still I wanted to be good in music more than dance so I would never really practice dance.
I ended up moving away at the end of my middle school life having to start over making new friends in high school. Once again it was homecoming night of my sophomore year in high school. I had seen this one particular friend of mine take out a pair of glow sticks and starts to do a dance still know as "raving". Again, I was blown away. Come to find out this friend of mine, who also shared a passion in music, could dance as well. Still music stayed my main focus. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that this same friend from homecoming suggested we dance for the high school talent show. This was when I was introduced to bboying or breaking (Breakdance). Literally knowing absolutely nothing about this style of dance, my friends taught me the basics step by step. I managed to learn enough to do the talent show successfully. After that experience was when dancing took its place in my life. I discovered that I was able to express myself way better than I did doing music. I was addicted.
Shortly after graduating high school I continued to practice breaking trying to keep up with a couple of my friend who was already experienced. This was around the time I went to my first jam and saw a battle live, which made me even more ambitious. Then I was introduced to another person who was soon to be one of my best friends. He taught me how to freestyle dance. I enjoyed it but I was better at breaking at this time so I stayed focused on that. Eventually I started to enjoy freestyling more and more. All of my friends and I started watching crews like the Jabbawockees and Kabba modern from America' Best Dance Crew and a hand full of other individuals with similar styles. This was the birth of my first dance crew "The last Soul benders”. I was in my late teens/ early twenties around this time. I was soon dealing with the new discovery of what it’s like in the working world and every day hustle of life. I was trying to make ends meet and this was the biggest distraction from my dancing. During this time, there were so many ups and downs and I would be on and off with dance all together for about five years straight.
It was the early 2014 when I decided to take dance extremely seriously. My original crew was broken up due to their individual life journeys. I discovered how precious dance was and what it truly meant to me. Most because around this time because of the things going on in my personal life. Dance was the only thing I was able to count on to support me mentally and emotionally. I live my life not for myself, but for my family and family only. Dance is one of the things that allows me to have a reason to live my life for myself. Since I discovered this, my bond with dance has only become stronger and still continues to grow up to this very day. Whether I become well known or not is completely irrelevant to me. From now until the day my body can no longer move, it will forever be just me and the music.
The location I chose is important to me because of how it came into my life. It is a location I use to work at with a set up that just so happened to be secluded enough and just the right amount of space for me with 24/hr access. A place provided for me when I wasn't able to get a space for myself to practice my dance. This spot gave me a haven to go so that I can continue to be the person I strive to be.
