When I was little, I cried a lot, so “for protection” my grandmother gave me a golden medallion, engraved with a thousand-armed Buddha. My mom explained to me that the many limbs signify how powerful the Buddha is because, as she put it, “When you have more hands, you can do more stuff.”
As I spent my adolescent years learning how to BBoy (break dance) I was constantly thinking about the limitations of my body and how I could remove those limitations, allowing me to do impossible moves such as a floating headspin or five armed stall. Through my study of various photographic techniques, I finally learned a method that would make the moves that I saw in my mind a visual reality. Through the magic of photo, I could carry out those impossible moves, therefore freeing myself of the limitations of my own body.
Naturally, this was something that I just had to share with my friends.
The BBoy Monsters series is the result of the collaborative efforts between myself and my dancer friends. Together, by taking a base move or stance and combining it with multiple variations, we build an image that further exaggerates each dancer’s signature moves, poses, and/or characteristics.
This body of work is my way of giving back to the BBoy community, and is meant to empower BBoys by encouraging them to tell their own stories. This is my story of BBoying, and I have chosen to tell it through a visual language. While I see this dance as a beautifully surreal and superhuman art form, I am most interested in the stories that other dancers have yet to tell.
