Spoiler Alert: Les Twins Workshop Not Worth It
“Who is beautiful here?”
Laurent, one half of the infamous dance duo, Les Twins, shouts at his half of the class mid-way between sessions of intense focus. Some are bold enough to raise their hands.
“THANK YOU!”
Rewind.
I’m late, but it doesn’t matter — the line is halfway down the block at quarter past deadline. I ain’t even mad about it. This is the Dance Economy, where artists really can make a living off of what they love. Don’t be mad at the line proving it — be excited that it’s possible for dancers to make a living on their own terms instead of as a backup dancer. Okay, maybe that’s not 100% true, but close enough to keep me inspired.
I feel like I just stepped into a hip-hop show meets political candidate rally, but without the microphones, the stage, the lighting or that familiar green smell in the air (I’m lookin’ at you, Republicans). The energy in the crowd of ~60 dancers that each paid 60 dollars, not to mention the additional ~30 that also paid 60 dollars just to watch, was through the roof. The hum of anxious chatter in the crowd, awkward sound checks, rampant fanboy’ism and smiles everywhere as warm-up time mostly consists of eyes dead-focused on every movement Les Twins are making. Or rather, focused into their cell phones, recording every movement. And they’re not even dancing at this point. You thought Gen Y was attention deficit? Teachers need to be taking lessons from these guys on how to HOLD ATTENTION, because it’s a skill they’ve mastered and then some.
Okay fine, enough backstory. Enough trying to build a literary atmosphere to bring you into the room and feel the feels you want to feel, but are too anxious to read on or are too disappointed you missed out on.
Let’s get to the goods.
“What cool moves did you learn?”
Here’s the reality of the situation. I’ve been dancing over half my life (comin’ up on 30 if you were wondering, and yes, living in an East Oakland bunkbed with 4 other roommates so you know I’m a life success). I’ve never seen a move from Les Twins that I couldn’t do. Now hold up, before you go get defensive on me, I’m not sayin’ I actually would do them, could time them to music nearly as well or could create them without the need for mimicry. I’m just sayin’ I’m not gonna pay 60 dollars to learn five 8-counts of choreography I could’ve just as easily slowed down from Youtube to copy at my leisure.
If you want the point of why this workshop is not worth it for most people, re-read that last line. If you paid 60 dollars for five 8 counts, you missed out on the value of the workshop.
If you want to know why I went and what was actually valuable in the workshop, keep reading.
Crowd Control
Remember that line I mentioned at the start of this adventure? It was really a line. Not a mob of people in the street. And remember how I mentioned it was long AF? We blazed through it once the doors officially opened because of the quality of coordination and ticket handling done by two dedicated women at the door, each with a searchable list of participants looking to get their names checked and their hands X’d as soon as possible. Not a fucking piece of paper with 100 names chicken scratched into it!
Remember that hip-hop show vibe I mentioned? There was even a DJ.
Okay…no turntables or mixer, but the essentials were there — a dedicated person to running the music of the event. Not Les Twins running their tracks back in the middle of choreo, wasting time, but a person who had a specific job. That’s not to say there was no time wasted in the ADD track selection process towards the beginning…but once it got sorted it was smooth sailing and the Twins could focus on the students instead of the logistics.
Speaking of logistics.
How the hell are 2 guys going to manage to teach a group of 60 dancers in a tight space with no elevated platform, microphones or projection system?
- How are they going to keep all of their attention for over an hour?
- How are they going to handle half the class not even being able to see them?
- The cameras rolling? The parents watching? The pressure of being known as the best and having to deliver with a smile, all while actually being the best?
This is why I came. These are the questions I paid 60 dollars to have answered by the pros. This is where my note-taking began.
Format
At some point Laurent says what every street dance instructor says while they’re teaching choreography to a class. At some point they try to be really real with it and cater to the frustrations of their audience. At some point they crack and reveal the truth.
“I hate choreography!”
It’s my personal opinion that Les Twins are the best street dance choreographers in the world right now. Yet they claim to hate it and then teach using it? Well, that sucks, because contrary to popular belief, choreography is not the only way to teach dance! In fact, I’d call it the absolute LAZIEST way. Monkey see, Monkey do. Make up moves on the fly and have people follow along. I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna be treated like a monkey.
If you’ve never experienced a dance lesson that wasn’t founded in choreography, come take a class with me in Oakland for free and see how high your standards are afterwards.
Now I’m not here to hate on choreography. I’m terrible at it and could never keep up with the insanely dense, musically pin-point-accurate sequences that Les Twins come up with and can repeat with layers of variation, emotion and character shifting. It’s a weak link in my chain that I’m trying to get better at and it’s an insanely potent tool in a dancer’s arsenal to build performances and collaborate with partners. But to teach with? Nope.
Dance can be taught through verbal lecture, through visual diagrams, through musical analysis, collaborative interaction, game play, conceptual dissection, socratic method, critical scrutiny and dozens of more methods and combinations of these methods.
Many of which leave a student with an experience and an understanding and something to take home, chew on and grow from. Many of which cannot simply be seen on Youtube, slowed down, copied, digested and shat out like a blurb of choreography made up on the spot with minimal effort can be.
“We don’t know what we’re going to teach yet.” -Larry
But damn, it wasn’t all bad, was it?
Not by a long shot. Larry and Laurent had massive amounts of engagement throughout. Attention and enthusiasm was high and the duo had plenty of tricks up their sleeves to keep it that way. These are some of the things I noticed (and I’m sure I missed more) that could easily be reworked by other dancers and teachers to appeal to their audiences better.
- Bangin’ music. (Appeal to Pathos)
- Baby kissing. (Appeal to Ethos)
- High quality dancing. (Appeal to Logos)
- Cipher at the end. (Appeal to cultural tradition)
- Photos with fans afterwards. (This is just fucking classy!)
And again — the smiles. Men, women, children. Parents and grandparents. Everyone felt genuinely appreciative to have this great opportunity. If anything, I learned in this workshop that it’s more important to have people walk away with a good impression of the overall experience than to actually give them what they paid for. As Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Parts that straight pissed me off.
Let’s get down to the grit. No fluff. No fanboy’ism. Here are some WTF aspects I’m putting down in ink.
- Lack of microphones. When you’re talking to 100 people in a room packed with noise-making fans to keep people cool (A+ job on that by the way), you need to be louder than a yelling voice. Add a foreign accent on top of that? Yikes. Seriously guys, we want to hear what you have to say, but I’d wager 80% of the building missed out because of this issue. I know I did and I was towards the front.
- Off the cuff choreo. Okay fine, we’re learning through choreo. Status quo achieved. Good job. But at least have the decency to have something prepared. Something that some foresight has been put into that will teach the class a variety of motions that hook into deeper foundations (and maybe some explanation of that while we’re at it). “I’m feelin this move cuz of this sound” is a great way to freestyle and Les Twins are amazing at it, but it’s not a teaching method. Period.
- Outfit changes. I noticed halfway through and started counting. 7 outfit changes in 30 minutes from just 1 dude? Not every moment is a photo op. 60 students figured what was comfortable to dance in before the workshop started. Don’t waste their time while you decide what accessory matches your latest layer.
- Poor cipher etiquette. Over half the people standing in the inner circle of the cipher at the end of the workshop were mom’s with cell phone cameras. These people don’t understand cipher etiquette, but Les Twins, who were making it a point to run the cipher (and that’s appreciated, btw. Great way to end a workshop. Notes taken.), should know better and have dancers who actually want to participate on that inner ring instead of the cell phone paparazzi. “Move bitch, get out the way” works perfectly fine in the club of drunk 20 somethings to get into the circle, but I’m not trying to push my way past grandparents to get in on what should have been a cipher for the actual dancers there in the workshop.
EOD.
End of day — I’m 50/50 on this workshop. I got all of my needs met because I came in with expectations that weren’t in the travel brochure. I’m just wondering about the rest of the class, to be honest. Hoping to see some revisions in the next — but I’ll be there.
