Move - First Season

My name is Charles Riley, also known as Lil Buck.

I'm from Memphis, Tennessee.

And my predominant dance style is Memphis jookin.

One of my missions is to show the world that street dance is fine art.

I remember Buck coming up in high school.

Just some of the phenomenal things he was able to do, like with no training.

He was doing things that it would take ballet-trained dancers years to do.

Like, and they were doing this in Nikes and Reeboks and, like, just street shoes.

And the first time I saw him dance, I was like,

"This dude is like a beast. Like, what in the world? Who is he?"

I don't know how he do what he does.

I'm like, "Son, your body just... How do you do that?"

When I see him in different magazines, and they speak about him,

different articles, I would never would imagine that he would be this famous.

So, it's a honor to be his mom.

My name is Jonathan Smith. Also known as Jon Boogz.

I'm from Miami, Florida. I'm a movement artist and a popper.

I believe street dance is a fine art.

I believe it's not just a dance that comes from the ghettos of America.

I believe it has the power to go to the next level.

What's so outstanding about Boogz

and his movement is he's so methodical.

Even though he's moving, like, in these really fast animated ways,

and sometimes it's like, "Is this real? Like, is this in real time?"

Like, he just moves in this way that's just like, "Whoa!"

I realized Jonathan had a talent

when I first saw him jump up on a James Brown song.

And when I saw him doing the splits and turning around, I realized,

well... he's got some talent going on here.

The thing we have in common is the passion.

We both aspire to be legendary dancers.

We look at the legends, you know, Fred Astaire, Baryshnikov,

Gregory Hines, the Nicholas Brothers.

Even when we were struggling, and we were poor,

we still felt it's only a matter of time before we're... we're here.

We use movement.

When people see us on stage, they see the passion.

They see the love. They see the drive in our dance.

Me and Jon Boogz, we use dance as a tool to heal, you know, to heal deep wounds.

Wounds that go back since slavery.

I come from the streets. I was born in Chicago.

Uh, we moved to Memphis because my mother was going through some, uh...

domestic abuse with my stepdad. So, we had to get out of there.

When I was eight years old, we didn't have a lot of means.

I used to live in my grandmother's house in her basement.

He used to dance around the kitchen and spinning and...

while I was cooking. And I used to get on him and say,

"Boy, quit all that stuff."

And he was like, "Mom, this gonna get you a new car, a new house one day, so..."

He said, "Mom, I'm... Watch, I'm gonna show you.

I'm gonna be a star like... Just like that, I'm gonna be on stage.

You're gonna be seeing me on TV." I say, "Okay, son."

I was born in Philadelphia.

My mother had a previous relationship

where there was a lot of domestic violence, you know.

Um... She had a boyfriend that was very abusive.

And then when I turned ten years old, I moved to Miami, Florida.

For me, dancin' was always, uh... a coping mechanism.

Something that I could use to heal.

Something I could use to take my mind off things.

I've been dancing my whole life, you know.

I was imitating Michael Jackson and James Brown

since I was five, six years old.

My impressions when I see Jon dance

is that he's living my dream.

And by that, I mean, I always wanted to be a dancer.

But when I was growing up, I thought we didn't have money.

So, I didn't want to make my mother feel bad

if she couldn't afford to send me to dance lessons.

So, Jonathan never asked for dance lessons,

never even ever came up, but once I saw what he could do,

I'm like, "Wow, this guy is living what I always wanted to do."

So... when I see Jon dance, I, like...

It's like me living my dream. I see my dreams through him.

Their story is unique in that

they were able to escape a lot of what becomes the end

for a lot of African-American males in our country:

The drugs, the gangs, the violence.

There was a lot of violence, and you can see that.

So, a lot of us grew up fast.

The streets raised us just as much as our parents, mothers and our fathers did.

It was always two paths for Buck.

It was always that trajectory of the getting high,

and, in Memphis, that's... that's easy.

That life of petty crime, that life of delinquency,

and that was really the trajectory that he was on.

He really had to wrestle with, "Do I show up for this gig on time,

or do I get high and blow it and show up late?"

And I believe there were many times when he would show up to things high.

Growing up dancing in Miami, you had a lot of gang situations,

rival neighborhoods, neighborhoods that getting along, going to parties,

people get angry, start shooting up the party or...

You know what I mean? Things like that were very common.

I just always felt like I was different.

I was raised around a lot of gangs,

and, uh... a lot of my friends were in gangs.

So, yeah, there was temptation with that.

I grew up hanging around, basically affiliated with some of these gangs,

but I always had a different train of thought.

I always loved to move.

I was 13 years old, and it was actually the day in America

where the planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, 9/11.

So, we got out of school early, and I went to my friend's house, and he said,

"I have a tape of this guy named Mr. Wiggles."

And I was like, "Who's Mr. Wiggles?"

Like, "Dude, he's the best popper I've ever seen."

And then we go to my friend's house, and he pops the tape in.

And it was, like, I couldn't understand

how a human being could move their body like that.

And I said I have to learn how to do that.

I had my first culture shock in Memphis with jookin.

My mom used to drive around the neighborhood.

Me looking out the window seeing kids jook in the parking lots.

And I had no idea what this dance style was.

I was around 13, and I was just fascinated with this dance.

So, I would dance until my feet hurt, and I would keep going after that.

Just working on jookin, trying my best to learn this dance style.

I just really decided, "Okay, this is something that I want to master.

I want to be one of the best at this

because that style is just so beautiful to me."

From when I woke up, I was dancing washing my face,

to when I went to school gliding through the halls,

to when my mom went grocery shopping pushing the grocery,

gliding, to the moment I went home.

I would practice day and night, man.

I'd practiced this dance style,

and it wasn't until I went to the skating rink called Crystal Palace.

There was a guy with baggy jeans, gold teeth in his mouth.

This guy named Bobo gliding across the carpet like it was water.

And at that moment, it was magic to me.

It was one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen in my life.

And it just stuck with me forever.

Immediately, I knew this is what I wanted to do.

I wanna be a dancer. I wanna make this happen.

This is my dream. My dream is to be able to move like this.

And that's why I like to go back home and work with the kids there

because I knew how much it meant to me to be inspired

to that level to where nothing else mattered, and nothing can stop you.

-Y'all right? Crazy. -

-You good? You all right? -What's up?

-You all right? -Hell, yeah.

Good to see you, man.

All right.

Yeah.

Everybody, come on. Yeah.

Damn.

Yeah.

My momma had to move out because the house burned down, like, this accident.

I used to live right over there. And he had saved some of the pictures.

What's good, my man? Holla at me, man, let me know.

What's up? Y'all filming right now? T-sharp on the Memphis style, baby.

We do it big around here. Westwood, where we grow and lay our head.

You get paid, you get made.

Yeah. That's my, uh...

That's my auntie when she was young. Dang.

-We got these pictures, man. -Pictures old.

These are all the pictures you found, right?

Mm-hm. This Lil Buck was dancing.

He's dancing across the street. I say, "He gonna be somebody."

I used to bump on that junk.

Yeah. It finally went on me, but it's old school.

You know what I'm sayin'? I don't throw nothing away.

That's crazy.

This here. I want this one. Yeah, that's me right there.

Yeah, I cleaned those up as best I could.

It's the hood, baby. You know what I'm saying? Real in the feel, man.

Yeah. Man, I appreciate you keeping them though.

Man, it's all love, man. You know how we do.

-That's crazy. -

-You couldn't find that trophy? -Naw.

-Nah, that's all good. -I think it went to the, uh... junk yard.

Yes, man, hit the split.

The dice!

Buck had the opportunity to study ballet at a school in Memphis.

And one of the directors and the teachers wanting him to wear the attire

that is appropriate for ballet class, which included tights.

And that was just something Buck was not into,

just because in Memphis there's a rich culture of checking.

And so you will get checked if you do something like wear tights.

There was a lot of...

different reasons why I didn't want to wear tights.

It looked like I was gay, you know. I wasn't a huge homophobic,

but I was from the streets. And I was hanging out with gang members.

And I did have a certain aesthetic that I wanted to keep.

We would rehearse at this ballet dance studio called New Ballet Ensemble.

And the artistic director told me about wearing tights, so you can see the lines,

the lines of the legs,

so they know that you're doing the movements right.

And I told her, "I'll take class as long as I didn't have to wear tights."

So, I grew to love ballet.

I was curious to how they stood on their toes.

You know, in pointe shoes even though I never wore pointe shoes in my life.

The points of their toes so long

because I would see a lot of jookers do toe spins.

And they would go up on their toes in sneakers.

And I always wanted... I always liked that element of jookin.

So, I always wanted to know.

And I always had that curiosity as to...

How can I stand on my toes longer than anybody else?