FOOTWORK
BIOGRAPHY
Brian Green a.k.a. "Footwork," is a choreographer, teacher, and dancer, who began dancing at seven years old. He studied Tap, Jazz, Ballet, Modern, and African from Phil Black, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and Joffrey Ballet.
In 1978-80 he started to see dances around his church he went to with his family in Harlem, his mother did hustle, salsa, and some African dances, and his older brother did bboying and electric boogie. Electric boogie was NY's innovative dance that mixed and was inspired by things from California's crazes at the time called Locking and Popping. He choose Electric boogie (popping). Wanting to learn more, he went to the NYC underground scene between 1983-84. By the end of 1984, Brian understood and was a part of the Hip-Hop/club culture.
1984-1986, he found the Freestyle/loft and Club/house culture in Roseland, 4Ds, Paradise Garage, Tunnel, and other clubs in NY. 1986, he ran into two people: Damien and Mike, who started him on his journey in Clubbing ( a.k.a. " house dance"), in 87 a man named Spanky, and a man named Story, became his full inspirations for him to be immersed into the House culture/dancing. Those 4, and so many other dance inspirations in the clubs of NY, eventually spawned a unique and very fast footwork style in Brian that have him his name around the underground scene of NY and abroad.
Brian in his career has choreographed or danced with artists like Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefanie, Fergie, MYA, Foxy Brown, Missy Eliott, Salt-N-Pepa, Busta Rhymes, Barbara Tucker, EVE, Kraze, MAW (Masters at Work), and many more. In the last ten years, his teaching has focused on the history of dances in the Funk, Hip-Hop, and House culture, which he has spread through the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa. In these countries he has been a judge for countless dance contests, promoting the true art, culture, and essence of these dances! He was even a judge on So You Think You Can Dance in Singapore.
PUNKING/WHACKING/WAACKING!! No matter how it is spelled, it is an undisputed history that Brian Green a.k.a. " Footwork", brought notice back to this dance style that was not being seen world-wide anymore. The few that did know how to do it were to worn out by the enterTRAINment business, moved on to other things, or died of AIDS.
When Brian corrected a " street jazz" choreographer's choreography that did the dance wrong, by doing the correct movement in the choreography; which came from Waacking. All of it started. But at the same time, Brian was also in conversation with other club dancers about the style prior to this; but this just catapulted it. Again, it gives no respect to that choreographer, because again, that person did not know the style.
What was funny was the fact that many people asked Brian to teach the style immediately, and his response was, " I don't know that style or the history that well, so I don't have the right to teach it....let me check with the originals that I know of in this style first!!". He did was he said, and each one said a complete, " NO" to his offer.
But being a KUNG-FU movie buff, he just used an old trick of doing the dance wrong to create attention. Attention that he KNEW would get the older or near originals to come down and see what he was doing. He knew they would want to correct him, and maybe even diss him......but he also knew, they would have to TEACH to do that. So it worked and the dance style is here.