Breaking
Breaking
Mike Song talks about finding his confidence and the future of dance
Out of all his big moments, which one has meant the most to him? And what's next?
Are you ready? Mike Song is about to takeoff. Mike is a co-founder and leader of the dance crew Kinjaz. His crew has been a huge moving force in the dance world, they competed and finished second on season 8 of America's Best Dance Crew. Their collective mission is to innovate, entertain and make positive impacts in the world through dance. We got to spend some time with Mike and learned about his teaching style, how he's grown and what he thinks about the future of dance.
Red Bull: How old were you when you started dancing and was it the only thing you wanted to do?
Mike: I started dancing when I was 15. I’ve always kind of joked around dancing, like imitating Michael Jackson when I was super young. But I never thought it was going to be my career, I just didn’t even think it was possible at the time. I just never thought I could pursue dancing. I started dancing around middle school, high school time and it was a slow journey to becoming a dancer.
You brought up Michael Jackson, was he a big inspiration of yours? How did you get so into dancing as a passion?
Michael Jackson was the most accessible for me, but in terms of what actually got me obsessed over dancing was actually K-pop. K-pop in the 2000 era and before was much different than K-pop now. They’re kind of a reflection of where global dance culture is. K-pop at the time, a lot of the singers were break dancing or popping. They’d be singing their verse and then they’d get down to the floor and bust a windmill or bust a wave, so I just thought it was super cool. At that time, I was never really seeing any Asians on any kind of TV or anyone who looked like me, so that was more relatable to me at the time. That kind of led me down a rabbit hole on Napster and I found Mr. Wiggles. When I found Mr. Wiggles’ website, that opened up a huge rabbit hole for me in terms of falling in love with dance and practicing by myself.
Growth is essential when it comes to being creative. How has your style evolved throughout the years?
I would say my style has become a lot more genetic. In my earlier years, I was obsessed with a lot of visuals. And the visual stimulation I got when I created something. Over time, and where I’m at right now, I’m so much more about the gratifying thing like dancing. And just feeling my own personal flow and listening to what my body wants to do. To stay passionate about something for this long, you have to really find ways to rekindle your love. You got to try new things. At this point, it’s very different than how I enjoyed dance years ago.
The spotlight shines on Mike during class in Houston
© Maria Jose Govea / Red Bull Content Pool
With so much competition in the dance community, how do you find your confidence?
When I first began, I was honestly obsessed with being "different." And now, as much as I think originality is so important, also just realizing that sometimes it’s okay to just express how you feel. You’re also just connecting with people. Dance is communication at the end of the day and you never know just what you’re doing at the time, how that can connect with someone. That’s now where I’ve evolved to, personally I enjoy the process of connection and that aspect of dance. Don’t get it twisted, it’s still important to be original! But I also find a lot it within my crew now. I find confidence with my crew to keep each other on our toes as well. I think friendly competition with peers is something that always breeds improvement. That’s a way I feel like I’m always on my toes, I’m always creating with the other guys.
It was a group of buddies in college just joking around, it’s evolved beyond a brotherhood.
You and your crew are super close. How would you describe your relationship with the Kinjaz?
It’s in our names, Kinjaz comes from kin. So straight up there are 40 guys in the crew, it’s evolved so much now. It was a group of buddies in college just joking around, it’s evolved beyond a brotherhood. We have our retreats, go camping, a lot of the guys don’t even dance anymore but it’s still this club per say. It’s evolved even further because there’s a company attached to it, obviously it’s not all guys anymore. Whether its women who work with us, to wives in our families, to kids – it’s just evolved to a whole other thing. The concept of calling it a brotherhood is where it started from, but it’s becoming this arcing concept because we have to evolve and it’s just life telling us where to go. We’re really a family. Kids running around the studio, wives are helping, and there are women who are making crazy improvements to our company we couldn’t have done on our own.
You’ve had a lot of big moments, but has there been a defining moment for you? A performance or moment that has stayed with you the most throughout the years?
I would say when it comes to Kinjaz, it would be our first performance. Our first performance wasn’t even this crazy commercial success or anything of that nature. It was literally just supposed to be a one-time project. I was already full blown in my professional dance career at that time. We wanted to bring a bunch of friends together. We did a bunch of stupid stuff on stage, we drank alcohol on stage, we put a bunch of our friends from college in our performance just so they can get free tickets. We just listed what we wanted to do on stage, and we didn’t prioritize – let’s just do us and have fun with it. After that performance, we got a standing ovation. We were so shocked. That's kind of what sparked us on our journey to be like "hey maybe this shouldn’t be a one-time thing. Let’s kind of see how far this can go." Regardless of all the giant national stages and TV or whatever, I still don’t have a performance that trumps that one.
Mike gets front and center for a portrait
© Carlo Cruz/Red Bull Content Pool
What about any personal moments or project outside of the crew?
At the end of last year, me and my wife choreographed for the world opening ceremony for the finals of league of legends in Paris. That was a different kind of moment for me because my wife is also a choreographer as well, but we just never worked on anything professionally collaboratively. That was an opportunity that we got to work together as husband and wife on such a large-scale project. It was a pivotal moment we got to experience. I feel like I’ve reached the pinnacle of family artistry with Kinjaz, but through that – I reached a whole new level of family artistry being able to do it with my wife. It just goes to show you never know where the journey of life can take you.
Can you share a bit of your creative process? How do you make decisions as an instructor?
I start off with my intentions. Anytime I create anything, it starts with who is it for. What do I want to teach? That helps me figure out how I’m going to create. Dance is communication and I need to know who I’m communicating to in order to organize my vernacular. From there, I choose what part of myself I want to continue to share.
I’ve very transparent when I teach. I feel like I’m letting my students know where I’m at in life, always. I feel like that helps us get on the same page. And also listening and paying attention to the environment that you’re in. As a young teacher, I made the mistake sometimes as being so prepared. "This is how my class is going to go. This is how it needs to be."
Mike Song poses for a photo at Red Bull BC One Camp
© Carlo Cruz/Red Bull Content Pool
How do you feel about the future of dance and where it is headed?
I think it’s really encouraging. It’s really easy to be discouraged by change and there’s a lot of things you can analyze and pick apart of what’s wrong with certain things. But I feel like the world is getting a better understanding of dance at this exact moment. That’s more than I could ever ask for in all my years in dance. The hardest thing is getting people to understand our world. It could be a commercial setting where a lot of times they don’t understand dance and can be like “hey can you change that that that and that.” They don’t realize how hard it is to change that, people think you just wake up and dance. With things like Tik Tok or whatever social media, there are obvious cons to it. But if I choose to look at the pros, I’m also realizing that the world is dancing. And any dancing that the world is getting introduced to means that they’re getting an overall understanding that dance is elevating in the world. If that’s the case, that’s going to give more dancers more opportunities.
Do you agree that dance is universal?
For sure. I’ve seen it first-hand. When I teach overseas internationally and there are a bunch of people from different countries all in one room who don’t speak the same language, but can all communicate via dance and have the same reaction to a moment, that’s where I feel like it’s more powerful than verbal language.
What do you think the dance community needs more of to continue its growth?
I think more than ever, dancers are being viewed as artists. And that’s still something that’s relatively new because we’ve always been known as service artists. For creating with another artist’s vision in mind. Now more than ever, it’s up to the dance artists of this generation to continue to create for themselves. To figure out ways to elevate an art form along with the structure and platform where we’re able to share our art. That’s how we’re going to be expand the playing field for the entire art form.
Mike Song leads a workshop in Houston
© Kien Quan / Red Bull Content Pool
You’ve worked with a lot of awesome artists, but do you have any favorite artists you’ve created for that’s most memorable?
Recently we worked with Jackson Wang and TroyBoi. They’re just great dudes and also, they’ve got an innovative way of seeing dance. Our collaboration felt like collaborations rather than service artistry – not that anything is wrong with service artistry – but Kinjaz is on a mission to elevate the dance artist and I’m so thankful for artist like Jackson and TroyBoi who also have the same power to do the same.
International Dance Day is on April 29th, what are you doing to celebrate?
I’m going to hop on the Red Bull Dance Instagram and teach a live stream class! It’s a pretty sick way to celebrate dance day.
You’re a very creative guy. What’s something you haven’t done yet that you want to?
I have to say music. That’s actually something that we’re beginning to tap into, so I guess we’re starting. Staying home has allowed us to do it, its forcing everyone to really look at their working life on a different perspective. I’m actually working on music with Kinjaz. We're going to be dropping our first EP hopefully by the end of May.
You and the crew have an amazing fan base. Anything you’d like to say to your supportive fans?
Don’t get caught up in the short-term game. Life is a marathon. Believe in yourself. Keep trying. Learn from your failures. Don’t let yourself discourage you, there’s going to be enough people who don’t believe you on the outside. Don’t waste your time discouraging yourself from the inside.
