Some Funk Lab styles and moves
Break-dancing (Bboying, Bgirling)
Six-Step — A foundational move that resembles walking in a circle on the ground
Freeze — Holding a balance-intensive position in interesting ways.
Popping
Boogaloo — Hip, knee and head movements that give the impression that the body is lacking bones.
Tutting — Is said to have originated from the Egyptian culture (think of King Tut) and consists of making geometric positions and movements. It mostly deals with 90-degree angles.
Urban Choreography — Many of these movements can be seen in mainstream music videos. Typically, every movement is unique to the choreographer.
If you want to learn the six-step, the freeze, tutting, the boogaloo, or join a crew to put it all together with lots of other moves, get to Kettering.
One corner of Dayton’s near-south suburbia has begun to pulse with urban dance, thanks to Kelly A. Dailey and her Ohio Arts Council-recognized visual artist husband, Andrew.
They have opened the Funk Lab Dance and Creative Arts Center in the Fairmont Plaza at East Stroop and Marshall roads.
Formerly occupied by “Creative Nails,” the location is tucked between two businesses devoted to hair and beauty — Tangles Hair Salon and Elite Hair Academy. Elsa’s Kettering Sports Grill is just a few doors south in the shopping center.
Both Daileys are 29. They grew up in Greene County, attended Wright State University and live in Kettering. They have a 6-month old son, Liam.
Kelly, who taught her specialty at Howard’s School of Dance in Kettering for several years before following the dream of opening her own studio, has been dancing hip hop since she was a youngster in the late 1980s, popping and locking to M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice.
What seemed then as if it might be just a fad is deeply mainstream, as evidenced by television’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Best Dance Crew.”
There still aren’t nearly as many places to learn it as there are the waltz.
Along with her reputation as a teacher and choreographer, that’s another reason why she already has more than 50 students signed up from almost 20 area zip codes. Most are teens and pre-teens and take up to three classes a week. Two students come from Columbus on the weekends.
About 25 percent of students are boys, a huge percentage for virtually any dance studio. But urban choreography — the kind you see in mainstream music videos — has a macho, athletic, risk-taking aura.
“Considering the economy, I’m very pleased by how things are going so far,” she said.
Funk Lab has two performing ensembles, or crews. Lab Werk is for high school-aged dancers. Scientifik Method is a junior dance crew, with about 10 members ages 7 to 13.
Two other performance- and competition-caliber groups are affiliated with the studio — Fusion Cr3W, a unit featuring the instructors, and the Neverquit Dance Crew.
There are at least a half dozen other major crews in the Dayton area.
Through need-based “Danz 4 Free Scholarships,” Funk Lab plans to provide classes for girls.
How does a young family headed by two artists pay the bills? Kelly is also a nurse at Greene Memorial Hospital. Andrew teaches painting and drawing at Wright State.
His recognition as an artist is rising, thanks to being singled out for a 2011 individual fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. His work was recently included in a show at the Rosewood Arts Centre in Kettering and is in exhibitions at Wright State and at Tiffin University in northwest Ohio, which opened its gallery season with a recent drawings by Dailey. That will stay up through Oct. 16.
When the heavy-bass dance music isn’t thumping in the adjoining studio, which he helped tag with graffiti designs, he’ll give art lessons starting later in 2011.
“We’re combining what we both love to do,” he said calmly, as if making art with breakdancers in the next room is perfectly usual.
It could get even more rollicking. His wife currently offers classes in Bboying/Bgirling, Popping, Locking, Krump, Street Choreography, Lyrical Hip Hop and Jazz Funk. She would like to add another: the Brazilian fighting art of Capoeira.
For more info about the studio, visit www.funklabdayton.com or call (937) 477-3343.
For a look at Andrew Dailey's work, visit www.adailey.com.
Contact this reporter at (937225-2377 or tmorris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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