Black Women Around The Diaspora Find A Home In Street Dance

“Waack! Waack! Waack!” The sound of a 1970s club dance reverberates from the main floor of Boston’s House of Blues. Freestyle dancers from around the region are getting ready to compete in Red Bull’s annual Dance Your Style competition. Minutes away from the night's anticipated kick-off, swarming contenders dripping in kaleidoscopic colors, donning everything from hair spikes to capes, split like the Red Sea and the baddest begin to strut fiercely. In honor of the fallen ballroom hero and Soul Train icon, Tony Proctor, a symphony of voguing and death drops commences. A testament to Proctor’s legacy and impact, this agile sport is being dominated by young Black and brown men of all orientations. 

But women are taking up new space, despite the old racism and sexism inherent to entertainment sectors. Dances like popping and locking, waacking and juking, are rooted in Black life and are possessed of tethers that can be traced all the way back to African folklore, yet are more easily recognized in the origins of hip-hop, which include breakdancing. “Hip-hop made all the parts of me make sense. It brought it all together inside and provided me with a third or fourth language,” Haitian-Canadian freestyler and one of tonight’s exciting participants, Lady Beast, tells Unbothered.  

For 16 years Lady Beast battled nationally and beyond, “repping Haiti, Canada, Boston, and Black women worldwide.” Seven of those years she spent teaching local youth the art of popping, pro bono. She also opened for global acts like Jay-Z, Ciara, Roxanne Shanté, and Lil Wayne. She is among the multitude of women that prove there is no shortage of talented Black girls in street dance. Still, Lady Beast has had to bear the brunt of biases unique to people like her. “I don't think enough of us are expressing how much it can hurt to be a Black woman in these spaces. Just think of the mental abuse that was put upon us at an early age and how we were made to feel we didn’t have a voice,” Lady Beast laments, illustrating a history of erasure even in the very industries and movements where Black women have played requisite roles.  

Despite the tired obstacles, Lady Beast, 39, has an impressive career as a performer to show for it. When she isn’t facing off in competitions like Red Bull’s Dance Your Style, she’s thriving in digital art and acting in flicks like The Way Way Back and I Feel Pretty currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Hulu. Inspired by the next generation of Black female dancers, she reminds fans everywhere that freestyling goes beyond sport and entertainment:

“We work hard for this. It's a toll on the body, but we still keep going. This is a very sensitive thing, it's precious and we protect it. We're not anybody's puppet. We appreciate people coming tonight and we're doing this under our consent. But for those who don't know, this is a feeling. This is our thing.”

Jamaican dancer and choreographer, Lady Ice is a crowd favorite who made a name for herself on the floor marrying her dancehall roots and hip-hop culture of the late 90s and early 2000s. She’s two-stepped across Boston and the festival circuit, and has choreographed for both local and mainstream artists. Like Lady Beast, Ice is a brilliant and necessary full-circle moment, in that she too is repping Black women of immigrant descent. “Sometimes we do need to gate-keep. How do we protect our culture? Keep our feet in it? We as a people are changing as far as demographics and generations, so more of us are in many ways reclaiming this space,” she says, discussing a style and genre first pioneered by Afro-Caribbean genius. 

Hip-hop and all its surrounding politics take root in the South Bronx, then one of the poorest and dilapidated immigrant neighborhoods in the country. But this song and dance has reached even the upper echelons of society and most remote parts of the planet, influencing communities of all narratives, from Compton to London to Japan. Enter 20-year-old Beasty, a successor to women like Lady Beast and Lady Ice.  

Born Tomoe Carr, of Antiguan and Japanese heritage, Beasty started her training in Japan at Next Generation Dance Studio under the tutelage of her father. Coming from a family where each member is an experienced dancer in their own right, Beasty takes after her dad and anchors herself in hip-hop. As a “mixed Black girl,” and like the Caribbean women before her, Beasty credits the genre for holding space for her intersectional identity. “Hip-hop has helped me inform myself and others so much,” she professes.  

When Beasty isn’t busy intimidating her freestyle competitors, she’s teaching children and beginners of various ages in hip-hop and house. Famous for her passion and originality in popping, locking, and waacking, Beasty is actively teaching in the Tri-State area while she travels to battle. 

“I'm doing this for the youngins, you feel me?” Beasty says in a tone beyond her years. “I want the next generation to understand where girls like me come from and that we have the right to be here. Social media proves it’s a great way to get people to start dancing, but I want us to get deeper and take it from the digital screens to the streets again.”