ATWL Philippines 2012 Blog

This is now officially a blog to keep all you who’ve supported up to date on this AllTheWayLive trip from my eyes. I will continue to update this same page. Soo.. I got $1,413 out of $2000 goal raised as of Jan 31, 12:15am. Thank you everyone for your continued support with my little fundraiser for this project. I will take these mixes down soon so anyone else interested in buying, get these NOW. THANKS!

**SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE FUNDRAISER:
Russ Santos
Tricia Choi
Ceech Hsu
Mark Cordero
John Sevilla
Project Pulse
Cindy Ngai
Tiffany Bong
Marie Potts
Mike Lambert
Nathalie Chan
Alex Azuma
Barbara Miron
Community Street Jam
Amy Hernandez
Brandon Greathouse
David Kim
Aimee McCrary
Stanley Chen
Mikee Joaquin
JayR Salazar
Bobbi Urbano
Faizhal Bin Bakar
Justin Escoto
Brian Lim
David Nguyen
Nicole Renojo
Moon Lee
Tanzil Salekin
Sean Lee
Eterna Alabanza
OG Mike
Jonathan Hironaga
Jackie Lopez
Brandon Pearcy
Sabesan Pachai
Margaret Tobias
Tyler Tulasosopo
OtoPayne Inc.
Brian Lu
Dave Le
Sal Barcena (Doc Lock)
Anna Mae Abia
Brian Delp
Lady C
Bryce Hill
Ian Chua
Tara Wilson
Rama Mahesh Hall
Sean Butler
Thaddeus Padua
Judy Kreiter
John Sydionco
Max Yen

Jan 16, 2012: Just enjoying our last few hours here before heading to the airport. Would like to make this short and say THANK YOU EVERYONE! For EVERYTHING!!! Couldn’t have been possible with all your help and support. The whole project was a huge success. Will post a gallery of the pictures sometime soon. I can’t wait to see a video of our kids’ performance at the jam also.

(Thanks to all the staff/faculty from all the schools, programs, and community centers in the Philippines. Thanks to those from the PI dance community for all the help, Melvin Jansen Ang, Chase Tugade, Prince Paltu-ob, Chelo Aestrid, Tatz, Rosario Herrera. Thanks to EVERYONE in the US for all your support in this. Shout out to All The Way Live Foundation & all the mentors for another successful outreach project. I’m so glad I was able to make it out to this trip with you guys. Words can’t describe how thankful I am for this experience.)

Jan 15, 2012: Some of the others went to Boracay, half of us stayed since our flight is on Monday. Dedicated this day to seeing my relatives. Had such a great time with them. We even skyped my parents with my cousin’s ipad. My nephews and nieces are so much bigger since the last time I saw them. They love dancing, and we did a fun little dance session together. My nephew’s got a mean dougie and my niece Lianne was soo cute with all her dances. I taught them a basic stepping/strutting roll off, and they had a lot of fun with it. Was so great to spend time and catch up with all of them.

My Tito Edgar is still a really dope singer. (Think of Lou Rawls’ voice. It’s CRAZY). My cousins and I went to visit my uncle’s grave. I wanted to visit him since he passed away recently. I’ll always remember him as the very chill/happy uncle. I always called him gangsta. This was my first visit back to PI where I didn’t get to see him. My cousin then asked, where else I’d like to go. I asked if there were any record shops around, and we stopped by a market type place where they had antiques. I was able to find a few funk, disco, and boogie records (thanks Kuya Ce!). Spent the rest of our last night with the roomies walked around the Greenbelt area. Pretty dope salsa night at Havana, but went back to the hotel right away.

Jan 14, 2012: All The Way Live at Mall of Asia was AWESOME! Venue was beautiful, turnout was great, everything ran as scheduled. The kids from Mano Amiga that performed with us did a good job and looked like they had a lot of fun the whole day.

Congrats to SAS for winning the 5v5 Bboy crew battle. Congrats to James Wong for winning the 1v1 All-Styles. Good vibes all around. Everything ran perfect.

After the jam, went over to Gerry’s grill to eat before heading to DJ the afterparty. The club didn’t have a serato box in their booth, so RJ kind of had a rough start while waiting for our friend to bring her serato box from home. Eventually, once the box got there the party kicked up a notch. I had a lot of fun dancing with all the homies from PI, and also my cousins who came out to the party.

Jan 13, 2012: Full day off before the event tomorrow. Pretty much just used this to chill. Actually went to Greenhills with Bryce, MJ, and Chris to check out the stuff they had there. Nice bootleg Jordans haha. But I didn’t get anything except some Manny Pacquiao shirts and a Detroit hat that just has the D logo on it. Finished around 8pm but the Taxi cab lines were crazy long. Tried to go on the main road to flag a cab down, but none of the cabs wanted to take us back to Makati (probably because of rush hour). Finally got back to the hotel after 2 HOURS, then went to M Cafe with Bryce, RJ, Loan and Joe. Had a nice session with an old popper/locker from the Bay.

Jan 12, 2012: So the added workshops for this morning’s schedule were community centers for Gawad Kalinga (also known as GK-1). In short, one of the things the organization does is build housing, provide food, etc for those in poverty. 2 different areas booked, so we split our groups up because they ran at the same time. Our group went to Paranaque (my parent’s hometown). We got there, did our showcase, and then split into our little workshop groups. I had a small group of 5 and taught them locking. These kids learned FAST! One of them is a really good dancer already. Never locked before but picked up little things in the feel from accents to sharpness, etc. They were awesome when it was time to do our presentation for the other groups. We also had a cypher with everyone together which was fun because the kids just let loose. Their bboys were pretty raw and everyone was ofcourse doing the dougie too haha. I even pulled out one of the teachers and she was a good sport about it and danced anyway.

Our final day at Mano Amiga Academy was fun. We rehearsed the show with all the kids so that they will be ready for Saturday’s performance. They even had a surprise performance for all of us mentors where they did the dougie (ofcourse haha). Too damn cute! About to go leave to teach our very last workshop at Team Vibe Studios. Teaching old school hip-hop. HERE WE GO!!!! *The class actually asked me to teach Locking. So that’s what I taught instead. Such a fun group!

Jan 11, 2012: Today we had Fort Bonifacio High School, which we presented and taught about 500 kids! CRAZY. But in the end everything worked out great. My group, I taught locking and had them end with Dougie LOL. They were really into the locking though and learned super quick. The school faculty/staff was really nice and even made us lunch. At the end of lunch they surprised us by giving us gift certificates and shirts. I recognized a student from 2009 who was doing all these crazy flips, and he’s now graduating. Still dancing btw.

We went back to Taguig for Mano Amiga Academy and started to work on the choreography that the kids would perform with us on Saturday. It was dope! Coming together. I got a different group this time, I got a few of the same kids from day 1. They did so good with the choreography. I remembered it was one of the kids, Angeline’s bday today, so I gave her my favorite Giants cap. She was surprised and I kind of almost got teary eyed when I saw the look on her face when I gave it to her. She has a lot of potential in her locking. I hope she one day decides to realize it then use my hat if she ever starts dancing. I’ve been through a lot with that hat hahah. We’re going back tomorrow to rehearse with them, going to be so much fun.

2 additional schools added for Thursday morning as well. I think we might have to split up into two different groups this time. Also, my stomach

SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:
Tyler Tulasosopo
OtoPayne Inc.
Brian Lu

Jan 10, 2012: Went to Taguig, to a school called Mano Amiga Academy. An organization that provides education for the underprivileged kids in the area. We got super lost on the way there, none of the guards in the area knew where the school was at.

After we did finally get there, I run into my cousin who just so happened to work there (crazy coincidence!). We worked with elementary kids aged 8-10 for this one. Ran into my cousin who is a teacher there! Crazy coincidence! Really small school and we just got down for them in their classroom then moved everyone outside for them to learn the different workshops.

I got a small group and decided to teach them locking instead of the hip-hop that I did at the schools during day 1. Such a fun group of kids! My favorite thus far. One that stood out to me was this girl Angeline. She came into the group towards the end, right before we were about to our presentation for the other groups. She learned really fast, and the first thing I noticed was her Lock. She did it really naturally and even already had that natural funky/feel when she danced. I mentioned to the teachers that she’s talented and has a lot of potential, they agreed, but also added that sometimes she is also very stubborn. Sometimes it’s the most stubborn that have the most potential to unlock things that they don’t even know they posses. This was a really awesome group of teachers who genuinely took good care of the students. You could just tell by the way they interacted with them. It felt good to work with them here. At the end of the workshop Angeline kept running up to me and asking me random questions. Then she mentioned that it would be her birthday the next day. (We were scheduled for this school for three days because we are having the kids perform with us at the event on Saturday at Mall of Asia).

My first free workshop at Capital G (owned by the homie, Chelo), was also today. I was grouped with Bryce who taught popping, and Odie who taught House. It was fun. Capital G is a store that sells dope clothing, dj gear, mixes, and has a studio in the back. NICE! Locking class was a good group. Did drills and variations as well as things they can do to practice certain moves and combinations easier. Tried to get them to focus on the feel also. Class went very well!

Got back from the workshops and some of the other mentors Daniel and Vinh prepared and cooked food for the entire group so we all had a little family dinner type thing together. It was real nice. It was a great day

SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:
Dave Le
Salvador Barcena

Jan 9, 2012: First day of the workshops. I think I got food poisoning, not good! I still made it to the schools though. We had 2 schools today, first at Guadalupe Viejo Elementary and then Makati HS. Had fun with all the kids. When we split up into groups, I taught my group hip-hop dances, all they wanted to do was dougie, but really liked the other dances we put together in our group for them. Bailrok even made a surprise visit at Makati HS. Good times. I felt so weak by the end of the 2nd school, that I just tried to sleep the whole day. Food poisoning was not the business, but I think I’m feeling better now. We also had a studio to teach at in the evening, but I opted to rest and sleep because I wasn’t feeling too well. Guess I gotta stop by the grocery tomorrow and pick up some crackers, bananas, and gatorade.

SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:
Jonathan Hironaga
Jackie Lopez
Brandon Pearcy
Sabesan Pachai

Jan 8, 2012: The rest of AllTheWayLive arrived in Manila from Vietnam. Was good for all of to finally be together. Good times hanging out, catching up with my cousins also! Took us to a place called Chic-Boy. Good restaurant.

Jan 7, 2012: Went to an jam called Funk for Life vol 2. Had 2on2 Popping, 2on2 Locking, 1v1 Bboy, and 1v1 All-Styles. Gucchon from Japan was one of the popping judges. Was a really fun event. Didn’t enter any of the battles but just came to support, get down and meet with all the dancers here. The dance scene looks beautiful. Lot’s of dope dancers. Even ran into Bailrok and his parents. Got to see a few of the original All-Stars from 2005. Everyone’s kind of doing their own thing now, but really great to see them. Pretty much decided/finalized what I would teach the kids at the schools this week. Got to go to my favorite snack place, Bread Talk. Hell yes. It was a good night.

IMG00492-20120107-1706

SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:
Margaret Tobias

Jan 6, 2012: Just got into Manila. The others are still in Vietnam for that part of the outreach project. A few folks still in the USA leaving Saturday and we’ll all be together on Sunday. Sleeping was kinda rough on the plane, sat next to a big snoring dude, and there were babies and babies all around. Still made it safe though. Finally set up a local phone # to use here and resting at the hotel. One of my favorite poppers in the bay, BRYCE is also here. He’s thinking about a little strutting routine we can teach to the kids for the workshops next week. Depending on the age/skill level of the kids I get for my group I might just have them learn some hip-hop dances instead of locking. They’ll probably have fun doing the Dougie, Cat Daddy, Bernie, and the Jerk anyway haha.

Also found out there is a popping/locking battle tomorrow, so we might just check it out!

RJ Kool Raul just posted a list of the schools we are hitting up next week! I can’t wait!
Check it out on his SITE

Walked around at night, stopped by M Cafe where they were playing really good music outdoors. Soul, Hip-Hop, and House. The DJ, Ms Badkiss is officially my favorite dj out here as of now. Bryce made a dope strutting routine for us to show to the kids. Can’t wait till they see it next week. Good night!

SHOUT OUT TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:

David Nguyen
Nicole Renojo
Moon Lee
Tanzil Salekin
Sean Lee
Eterna Alabanza
OG Mike

—————–

1.4.2012

Jan 4, 2012: Packing for the Philippines right now, flight is in a few hours, and feeling thankful.. $600 raised out of my $2000 goal so far as of 5pm today! Hope this momentum keeps up even while I’m there already. I will be thinking of you all while we teach the kids! THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND CONTRIBUTIONS! I’m really proud of these mixes because I felt there was more purpose in them than just sharing music. The youth will be empowered through dance/arts, you get good music, plus we all get a good feeling from participating in a great cause. Everyone wins!!! I will take lots of pictures during the workshops to keep you all posted.

If possible please re-post my fundraiser page to anyone who may be interested in buying the street dance mixes. They can pay for it online and will receive direct download links via email. As soon as I hit my $2000 mark, I am taking down the mixes. I also have plenty of free mixes on my site www.soulo1200s.com for you to listen to and/or download.

Quick summary:

I am selling street dance mixes to fund raise for an outreach project teaching FREE dance classes for the youth in the Philippines. I will be going with AllTheWayLive Foundation’s current S.E.A.M (South East Asia, Manila) Tour. The rest of the mentors are already in Vietnam, I was only able to make it for the Philippines from Jan 6th-16th. This trip was more of a last decision for me. Everyone paid out of pocket and some found their own sponsors/donations, so I am using this method to raise funds so that you will also get some good music back in return for your support.

Shout out to everyone who reposted about my fundraiser!

Thank youuuu!

Dennis Infante

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SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED:

Russ Santos
Tricia Choi
Ceech Hsu
Mark Cordero
John Sevilla
Project Pulse
Cindy Ngai
Tiffany Bong
Marie Potts
Mike Lambert
Nathalie Chan
Alex Azuma
Barbara Miron
Community Street Jam
Amy Hernandez
Brandon Greathouse
David Kim
Aimee McCrary
Stanley Chen
Mikee Joaquin
JayR Salazar
Bobbi Urbano
Faizhal Bin Bakar
Justin Escoto
Brian Lim

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