In the beginning…
When we ran the Huaren Cultural Show in 1999, we decided to have two hip hop acts that year. One led by Leslie, Angie, Jay and the other by Andri. Leslie, Angie and Jay had choreographed Huaren hip hop together the year before so they already knew each other, Andri at the time was a freshman. Leslie was only a sophmore but had already danced in the previous Huaren and GenAPA shows while Angie and Jay had danced in just about everything throughout their college years. After tryouts in December, twenty two dancers were picked and split up among the two groups. At that point, most of the members of the individual groups didn't know each other, much less the other dancers. But, that was the way it went and by the time of the show, both groups were ready to strut their stuff. Groove Mode Squad (Leslie, Angie, Jay) and Team SXY (Andri) both put on great shows that night and GMS took cultural show dancing to a never before seen level. Many of us were personally stunned and were really really amazed by what they had done.
Right after Huaren was GenAPA and most of the members of GMS were already committed to other acts. Right before Huaren, Leslie and Hong had gotten into GenAPA with a group of around twenty dancers, mainly pulled from Team SXY and random friends that we knew. Some of the dancers dropped (like Angie) due to time constraints and such, leaving the group with only twelve. With only three weeks to practice, this new group, dubbed Culture Shock crammed day and night. After rocking the stage dressed in camouflage and silver paint, Culture Shock was ecstatic to have done so well. (They eventually won Best Act for GenAPA).
GrooveCulture
Immediately after GenAPA, Leslie was able to get Groove Mode Squad and Culture Shock together to perform at ITASA that year. Each act did their separate dances (only Leslie was in both) but there was a unity of spirit as we took tons and tons of pictures together and realized that we had such a great time dancing. That night, we had the first GrooveCulture (or GrooveShock, which was eventually dropped) party at Brian and Hong's place, whereupon many people were subjected to blowjobs (the alchoholic drink). From there on out till the end of the year, GrooveCulture partied together, played together and even had a great picnic in the Arb. The whole concept of coming together and dancing with so many people excited everyone and there was some talk of forming a dance group to perform at shows and events.
At this point, I have to mention the incredible role that Matrix Media (Porta, Alvin, Chris Lum, Ryan, Gus) had in helping GrooveCulture bond by providing us with the videos that we watched over and over again. Often we got better shots from Matrix than from the "real" videographers.
And so, as the year was winding down, there was a decision to form some sort of dance group for the upcoming year. Angie and Leslie were sort of burned out and not really ready to begin something so some of the guys (namely Amit, Gus, Hong, Steve) took it upon themselves to start a group. Their idea however, came with a twist. They wanted to start an all guys dance group. After much deliberation and thought, funKtion was started and slated to perform at Festifall of 2000.
