(smooth hip hop music) (smooth hip hop music continues) (smooth hip hop music softening) (soft dramatic techno music) (lyrics distorting) (upbeat flex dance music) (upbeat flex dance music continues) (lyrics distorting) - What's up, my name is Soho.

I've been dancing for 10 years.

I say my style is Flexing.

I do a mixture of connecting, a bit of glides, footwork.

(upbeat flex dance music) (lyrics distorting) I came up doing battles and then I transferred over into like theater shows and different stuff.

But I still do battles occasionally.

So that's why my style is still a bit aggressive, still a bit rough around the edges.

(upbeat flex dance music) (upbeat flex dance music continues) I would say my style is very geometry and very elemental-based.

I touch a lot of different styles in one setting, I guess.

I mixed up a lot of stuff 'cause I ain't gonna front, it's hard to focus on one thing.

So I like, I like to mix it up and work on different things at the same time to help one big thing.

(upbeat flex dance music) I performed at the Met Museum, a museum in Brazil.

I performed in a couple places in China.

I performed in New York, Lincoln Center, The Shed.

- Knowing that Soho had performed at all these amazing locations as a world-renowned talent, it was saddening to hear that he had been caught up in the criminal justice system as well.

The way that we found out about this was he was a part of the program called "It's Showtime NYC!"

But more on them later.

As I was casting the Caged Birds theater show, I had to have him come with us on this artist residency, essentially, a retreat for us to reflect and create a whole show.

That retreat location was Bethany Arts.

- Yeah, Bethany Arts in Ossining, New York, that's upstate New York.

It's nice, it's very isolated but that's good, you get to focus on the work you need to focus on, you feel me?

And I guess kind of therapeutic in a way.

(tranquil techno music) (soft trip hop music) (soft trip hop music continues) (soft trip hop music continues) (soft trip hop music continues) (soft trip hop music continues) (trip hop music softening) In the show, I'm dancing to "Da Vinci."

That's a FDM artist from our culture in the style of Flexing.

Da Vinci is like, I'll say like he's one of our mainstream FDM producers.

Like, he's the one that actually makes like and produces his own tracks from scratch.

And yeah, that's why I picked him for the show.

He's very diverse in his music selection and sampling when he uses and makes beats.

So I felt like he was perfect for the show and he still represents the culture of Flexing and what I do.

(soft flex dance music) (soft flex dance music continues) (soft flex dance music continues) (muffling drowns out actor) - You're seeing like what they see of us.

When we're dancing on train, they see kind of like criminals before we dance on train.

And I'm just unraveling that and giving you just straight beautiful art on how we would look kind of from my point of view of how I feel when I'm dancing on the train, how it's just an over-and-over-again process.

And no matter how much you do, it always feels like you end up back in the same place.

It ranges, but you could probably make, like if you're good, you could probably make $100 to like, like $200 a person on a cart.

You got a good... theme or identical, whatever you use to really get attention on your people.

As long as you can hold the show, like, New York City's pretty rewarding on how it pays, you feel me?

You making so much money, you don't really feel the need to do anything.

Once you figured out a system for you that works on the train, you'll just keep doing that system 'cause it's easier for you.

And it's like a comfortable system to fall into, you feel me?

Back in the day was, it was way more like you really had to look out for them.

I don't know about now, but I feel like back in the day was like you really didn't wanna run into a DT or like a cop on the train.

'Cause most likely, they would either, if you had over $100, they would take all your bread and they would take you to to bookings or if you had like priors or something, you were going straight to jail.

Like, so it was really one of those things where it's just like you had to be smart about how you was dancing on the train and what carts you hit and where you were dancing and just be smart about your choices.

Sometimes you would know, so you would go to another cart but then you end up dancing on that cart and it would be like two Ds in there and you would still get caught.

And then the Ds that you knew was on the other car would come anyway.

So it's just like sometimes you know, sometimes you don't know.

It really just, you just wanna try to be on your best behavior at all times 'cause you never know who's who, you feel me?

- Speaking of being on their best behavior, the "It's Showtime NYC!"

nonprofit program is all about helping dancers get out of dancing on the trains and find formal ways to perform and make money the legit way.

Along with teaching them to have resumes, getting them professional photo shoots done, and performance opportunities.

- "Showtime!"

is a program that I was in for a little bit a period of time.

It helps dancers get like work in professional training so they don't have to dance on the trains at all, or... Yeah, you feel me?

So it gives them the proper trainings to go into proper dance organizations or learn certain things to help them branch out into like theater shows or like just different avenues of dance that helps pay so they don't have to keep, you know, risking their freedom on the train.

- IST has so many amazing dancers whose experiences are examples of what inspired the theater show.

- Yeah, I'm trying to figure out ways how to incorporate dance with just everyday living stuff that we do that we normally take for granted.

I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate that and still give the dance but also make it look as real as possible.

- Some of them theatrically express what it would be like to be incarcerated.

Would they still be pursuing their art form or would they turn the profession that they get forced into into their art form?

(smooth dramatic trip hop music) (smooth dramatic trip hop music continues) (smooth upbeat hip hop music) Ivvy, Soho, Klassic, Sunami Monroe, and even G are perfect examples of artists that should be supported for their amazing talents worldwide instead of being criminalized because dance is not a crime.

It's a blessing.

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