Mack Mitchell, the president of the RSO Secret Techniques Hip-Hop Club, did just that when he came to college at the University of Wyoming.
When Mitchell was still in high school, a friend, Lauren Neeff, had started to practice break dancing styles and began to teach Mitchell as well. Mitchell’s first response was “There is absolutely no reason not to.”
It is that same attitude that kept Mitchell and his crew dancing during their first semester at UW, though they did get laughed at by the occasional basketball player, Mitchell said.
“Our original intent was just to create a breaking crew, and we would go to the gym and practice in the corner of the basketball court with a boom box and batteries,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t really know what we were doing; we were just practicing as much as we could.”
To make things official, Mitchell and the rest of the crew started the RSO Secret Techniques Hip-Hop Club in 2006.
Since then, the crew has cycled through many members and performances, but Mitchell said that the crew today has new members and is solid.
“We had a pretty solid crew for about two years, but a lot of people graduated,” Mitchell said. “We are in the process of rebuilding, and we’ve got some new members this year.”
Since the start of Secret Techniques, the crew has performed with Angels of Death of of Salt Lake City, Get With This Allstars out of Denver, Glitch Mob, Adrian Molina (Flobots), DJ Icewater, Aju and the Front Range Rockers out of Boulder.
Some of the groups they’ve performed with have just been for exhibition purposes.
The show they did with the Angels of Death crew also featured a set by a contortionist who is now working for Cirque du Soleil, Mitchell said.
Some of the exhibitions may end up including dance battles like the one that Secret Techniques showcased against Get With This Allstars, Mitchell said.
Many of the shows that Secret Techniques does involve some sort of a charitable effort as well.
The show that was performed with Molina, DJ Icewater and Aju had a very community minded focus, Mitchell said.
Mitchell said one of his more proud moments with the crew was performing with Glitch Mob. When Glitch Mob came, the two crews coordinated a benefit for North Korean refugees and refugees from surrounding areas, Mitchell said.
Though performing for a benefit was rewarding, Mitchell said, much of the fun was working with experienced dance crews.
“During any event that we’ve had that I’ve danced with another crew, we’ve exchanged moves and had an opportunity to check out each other’s style,” Mitchell said.
This year, Mitchell said he has a council of older members that offer support and aid in RSO needs. There are also a core group four or five people that are learning new choreography.
“It’s a great social environment,” Jake Harper, a computer science major and member of Secret Techniques, said.
“Two times a week we get to hang out together, and there are four of us core members. We’ve really become good friends, and it’s a very constructive setting,” he added.
Harper joined Secret Techniques about a month before the end of last semester, and has had a good experience with learning to break dance.
“I had no prior dance experience, and I just sort of learned everything from being involved with this club,” Harper said.
“It’s all peer teaching, and we’ve kind of got Mack as our lead instructor. He’s generally teaching us, but we can try variations on something and give back. It’s just a very collaborative process, and it’s fun.”
Mitchell, as president, is planning to continue doing the performances, because “the people who have been coming regularly are quicker learners. It takes someone a few days to learn a sequence or get certain moves together. When I first started, that would have taken me a month.”
Mitchell does admit that the constant dancing that the group does can be intimidating. Wyoming is not a big venue for hip-hop or exhibitionist style, Mitchell said.
“We would like to do some grafitti workshops and show some documentaries and movies that are centered around hip-hop to get the students more involved,” Mitchell said.
For any who would like to get involved with the Secret Techniques Hip-Hop Club, Mack Mitchell can be reached at mmitche3@uwyo.edu.
