Hello Ottawa

Student by day and popper by night, Sucre is at the cusp of a growing community of street dancers in Ottawa. He performs as Funkie Monkie with the crew Cartoon, who can usually be found practicing in the University Centre at the University of Ottawa or performing at events around the city.

Sucre chose the Museum of Civilization for his photos, where he also performed an impromptu dance that I sadly failed to catch on video. That’s okay, though – check out one of his YouTube videos at the end of the post. 

Can you tell me about yourself?

Yeah, sure. I was born in Montreal, and my parents are North African so English isn’t really my first language. We moved to Ottawa and I ended up taking ESL, went through school and whatnot. I was apparently enrolled in the worst high school in the city, Laurentian High School. It was closed down before I graduated, so I switched to a – pardon the racial stuff - white school. I went in with long tees, do-rags and everything and when I graduated I walked out wearing polos! I’m at Algonquin College right now taking marketing. Hopefully I’ll pursue fashion design. My older brother was always designing clothes and we both drew a lot, so that was my first introduction to fashion, but I’m not that great at designing. I do know a lot about the fashion industry, though, so I thought maybe with a marketing degree I can get into it that way. Become a marketing director for a big fashion firm or something.

Related to dancing - I’ve been dancing for about four years. I started doing the arm wave and the arm wave only. In twelfth grade, a coordinator for the Carleton Afro-Caribbean Club saw me doing it and asked if I’d like to perform at a Black History Month show. That ended up being the worst show. I didn’t know any real dance moves, and I learned what I could in like a month but I was still learning and the show flopped. But there’s a learning curve. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and started to really learn that way. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am today. My best show was a few years ago at Bluesfest, when I performed on the same stage as Snoop Dogg, but the day before him. I still got VIP backstage!

Do you like it here in Ottawa?

Well, I can’t really compare. I’m used to the city, I’ve been here most of my life. I go to Toronto and Montreal once in a while, and I can see myself moving there. This city doesn’t have an entertainment industry. To get a job here, it’s all government. Even the music, you know, if you do that you perform at government parties. The industry is so amazing in Toronto and Montreal. Maybe this sounds naïve, but I’ve heard people call Toronto the New York City of Canada. It would be cool to live there. I’m planning on moving to Montreal in a year, I think, as soon as I’m done school. My parents want me to go to university after college, so I thought Montreal would work.

Do you think you’ll come back if you move away?

Of course. I have to. I have family here. But if they move back to North Africa, then that would be my destination for vacations. We’re very family-oriented. I’ve been taught to be part of the family, to be always attached. For now, if they stay here, I’m sure I’ll move back to Ottawa.

What do you think of the dance scene in Ottawa?

It’s growing, I can see it. When I started dancing it was very calm, there was nobody I knew. There were moments where a lot of things happened all at once, and then it would just die down again. But there’s not that much support for it here. Apparently even Stephen Harper doesn’t support the arts. We don’t have much to encourage us in Ottawa. So You Think You Can Dance, for instance, goes to Toronto, passes around Ottawa, and goes to Montreal. It just skips Ottawa. We just don’t have that name, that artistic value that people see.

Can you tell me about your crew, Cartoon?

We held auditions about two months ago for our crew, so now we have quite a few members in our group. Only about eight or so make it out regularly, though. We have b-boys, poppers like me, hip hop, krumping, and other dancing that we incorporate with everyone’s style. We have amazing dancers who just started with us, as young as 15 years old. There’s a lot of inspiration there. We’re at the university centre at the University of Ottawa twice a week, dancing, growing, creating, inspiring, and motivating.

There are a few different crews in Ottawa: Yardiz, PnL, Dtale, and even Culture Shock. Culture Shock just organized one of the biggest dance showcases here in Ottawa where they invited dance groups from around the world. There are different CS chapters around the world. So that alone is a dancing community, and does inspire us to dance and practice and be involved in the community, but it’s kind of limited. Some people in Ottawa don’t work together, you know, they want to do their own thing. Ottawa is striving to get better, and everyone sees that so they want to try to make it on their own. If we worked together, if there was more of a community, maybe we’d make it to the top and be able to compete with other places.

Do you see the community growing in a certain direction?

Ottawa does have shows, and people work together to make stuff happen. Just this year a few things went into the works, and some stuff has started happening. MIN Entertainment organized two big shows, and they’re helping our crew, Cartoon, take the next step. They helped set it up for us when a crew from America’s Best Dance Crew, Kaba Modern, came to Ottawa, and we got to dance on the same stage. YouTube Stars came here as well, and we performed on the same stage as Timothy DeLaGhetto. Getting shout-outs from one of the biggest names in the industry was really inspirational. So that sort of thing shows that street dance is growing in Ottawa, just slowly. I think that once people get good enough, though, they usually move to another city. I guess that’s the trend. Find better opportunities elsewhere.

How receptive do you think people in Ottawa are to dance, and the dance that you do and that your crew does?

Honestly, so many people who have seen us dance think it’s great. I’m not saying that to make ourselves sound great or anything, it’s just that they respond that way because it’s something they don’t see live on a regular basis and it is something they can’t do. I’ve danced in the streets, in the malls, and people have said I should to try out for So You Think You Can Dance. Nobody really knows that there’s this kind of dancing in Ottawa, and we need the opportunity to share.  People here seem shy and really keep to themselves, so for instance they’ll say they want to support you but they don’t have the time. It would be nice if the city would support local dancers through a grant or something. You know, it would be nice to open a studio so we could teach the community. I worked at a community centre in the west end, and there were kids who were into really rough stuff and once they get involved in dance they totally change their perspective. It becomes a new focus. I was kind of a bad kid in school, and once I got involved in dancing it kept me busy. If the city or the government would provide grants so we could develop services like that, it would be great. I don’t think that people here would be that receptive to it, though. In Ottawa people are more into sport events, or fundraisers and barbeques to help kids.

We did your photos at the Museum of Civilization. Why did you choose that place as one representative of you?

Well, I love how you can just see the Parliament in the distance, but it’s not right there. You know, that’s such a stereotype for Ottawa, people think of the Parliament right away. But at the same time Ottawa is a big part of where I am, what I do and how I do it. I feel like having that symbol in the pictures represents how we’re serious about dance in Ottawa. We’re here in this city, not somewhere else. Cartoon Crew will put it on for this city. Our Cartoon world will rock this nation.  

Thanks Sucre! You can follow Sucre on Twitter at @ItsFunkieMonkie and at his Facebook fan page, where you can get updates on shows put on by his crew, Cartoon. Sucre also keeps a popular YouTube channel where he posts dance videos.  Check out two of his performances below.