Dancing in the dark

Dillon Gymnasium closes at 1 a.m. The gym employee at the front desk, the unlucky one stuck with the Wednesday night shift, notes that it is now 12:24 a.m. Any other day, this shift might be bearable - relaxing, even - but Wednesday nights us kids from that break-dancing group Sympoh invade the Multipurpose Room, and we refuse to leave until we absolutely have to.

If you stand outside the closed door to the Multipurpose Room, you can hear the muddled thumping of loud music, the beats reverberating off the walls with amplified energy. If you peek through the glass of the door, you can see us, too. The college students, the 18-to 22-year-olds collectively called "Sympoh," are six-stepping, toprocking, doing freezes and working on our handstands and footwork.

This particular Wednesday, you could also walk past the door and be greeted with the sight of a man - a student? Maybe, he could be. He has a head of curly black hair half hidden by a white bandana underneath a black beanie and feet clad in Pro-Keds, the purple-blue kind with bright red laces and two red stripes on the side. This is a man who has been dancing since 7 p.m. and who, from head to toe, exudes exhaustion. This is Ricardo Camilo, but you would just call him Ricky.

In 1997, things were different. Ricky was 14 years old, and the most important thing was being just like his older brother Lenny. When Lenny came home one day talking about this new thing, this new type of dance called breaking, performed by these people called b-boys and b-girls, it only made sense that Ricky would try to pick it up, too.

They worked on it together. They did it because it was cool, it was fun, and it was different. It was cool, learning that "toprock" meant footwork performed while standing up and that the most basic element of it, the Indian step, consisted of a bounce before the right leg stepped ahead, crossing in front of the other leg, then returned and allowed the left leg to do the same. They had fun, trying handstands and then daring to shift their weight over so that they were balancing on just one arm. And those baby freezes were definitely different. It wasn't normal to see people balancing on their head and arm, with all the weight of their bodies jabbed onto an elbow supported by a wrist.

It was an easy equation. The desire to be as cool as Lenny, the frustration of not liking classes at school, the time spent conquering the toprocks, freezes, handstands and all the other bits, like the six-step and downrock and the attitude: It all added up to Ricky and Lenny becoming break dancers, eager to do what break dancers did.

As it turned out, what break dancers did was battle.

So they battled. They formed their own crew and jumped right into things. That was when Ricky experienced the intensity of being in the middle of a circle, surrounded by people watching, cheering, waiting and expecting, full of energy and adrenaline that fed off everyone and funneled into him. It was like being in a fight - feeling that electricity, knowing that this was a make-or-break moment and that then

outcome was all up to him. He was addicted. Though he and Lenny kept losing, they kept going back.

Then, one night, a couple of years after they had started, Ricky was anxious, eager to dance and satisfy the itch he was growing more accustomed to, but Lenny held him back with a question: "How much could we pay Ken Swift to get us known?"

Ricky knew who Swift was. Swift had almost single-handedly pushed break dancing into the public eye, into the mainstream. He had made a crew in California called Style Elements into one of the most well-known and respected b-boy crews in the country. To get noticed by Swift meant the chance for popularity, money, fame and all of the things that no one expected from b-boying, because where could an underground thing like this really take you?

It was rumored that Swift might be at this battle. Lenny didn't want to enter the two-on-two competition and miss a chance to talk to the man himself. He could easily sacrifice a little dancing for a poke at glory.

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"Man, I don't care what Ken Swift thinks," Ricky told him hotly. "I just wanna dance." And there it was: the moment when a hobby became a passion, when a trend became a lifestyle, the point of realization, change and no return. Ricky came in that night as a break dancer. When he left, he was a b-boy and finally aware of the difference.

At 12:44 a.m., the door to the Multipurpose Room opens, and Alex Cooksey walks out. He's a freshman, a new member of the group. He glances to the right and sees Ricky sitting in the chair, back against the wall. He waves.

"See you," he says, then tells Ricky, "Good luck this weekend."

Ricky nods and thanks him.

When he's standing, Ricky walks with a light swagger that belies his compactness. He is surprisingly strong, with hard-earned muscle packed into a solid five-foot, eight-inch frame. He has no problem smiling and talking with people, but his demeanor has an edge of seriousness.

Sitting in the chair in his practice clothes - a black T-shirt with the state of New Jersey and "What are you lookin' at?" printed in white, black sweatpants with the pockets hanging out - Ricky seems smaller. He can fill up a room with his understated confidence, but in the chair he takes up less space.

Ricky's hands gesture purposefully when he speaks, as if they're dancing to the beat of his words, but when he finishes his sentence, they fall limp into his lap. His grave eyes stare out into the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling of the gym. That question, the one that every serious b-boy and b-girl must face, seems to be haunting him again: Is it worth it?

The question was not one to be taken lightly. After Ricky left his original crew, seriousness closed Dillon Gym closes at 1 a.m. The gym employee at the front desk, the unlucky one stuck with the Wednesday night shift, notes that it is now 12:24 a.m. Any other day, this shift might be bearable - relaxing, even - but Wednesday nights us kids from that break-dancing group Sympoh invade the Multipurpose Room, and we refuse to leave until we absolutely have to.

As it turned out, what break dancers did was battle.

outcome was all up to him. He was addicted. Though he and Lenny kept losing, they kept going back.

"See you," he says, then tells Ricky, "Good luck this weekend."

Ricky nods and thanks him.

The question was not one to be taken lightly. After Ricky left his original crew, seriousness closed in. Suddenly, there was something new inside of Ricky, pushing him to practice whenever and wherever he could. He just barely graduated from high school and decided against college, opting instead to work scattered nine-to-five jobs, but he kept practicing. Break dancing was no longer just a thing to do; it was the thing to do. There was nothing else he could do.

So he followed his passion. It led him to dance with new crews and meet others who shared the same dedication. With those crews, he went to battles all around the country, from San Diego to Miami, Orlando to New York City, Phoenix to Philadelphia and back home to Trenton again. Along the way, he met more people. A b-boy named Will introduced him to the breaking scene at Rutgers University. And Justin Wang, a college student, told him that he was starting a breaking group over at Princeton University, a group called Sympoh that would practice in Dillon Gym. It'd be great, Justin said, if Ricky could come by and practice with them.

So Ricky did. As he got older and better, he made it his responsibility to educate the younger generation. How else would they develop the same passion and drive that had so much defined him? How else would they learn about hip-hop and about how b-boying derived from it but was separate? How else would they learn about the respect that b-boys fostered for the other artists of the game: the DJs (the scratchers), the graffiti artists (the taggers) and the lyric-birthing rappers? And the unofficial dress code - who would tell them about that, about how wearing the freshest kicks was as much practical as it was a part of the culture? So even after Justin graduated in 2001, Ricky stayed with the group.

The one thing that he couldn't teach was the question that he was still learning how to answer: Is it worth it?

Because Ricky knew the problem, knew the contradiction, as clearly as he knew how to launch from a toprock into a six-step. Breaking is fundamentally unpredictable; it doesn't have the luxury of a stable reputation in society. Additionally, it demands physical strength, athleticism and dedication that the body cannot provide forever.

"If I had started when I was younger..." Ricky once started to say, and then he cut himself off even though the conclusion was palpable. Most b-boys retire around age 28, and Ricky is already 25.

It is 1:05 a.m., the gym employee notes as he climbs the steps that lead to the Multipurpose Room. As he reaches the top of the landing and hears the faint strands of music still playing, he sees someone sitting in a chair. It's hard to tell who it is; it's late, and the lights have already been dimmed.

As he gets closer, it becomes clear that it's just Ricky. The employee grins wryly at him and sighs half-seriously. "Fuckin' Sympoh," he says to the air. "Always fuckin' Sympoh."

"Yeah, get 'em out," Ricky tells him. He pauses as he stands up from the chair, stretching out for a moment.

And then he's bounding into the room behind the gym employee, chatting easily and too energetically for someone who has dealt with a day of work and several hours of hard practice. But this is Ricky, after all.

At 1:10 a.m., Dillon Gym finally closes. But it's only temporary. For now, there's still the promise of tomorrow.