COURTESY OF JASON ULEP
Members of Hypersquad Dance Co.
Wordless art
of the danceHypersquad Dance Company's
founder gave up a singing career
to focus on his first love
Yes, dreams can come true, or, as Jason Ulep, founder and director of the Hypersquad Dance Company puts it: "What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve."
"Unspoken"
Presented by the Hypersquad Dance CompanyWhere: Leeward Community College Theater
When: 5:45 p.m. tomorrow, 6:45 p.m. Friday, and 12:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. on Saturday
Tickets: $11 pre-sale, $13 at the door
Call: 676-4973
Ulep loved to dance as a teenager and now teaches others who dream of dancing, whether as a professional such as Hawaii-born Nito Larioza or just with more confidence on the dance floor.
"There's a lot of people that do it just to make some friends. Some people do it for exercise. There are people who dance seven days a week, five hours a day, professionally, (and) we kind of meet everybody's needs in taking them in the direction they're looking for," Ulep explained as rehearsals were about to start on Monday.
Ulep and his Hypersquad organization were preparing for the 5th Annual Hypersquad Dance Company concert. The annual dancers' showcase was originally scheduled to open on Friday, but tickets sold so quickly that arrangements were made to add a performance tomorrow evening.
Ulep says that the emphasis of the show is presenting dance as entertainment rather than as a formal demonstration of modern dance styles or everything Hypersquad has to offer.
"It's not like a recital," he said. "It's more like what you'd see on the MTV Music Awards without the artists singing. It includes break dancing, jazz, ballet, street, which is sort of like what you see groups like *NSYNC do on MTV, but without the singing."
That's not to say that Ulep hasn't done the "boy band" thing locally as well. He stepped forward as both a singer and dancer when he was invited to become a member of DisGuyz in 2001. The group had initially retained him as a choreographer, but when an opening appeared in the lineup, Ulep accepted the offer. He was part of the group when it hit with Hawaii's first post-9/11 song, "Our Nation in Song," which was recorded within hours of the attacks and delivered to local radio stations the following morning.
Eventually, however, Ulep found that he couldn't juggle two full-time careers and resigned from the group to concentrate on Hypersquad.
COURTESY OF JASON ULEP
Jason Ulep, founder and director of the Hypersquad Dance Company.
"They had faith in my singing, but eventually I had to make a choice between singing with the group and dancing, and my passion is dancing and in working with the kids."
ULEP traces his own passion for dance back to his teen years. His involvement in dance moved beyond the status of a hobby or leisure-time activity after he and some friends formed a group named Club Supremacy and won I-94's Brownbags to Stardom talent contest in 1990. The group didn't continue (although another member achieved notoriety as local radio DJ Kool E, currently heard on 102.7 "Da Bomb"), but Ulep started attracting people who wanted dance lessons. He founded Hypersquad in 1996 with an enrollment of four; there are now more than 200 students ages 4 and up, and a staff of 22 choreographers.
Talented dancers run in the Ulep family. Jason's younger brother Josh, a high school sophomore who's been seen performing locally as one of Jennifer Perri's dancers, is moving to New York this summer to study dance at Steps On Broadway.
The 30-year-old says teens who are serious about dancing professionally have to be willing to make that kind of commitment -- and make it early -- if they expect to survive in major industry markets like New York and Los Angeles.
"Unless you're unusually gifted, you can't decide at 18 that you want to be a professional dancer. That's pushing it, and you're really going to have to put in your hours if you really want it. You might think you'll be doing street hip-hop routines like you see on the music awards, but when the choreographers are going through the auditions, they're (also) auditioning ballet, jazz and looking at the technical side, so all of that background in crucial, and it's important to get it young."
The good news for folks whose ambitions are limited to feeling comfortable dancing at a party or nightclub is that, according to Ulep, even people who're convinced they have two left feet can learn to dance.
"Anybody can do it, and you'd be amazed how much their self-esteem goes up when they do."
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