The work it took to track down Victor Vân Tran for a phone interview felt appropriate given the name of his organization: Hustle at RS. The dancer, known in the underground scene as B.Boy Savage Rock, had just returned from a dance festival in Tokyo and was preparing to fly back home to Montreal, where he’s now based between trips to teach, adjudicate and perform internationally. By the time I get him on the line, I’ve begun to assume that the “hustle” referred to his schedule.
Instead, over the course of our call, I learn it’s the name of the partner dance style that has transformed Tuesday nights into one of Vancouver’s warmest social scenes.
Which, admittedly, surprises me. As someone whose natural instinct in public spaces is to pretend I’m looking for a friend while actually scouting the nearest tall plant to stand beside, the idea of outdoor partner dancing with strangers at Robson Square struck fear directly into my nervous system when I first heard about it. But Tran makes a compelling case.
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“It’s scary showing up to a new social setting,” he says. (Tran himself admits he had to be convinced by a friend to try partner dance after years focused mostly on breaking and solo styles.) “But the good thing about Hustle is that someone’s going to want to dance with you.”
Founded in 2013 by a small group of dancers “sessioning” at Robson Square, Hustle at RS grew organically out of Vancouver’s long-running street dance scene. Tran describes the square as a “melting pot” for Vancouver dance communities that dates back to the 1980s, when dancers began gathering outdoors to practice, share styles and, in Hustle’s early days, “reverse engineer” moves from videos together.
Thirteen years later, the Hustle community still gathers weekly for an open-level class followed by a social dance party. During the summer months, dancers spill across Robson Square out to streets lit by the downtown lights; in fall, the party moves indoors to Victoria Drive Community Hall.
What can you expect besides a good time and a slightly elevated heart rate? “Good music,” says Tran: R&B, disco, funk and house. Sometimes it’s a curated playlist, once delivered by “DJ iPod” and now, naturally, by “DJ Spotify.” Once or twice a month, actual DJs step in, too, from community members practicing their craft to out-of-town guests playing for the love of it. And, depending on who’s in charge of the aux on a given night, Tran admits, “you might get one Sabrina Carpenter track.”
The classes are “very, very intro-friendly,” says Tran. The goal is that “by your first class, you should be able to have a dance.” There’s no expectation that dancers stick to traditional gender roles either: people can choose whether they want to lead or follow and switch roles whenever they want. “Everyone was dancing with each other in multiple roles,” he says.
Wear casual shoes and loose clothes, or dress up “and be fly.” Then, after class, you can stay for the social, practice your moves and maybe trick yourself into making a friend or two.
The Deets
Tuesdays at 7 p.m. for the class, with an 8 p.m. open session. Summer sessions take place outdoors at Robson Square and move indoors to Victoria Drive Community Hall when temperatures drop.
Follow @hustleatrs for location updates.
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