About Dark Matter
Electronic Music, Dance, Art & Culture
Dark Matter, originally a dance crew conceived by Baltimore area Liquid and Digitz (digits) practitioners, is now flourishing into a hub and knowledge epicenter for preserving, documenting and advancing the dance styles known as Liquid & Digitz (digits) for anyone who is interested. Our members, both young and old (with former members of the Liquid Pop Collective), strive to teach, educate, motivate and assist persons who would like to learn more about EDM dance culture as a whole through events and other modern day media outlets.
Dark Matter is a ‘Dance Event’ production company. That means we:
- Offer classes on dance instruction
- Host workshops for artists in their respective fields
- Produce musical events & dance competitions
- Blog about other events, products, dance archetypes and other artistic endeavours
Business Contacts
Relic
Lucas Johnson // Business Development
Expertise: Locking, Liquid, Digitz, Animation & Galactic Mastermind
Being a social dancer most his adult life Relic has a profound love for the dances which cater to electronic music dance culture. Usually found rocking floors or guiding a lending hand to the next generation at any edm event in Baltimore, Relic is now pushing his new group Dark Matter. The group hopes to continue the push of creative movement's evolution and awareness found within the electronic music dance scene through the knowledge of both its historical context, as well as other dances which help fuel conceptual expansion.
Code Red
Jared Hupp // Media & Marketing
Expertise: Liquid, Digitz, Waving/Cobra, Instruction, Web Advertising, Design
At age 18, Jared began to frequent the Tunnel Night Club (NYC) where he met and learned from Digitz creator Mario. Additionally, through the use of ‘mag lights’, Jared also learned the craft of Liquid. An original member of LiquidPop Collective, Jared “Code Red” Hupp’s contributions include the development, education and organizing a vocabulary for the original foundation, of Digitz. He is also recognized as the bridge that extended the dance between the NYC club scene, to Philadelphia then eventually globally through traveling, teaching and the LPC dance instructional video produced in 2001. Jared continues his role through event organization, lecturing, marketing and advertising for Dark Matter and the crews website development.
Liquid Pop Eric
Eric C // Historical Preservation
Expertise: Liquid, Digitz, Instruction
Even as a young child LP Eric has had an ear for the beat. Growing up he would dig through his cousin’s mix tapes of Kraftwerk, Pet shop boys and Africa Bambatta. Soon enough he was sneaking out to clubs in NYC and eventually migrating to Philadelphia in the mid 90’s. Here he first learned Liquid and subsequently Digitz. Eric is most noted for helping found Liquid Pop Collective, defining the vocabulary and foundation of Liquid via LPC’s 2001 instrucitonal video and disseminating one of the earliest viral liquid dance videos (the infamous arcade video) before the advent of YouTube. Since then he has been a continued advocate and respected voice on the history of Liquid dance and early EDM culture.
Instructors & Performers
Tiny Love
Razvan Gorea // Extraterrestrial Lifeform
Expertise: Liquid, Digitz, Waving, Popping, Tutting, Rocking, Finger Tutting
Having helped create the first glowsticking crew and co-create the dance style known as Finger Tutting, Tiny Love is one of the reasons for the popularity of America’s rave scene dances in today's street dance culture. Tiny Love has experienced and witnessed firsthand the creation, development and evolution of glowsticking, mag lights, liquid, digits and a plethora of other historical street dances in New York City. Wildly popular on YouTube, Tiny continues to document and push out videos that showcase his eclectic brand of dance styles. Tiny also maintains crew affiliations with Vibe Elements and Liquid Lights Crew. Both of these groups were pivitol in the Liquid dance movement in NYC.
Ty Fingers
Rakeem Allen // Cubically Impossible
Expertise: Finger Connect, Flexing
Fly Guy TY is one of the indisputable innovators and master craftsmen behind the evolution of the Finger Connect style. Residing in Brooklyn, NY, TY is inspired to create through the senses of sight, sound and touch. While he is also a practitioner of Popping and Flexing styles, it is his Finger Connect talent that stands above the rest. TY hopes to inspire, as well as learn from others, and continue the tradition of evolving talent through the exposure of other dance worlds. Along with Dark Matter, Ty's crew affiliations include the Next Level Squad out of Brooklyn, NYC
Lush
Jenn Martin // Audio Transponder
Expertise: Music, Deep Base, Future Garage
A west coast native, Jenn's passion for music was evident at a young age. She started playing piano and violin early on during her childhood, studying classical, jazz & the blues. Her first exposure to electronic music was at 13 years old when her father brought home Prodigy's "Fat of the Land," which was given to him by a young geek he worked with at a computer store. Jenn has since become an avid collector of EDM. All of her downtime is spent is a musical treasure hunt, spending hours on end searching and digging for those diamonds in the rough. Its a daily obsession that never gets old, and her love for music and desires to produce on her own grow with each day, fueling her curiosity to apply this knowledge and channel this love into her dance.
Houdoken
Matt // Research & Development
Expertise: Digitz, Finger Tutting, Tutting, Popping, Liquid
As a kid, 8-bit video games gave him a love for sounds and martial arts, a love for motion. In 2001 Matt was exposed to an artform that combined these two loves: Liquid and Digits. While teaching funk styles in 2008 he began to examine some of the ways basics were approached in those dances. Not satisfied with explanations like “it’s just a feeling”, Matt began to research and attempt to delve into and uncover the conceptual trappings that underpin our abilities to easily describe how we express ourselves. He freely offers the results of this ongoing research. Matt currently resides in the Dark Matter Squad R&D Division, focusing primarily on tutting and digitz (digits) and how they apply to liquid.
Supporting Members
Shenchi
Shane // Diplomacy & Warfare
Expertise: Liquid, Digitz
Shenchi is a Baltimore native, and was first introduced to the local EDM scene in late 1992. Attending parties organized by promotion companies like Catastrophic, Ultraworld, and Fever, he was lucky enough to witness the early development of the legendary Baltimore/DC party scene. In 1998 Shenchi was introduced to the dance style known as Liquid by a friend and fellow party kid named Ki. Soon after, through the support of members of the Liquid Pop Collective, Shenchi also learned the foundations of Digitz.
Veek
Vik // Promoter
Expertise: Liquid, Digitz, Promotions, Party Kid Guru
Hailing out of Baltimore, MD, with previous experience in event and party promotions Vik supports Dark Matter's promotions team. Through a chance run in with Relic, Vik became a good friend and ally of Relic and Dark Matter. Inducted in 2011, he now actively help supports Dark Matter mission to preserve, educate and advance edm and the cultures dances Liquid and Digitz.
