(light electronic music) (light electronic music continues) - Peace.

Welcome to the Caged Birds show.

My name is Kash Gaines, dancer, first and foremost.

I'm a director and the creator of the Caged Birds show."

Sometimes dancing out on the street or performing on the trains can get you put into prison, sometimes in solitary confinement even.

The Caged Birds show, originally a live performance event, offers street dancers a chance to tell their true stories critiquing mass incarceration.

This series takes a deeper look at a few of these dancers and their experiences.

Off the streets and subway trains, the dancers navigate the challenges of personal struggles, defining their identities and proving they belong in a world far removed from the streets and stereotypes that once defined them or the cages that sought to hold them.

(uneasy electronic music) - My name is Joseph Carella, also known as Klassic, spelled with a K and I've been dancing for 16 years.

(uneasy electronic music continues) My style of dance is called Flexing.

Flexing is a reggae dancehall-based style that is birthed in Brooklyn, New York.

(uneasy electronic music continues) And it consists of Bruk Up, which is a foundation made from Jamaica Patois as well as reggae and an animalistic-based animation style.

(uneasy electronic music continues) (uneasy electronic music continues) It also consists of pausing, get low, gliding, connecting, "bone breaking," and hat tricks, and we also have punchlines as well.

My style consists of movement and also storytelling and animation.

People would describe my style as a character-based style.

For me, it's one of the central points of flexing, which is groovement, which is grooving and movement.

But I also like to interpret like storytelling cinematic features and animation to basically express my way of being.

Some places that I've performed was Guggenheim in New York, as well as Spain, Bilbao, celebrating their 25th anniversary.

I have been at Guild Hall, Lincoln Center.

I've danced at places such as Apollo, "So You Think You Could Dance" and many more places.

(performer beatboxing) (performer beatboxing) (audience cheers and applauds) - After traveling the world filming so many amazing street dance talent, I didn't realize how much the criminal justice system affected the dance community.

Until now.

The Caged Birds show offers each of these dancers, including Klassic, a chance to tell his story from his own perspective.

- What you'll see in the pieces that I have a lot of reoccurring arrests due to the fact that, you know, I was applying for jobs one summer, over about 50, 60 jobs, and there was no place to hire.

So I definitely had an amount of skill sets that I wanted to use.

And one of my friends showed me how to dance on a train to get some honest money.

And when I was dancing, I encountered law enforcement and I was kept coming back, coming back each time just to make ends meet.

And the funny thing about it was that they noticed that I was one of the dancers that wouldn't run away from them.

And I told them, because honestly this is the only way that I can make money.

(light rhythmic music) (person sings in foreign language) (person sings in foreign language) - There was one particular time where I got arrested, and they have something called a hub, where they keep all the people that they arrested throughout the day.

As people were going around telling their story about how some got arrested, some had attempted murder, some had, you know, stole stuff, some had, you know, I guess jumped the turnstile.

But then, as it got to me, they asked, "Well, like how did you get arrested?"

And I said, "Well, for dancing on the train."

And they said, "Wait, what?

You did what?"

They proceeded to laugh, and one of the guys got up and said, "Excuse me, officer.

Get this guy outta here.

He has like no place being in here."

(person sings in foreign language) (person sings in foreign language) (person sings in foreign language) (person sings in foreign language) (person sings in foreign language) - So one of the times that I got arrested, I actually went to see a judge, and the judge had noticed me and she was like, "Wait, you look familiar."

And I'm thinking like, "Well I seen you in high school," 'cause I used to take an internship.

But she was like, "No, I actually seen you at 'So You Think You Could Dance,' and my daughter loves you."

And I thought that was pretty ironic that, you know, I was caught in that situation.

- In first creating this theater show, I got a chance to speak to each of these dancers.

And Klassic for one told me that he had been in solitary confinement before.

What was more amazing to me about the story was that as a dancer, instead of telling me how big that cell was, he showed me with his own hands.

- The solitary confinement piece just puts me back in a place of when I was isolated.

And to be honest, like I was trapped by a lot of my thoughts and a lot of like things that happened to me in the past.

You know, being left alone, especially for an abundant amount of time, just, you know, you just stripped away of like all your essence, you know?

And especially like others that go through it in the spaces by me, which you'll see in the piece, it's like you take on all that energy and you're just confined in a small space, trapped with nothing to do, nothing to see.

Do I think that it should be something that should be condoned?

No.

You know, because we need people, we need society in order to thrive and, you know, we can learn our lessons like within the communities instead of just being deprived of everything.

Like it is very constricting, because we need space in order to grow and to like utilize our movements.

I think it's important that space is needed for anybody, for a kid.

You know, like they said, it takes a village to raise a child.

Like just imagine when you're an adult and you want to just express yourself.

(light electronic music) (light electronic music continues) (light electronic music continues) (light electronic music continues) (light electronic music continues) (light electronic music continues) As of now, like I'm pursuing different types of art form, acting.

I started acting, getting really heavy into it.

I've been blessed to also do like another film that has premiered in, like, Sundance and a lot of different film festivals and has won some awards.

So this makes me feel accomplished as an artist.

I started doing photography and videography, doing a lot of like behind the scenes, because I always believed that to make a better artist, if you know what's going on behind the camera, you can dance way better in front of the camera.

I started doing a clothing as well, vinyl press and heat press as well.

So these are some of the things that broadened my horizons with artistry.

So with heat press, vinyl press, this has allowed me to collaborate with different artists such as Cricut, shout out to Cricut, who has illustrated two different designs that I currently use today.

And, you know, this was like a awesome co-collaboration because I expressed to him something that I wanted to wear on myself, you know, as an artist to branch out, and he definitely caught the eye of that.

One of my most exciting adventures was dealing with the missing element.

If you don't know what the Missing Element is you're missing out, just saying.

So the Missing Element is pretty much five world champion beatboxers and we got about four or five dancers that are amazing street dancers, you know what I mean, from all different types of various styles.

Crumping, flexing, breaking, you name it, some contortion stuff too.

You should see it.

And one of my most exciting adventures was flying to Spain, Bilbao, and it was phenomenal.

From the service, from the people, they're really big on doing a lot of encores.

(performer beatboxing) (performer beatboxing) ♪ We getting Bilbao money (performer beatboxing) (dramatic electronic music) (dramatic electronic music continues) (dramatic electronic music continues) (dramatic electronic music continues) (dramatic electronic music continues) (dramatic electronic music continues)