Flavour caught up with the A-Team, one of the sickest dance crews on Sky1’s Got To Dance competition. I managed to grab a quick moment with the guys at one of their rehearsals…Check out the exclusive interview.
Tell us about the A-Team?
Mark: We’re a crew of establish dancers, we’ve known each-other for a while, were all superhero’s and were following our Angel (Suki)
How did you guys come up with the name A-Team?
Mark: It was to do with my previous crew, the Animaniacs, we had these t-shirts with the A’s on them. Know one could identify what the A meant so I thought like, lets use the power of the A and put together an A team, and that’s how the name got created really. I was thinking along the lines of superhero’s, like flippers could be something to do with the air so I thought Air-keepers because they’re trying to keep the air. Then I thought b-boys like to annihilate the floor so I thought call them the annihilation brothers and simply with Suki, shes an Angel to us.
What has been the most memorable experience whilst on your journey?
(Laughs) Jeffery: We all have different ones, but I think the main one that kinda went down in history was the A-Life. Well I’ll let Ryan explain what happened…
Ryan: The A-Life was our first VT on the show, that was the first time some big drama went down to do with my roll on the fashion side, I had one small size t-shirt for Suki but it didn’t fit her and my role was to have all that sorted for the recording…
Ess: They didn’t listen to Ess Green (Laughs)
Ryan: There was no communication, but we made an episode out of it.
What was your biggest drama Suki?
Suki: When Rob kicked me in the face, Rob is one of the Air-Keepers, he didn’t tell anyone that he was doing any tricks, he kicked me in the face and I had to go to A&E, I was in there for 5 hours and finally went to bed at 2am, I had a Jordan logo mark on my face from where he had kicked me. (Laughs)
What can we expect from your semi final performance?
Lee: I think our first performance was more of an introduction to what each individual in the A-Team can do, and our next piece will show how we’ve come together to put our different styles together, which you’ll see in the piece.
Jeffery: Suki doesn’t know yet, but shes the star of this piece.
How much does it mean to you guys to make it to the final?
Jeffery: I think getting to the finals would mean a lot to us as a team because what we want to achieve in terms of where we wanna go after this competition, win or lose; we’re tryna achieve something that not a lot of groups have done. We want to open doors for a lot of people and tryna literally go out there to create history with history and inspire a lot people.
Mark: To get to the finals would mean we haven’t been doing this week after week for no reason.
Ess: For me it would be a really big achievement, when I said I’m the odd one I feel like I haven’t achieved a high status type of thing, and this is one of those things, to get with these talented people with high status’s and actually achieve something with them.
I watched an episode of A-Life and I saw Rob had a difficult decision to make, Rob what have you decided?
Check out Robs episode here
Rob: I’m going to stay with the A-Team, and not take my contract in China
What would you do with the money if you guys won?
Gavin: I think together as a group I think we’re gonna try to plan to catapult the future of what we’re trying to say, it’s not just for ourselves its away of using something to go somewhere else, somewhere bigger, and to branch out to more people, it’s a starting point; not to just create opportunities for ourselves, but for others.
What sacrifices have you guys had to make on this journey?
Ess: I have my own business back at home, I run a shop and I’ve had to change my focus and switch it to the A-Team because I need to be on point, its hard because its a small company and its growing rapidly. Its at a peak right now, and so much work is coming in. Im kinda sacrificing part of my income, I need to make money to pay the bills. It’s a big sacrifice because I have to sacrifice time and money, because I have to travel down here from up north (Manchester) to London every week.
Matt: What I’ve been missing a lot out on, is my education at Uni, for the past month I have been missing a lot of my classes. I recently had an assessment and my grade reflected my absence from Uni because I just about passed.
Jeffery: We wanna make sure we send out a good message, make sure you study first, go to school because that’s something that is very important in your life, you’ve gotta have something in you brain for plan B.
Who do you think is your biggest competition?
Jeffery: Ourselves, other than that, no one should scare you, that’s the way I see it.
If you don’t go on to the finals and go on to win the show, who would you like to win?
Lee: Every single person in the semi finals deserves a chance to win, they’re all talented in their own right. Whoever performs the best on the night I guess.
Ess: Agreed
Suki’s mum, how do you balance travelling down with Suki every week from Stoke-on-Trent?
Suki’s Mum Jess: I find it very difficult, I’m working full time, I’m a single mother, but I have to support her because its her dream.
Closing words…
We wanna say thank you to all the people that have been supporting us! We can go on and on… (They did actually go on and on, to name many people, to many names to actually type out) We appreciate you guys all.
They end the interview singing ‘Whats your Flavour tell me whats your Flavour whattttt!’
Check out the A-Team semi-final performance ‘Creating history with history’ on Sky1 Got To Dance tomorrow!
Follow the A-Team – @Ateam_Official on Twitter – Suki Wong @sukibgirl, Mark “Swarf” Calape @MarkSwarfCalape, Jeffrey Felicisimo @peepz1981, Ryan Ramirez @rynamo, Matt Macadangdang @Matt_STY, Lee Crowley @Bboy_Rekless, Rob Anker @flipz90, Gavin Vincent @Bboy_Mihawk, Ess Green @EssGreen