A series of locally owned shops line the sidewalk down Santa Clara Street in San Jose: a plant store, a record shop, and eateries. The latest addition to this neighborhood is a boutique art gallery called 1Culture. This gallery started as a traveling pop-up and moved into a storefront across the street from San Jose City Hall. The shop, as it’s referred to by the small team that runs it, is owned by local real estate agent and art supporter, Andrew Espino. He has a story to tell–just not his story.

Right before the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, Espino was driving his seven-year-old son to karate practice when his son posed a question: “Dad, what do you do to help people?” Baffled, and a little offended, Espino asked his son what he meant. “I know you sell real estate, but what do you do to help people? To help the world?” Espino recalls, “That really dug at me. It’s how your kids see you.”

Espino studied business at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, not entirely sure what he wanted to do with the degree. Sometime in college, he met and started helping a local real estate agent with administrative tasks. His very first real estate investment was a multi-family home located downtown on Reed Street. Espino collaborated with graffiti artist Scape Martinez to create a one-of-a-kind mural that would live on the building. The painting process and unveiling of the piece turned into a community event, coordinated by Espino. He learned that he loved creating a space for both local art and the community. While the building has been sold since then, the mural lives on today. It continues to read, “culture.”

Espino continued to work with local artists, helping them organize pop-up galleries. In the process, he learned the artists’ stories and promoted their art with folks who stopped by. “I wanted to understand the hustle that an artist goes through, from having to set up shop to selling their work. Some days we would leave with everything we came with, but to see an artist go right back out there the next weekend inspired me.” Espino’s time traveling to far off cities in search of art got his mind turning. He wondered, “How can we help change some of these artists’ lives? What tools do I have that can help? Giving them a platform? That’s when it hit me—that’s how we’re going to make change. We’re going to help artists.”

From then on, Espino started his arts-focused business. Once he knew the story or meaning behind a piece, he loved it even more. He wanted others to experience that same feeling. “I realized I wanted to find a way to continue sharing artists’ stories far and wide. The meaning behind a piece makes it much more important.”

After a year of coordinating pop-ups, Espino opened 1Culture as a permanent space to uplift artists and bring community together. The gallery’s name, 1Culture, is rooted in originality, creativity, and unity. “If you believe in those three things, then you are part of one culture. We are a Chicano-owned gallery, but we are open to everybody and want to uplift all artists and communities.”

“We like to ask each artist to tell a story—what is their art about? That’s a huge part of our mission. We encourage them to give us the full body, the details of what they’re trying to say.” – Andrew Espino

The gallery plans to rotate shows every six to eight weeks, curating a mixture of hand-selected artists and announcing calls for art. “Right now, there is a long list of artists we would like to highlight.” Espino runs 1Culture and coordinates art events around town while continuing his career in real estate. His first large event, KixCon, brought together sneaker heads, visual artists, musicians, and dancers at Eastridge Mall.

“We like to ask each artist to tell a story—what is their art about? That’s a huge part of our mission. We encourage them to give us the full body, the details of what they’re trying to say. We believe that behind the artwork is a mission, a purpose. We want to tell those stories.”

Espino has continued to incorporate art into his real estate career. He has procured a large art collection over the last 20 years. Occasionally, he will use his private collection to dress up the houses and apartments that he is selling, giving the space a local and welcoming feel. Today, Espino has an answer to his son’s questions. “When I opened the shop, I thought about what I wanted people to see or how they would feel—and with everything going on in the world, I really wanted people to feel present. When you walk in here, you can take a time out from the world and really get lost in these stories that haven’t been told, and you’ll be in a place where you can feel at home.”

shop1culture.com
136 East Santa Clara Street
San Jose, Ca 95113

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shop1culture

We’ve seen the lockdown footage of folks in urban areas dancing on apartment balconies—a hopeful sign of life and defiance during COVID.

Yet, how does a professional dancer survive a global pandemic?

 It’s not easy. For Alex “Prince Ali” Flores, San Jose native and veteran street dancer and instructor, the pandemic is one more challenge in a life in which one has chosen the path of art and rarely looks back. “I’m just blessed to be in the situation I’m in right now,” he says. That situation for many of us is in front of a computer running Zoom. He’s assembled what amounts to a studio dancefloor in an apartment bedroom, equipped with wide-angle cameras so he can dance, teach, and break down the technique of his students. It’s a strange environment for popping—Flores’s dance style of choice for over 15 years—a street style that has a history of battle culture, competition, and community.

“The style that I do is not the most popular,” says Flores. “I don’t advertise myself as this hip-hop-studio, commercial dancer. I do something that’s a very old-school, traditional style of street dance. I had to bounce back and
get creative.” 

Getting creative is at the heart of popping, which took shape here on the West Coast in the Oakland communities of the 1960s, where local kids developed a style called boogaloo. “It started in black communities in Oakland around the Civil Rights Movement. These kids were essentially creating this dance, characterized by a lot of soul stepping, stops, and animated-type movements. It all started in Oakland with boogaloo,” says Flores.

The soundtrack for boogaloo was often live funk bands, or James Brown on vinyl, blasting out of driveways and talent shows and echoing in local gyms. Middle and high school mascots would even face off in boogaloo dance battles for school pride and street cred. As the music got faster into the 1970s and more digital in the 80s, the dancing changed with it. In the mass-market sense, we now know it as “breakdancing” or “hip-hop” dance, yet purists know that each genre has its own style, moves, aesthetic, and aficionados. For Flores, popping was his first love.

 “Popping is its own style, a beautiful style,” he says. 

Growing up in a close-knit Mexican family in East San Jose, Flores was a shy kid whose father loved fishing and the outdoors and encouraged his son to become a public service officer and serve the community. A cousin who would break and pop at raves turned Flores on to street dance, and by high school, he had found his calling and an alternate way to serve the community.

“I was always the quiet kid, and I didn’t really have a voice in school,” says Flores. “I was always the wallflower in the back. I made this conscious choice. I’m going to do this. This is the thing I’m going to focus my energy on.”

Popping provided a focus, a passion, and a way to navigate adolescence and avoid gang culture in the neighborhood. He befriended local dancers Aiko Shirakawa and San Jose legend Spacewalker, who mentored him and critiqued his moves. It was urban folk art happening in the moment.

“There really was no school for popping. The way we learned was by being around people. It was very organic,” says Flores.

As he grew older, he continued to learn from the most established Bay Area dance crews, such as Playboyz Inc and Renegade Rockers, until a hallelujah moment arrived with an offer from Bobby and Damone from Future Arts, who offered him a salary equal to his day job to teach dance. He jumped at the chance. 

He continued to work on his craft, teach, and compete until winning his first world title for popping in 2019 at the Freestyle Session World Finals in San Diego, a seminal moment for his career and his art. 

The arts in general, and street dance in particular, are in a curious position in 2021. Superstar-sponsored, mass-market dance shows are reintroducing wide swaths of the population to dance and choreography, yet perhaps missing the point when it comes to freestyle and street dance, which is more immediate and of-the-moment, like jazz and hip-hop. For Flores, who has served as a judge and showcase artist for shows like World of Dance, he sees the world turning on to dance, but also tries to stay true to the form, even as street dance in general evolves and emerges.

While acknowledging that the competitive aspect of popping and street dance will always be a part of the form, Flores imagines a focus for street dance in the post-pandemic landscape that leans more toward helping one another through art, instead of trying to prove who’s best. He sees the city of San Jose and its communities as part of that equation.

“If we can have some sort of facility where artists can go and get paid their worth, that would be amazing,” says Flores.

Among his many dance education offerings, Flores teaches an intensive dance boot camp called “The Renegade Way,” which seems to describe the ethos one must have to pursue a life in street dance. For Alex Flores, his smile is disarming and his demeanor is warm and friendly, but when it comes to dance, his determination is evident.

“I’ll never stop dancing,” he says. 

princealifreez.com

Instagram: princealifreez 

Article originally appeared inIssue 13.3 Perform (Print SOLD OUT)