"Dancing helps you heal" - Corey Action
In North Oakland's Rockridge district, on a stretch of College Avenue nearby Diesel Books, Pegasus Books, George & Walt's, not far from new hip clothing store Dapper and scores of other mom & pops; in the 5400 block sandwiched in between The Rockrigde Masonic Center and the new eclectic Atomic Garden is the vibrant New Style Motherlode Dance Studio where, for the past seven years, Corey Action and his stable of able dance instructors have been teaching various forms of hip-hop based dance (including a Bay Area Style class) along with a healthy, positive outlook on life.
"Time For Some Action" boldly reads one poster in the window at 5451 College Ave. Inside, on one recent early evening, the place was packed with many urging the call to take action: dancing bodies, brimming with energy, all vibing to the pulsating music's groove that fused it all together. Owner, instructor, and recording artist, Corey Action recently took time out to talk to AMOEBLOG about his studio and his passion, dance.
AMOEBLOG: Seven years for any small business, especially a teaching facility located in an expensive
high rent area like you are in, means you have beaten the odds. To what do you contribute your success?




This weekend, on Saturday (July 28th), from 10AM til 1PM, is your chance to be a star when the world-famous Apollo Theater of Harlem, NY will make its once a year visit to California in search of "amateur" talent for upcoming Showtime At The Apollo shows back in New York City at the historic 125th Street venue. This year the producers of the show will only visit five American cities outside of New York in search of talent so this is a great opportunity to try out if you are an aspiring entertainer: be it singer, rapper, spoken-word artist, comedian, dancer, musician (any instrument), etc. And on Saturday their only West Coast tryouts will be held at the Oakland Convention Center located 1001 Broadway in downtown Oakland.
spelt backwards - redrum (popularized by The Shining) is just another empty meaningless word or even worse, alternately it is a sexy catch-phrase, repeated in songs I hum, the theme of entertaining movies I watch, video games I play, books I read, and juicy headlines in morning newspapers I read as I sip my comforting coffee. So ultimately murder to me (and maybe to you too?) is just another hollow disposable word - nothing more, nothing less. Unless, unless, that is, of course, that the word "murder" is directly connected to me personally or to someone close to me.
So as I sat on the BART the other morning reading a small short article in the Bay Area section of the San Francisco Chronicle under the heading "Two Murders In Oakland Over The Weekend" about a couple of unrelated fatal street shootings (one of them "gang related") to be totally honest - it barely registered in my consciousness - just the same ol, same ol to this jaded soul. Until, that is, the location of one of the murders jumped off the page at me ("Fairview Ave. in the 100 block, north of Lake Merrit"). Damn! I realized that this was directly outside the apartment buidling where I stay. Later that day from talking to folks in the immediate East Bay neighborhood I found out all the killing's tragic details: that the murder happened on Friday night at 9:25PM. That it took place directly opposite the church (ironically) when a car screeched to a halt in the middle of the street with two guys audibly arguing inside. Both got out, still arguing loudly, and one shot the other nine times before hopping back into the driver's seat to speed away leaving the body of a 29 year old man bleeding to death on that chilly Oakland night.