By Alison Roh Park
Spoiler alert: This review reveals important details from the storyline. Listen to DJ Ming’s interview with Bboy Wicket on City Beef, Wednesday nights at 8pm on KOOP.org.
Directed by Lily Plotkin and produced by Ryland Hormel, WICKET is a tale of how a legendary Bay Area breakdancer Gabriel “Wicket” Jaocinto found his way to himself. The film is half love letter to a golden era of hip hop and the youth culture that originated it, and half testament to the leap of faith Wicket took as one of the first bboys to come out as gay on his 41st birthday.
Wicket was already a product of the Bay Area Filipino community that had already produced the mobile turntable crews of the 1970s and hip hop greats like Qbert, Mix Master Mike, and Apollo. Wicket and his middle school friend watched a VHS tape of the 1984 movie Beat Street and began practicing religiously. He quickly made a name for himself among his peers, roaming the streets of San Francisco after school with his helmet in hand to practice what would become his signature move—the headspin. At the Embarcadero Center one afternoon, young Wicket caught the eye of 80s bboy Aki Starr, and in an early milestone, he was recruited into The Renegade Rockers.
The film cuts present-day interviews with archival footage of historic 1990s breakdancing battles. After one such historic battle, Wicket received a surprise phone call from his competitor Mr. Wiggles of the famous Rock Steady Crew that would change the trajectory of his life. Barely of voting age, Rock Steady recruited Wicket to perform in Vegas as part of the production Madhattan. He rapidly stepped up, continuing to hone his craft beyond the headspin under the tutelage of Bboy Flo Master, who attributed his own ethos to his early training with Rock Steady Crew in New York City that would ultimately gain him a spot with artists like Britney Spears and Usher.
The documentary includes elegant hat tips to major players of the 1990s Bay Area breakdancing community and pays tribute where it is due across space and time. Wicket’s conversations with Bay Area icon, Bgirl Nancy “Asia One” Yu, are featured prominently. Asia One co-created and contributed to the infrastructure and local-to-global networks that brought breaking into the Olympic arena.
After the production of Madhattan wrapped, it was critical that Wicket reestablish himself as a legitimate bboy, and he did just that at a high-octane battle, opting for precision footwork and other fundamentals instead of his signature headspin. In a present-day conversation about his late 90s post-Vegas comeback, the two breakdancers talk about how Wicket’s performance still evoked critiques about authenticity, including the sentiment that “You aren’t being true, [when it] isn’t your foundation.” The story pivots at this halfway point, and the film takes us back in time to a grainy self-recording of young Wicket, alone in the mirror of a dance studio.
“I had all types of bags and clothes on top of me still,” Wicket says, recounting the period after he had already reached most milestones of success as a bboy, and when his relationship his partner Ronnie in Austin was blooming. Wicket had already been on screen, performed worldwide, and was creating spaces for the next generation of bgirls and bboys. But, he had still not come out to his friend and mentor Flo Master or to anyone else in the community.
Despite the homophobia in music, television, and in the community, and, most importantly, despite his own fear, Wicket arrived at a decision: “I just need to f-cking be me…. F-ck you waiting for?” He approached Flo Master who was on tour with Usher at the time, who simply responded, “Okay—as long as you’re happy.” Wicket came out on social media with a new beat and lyrics he composed for his 41st birthday:
“I been lying this whole time
Tired of being someone else
Now it’s time to just be me…
I’m okay to say that I’m gay
F-ck it I don’t care, you been knowing.”
Wicket was met with resounding support, and the precedent empowered other breakers to come out. No longer drained by the need to hide who he was, Wicket discovered a newfound energy and rededicated himself to practicing for the 2019 Freestyle Session World Final 40+ category—the first time ever that Wicket would compete as his full self.
To watch Wicket’s freestyle is to understand that while it is an Olympic category today, breakdancing is art, and art is culture. After a dramatic finale with the skillful Bboy Arton, the judges gave Wicket first place. The battle was an emotional culmination of the film that took it back to what hip hop fundamentally means to so many—an evolution from who we were to who we are today, and the confidence to ultimately represent one’s self, unapologetically.
WICKET made its Austin premiere at the Big Queer Weekend and Danzversity. Visit wicketdocumentary.com for more information. If you’re in the Austin area, check out Break Expectation’s breakdancing competition, Let Me Get Down Vol. 1 on Nov 6 and Nov 7. Learn more at www.breakexpectations.org.