Personality Profile: Justin Ceniza

            Justin Ceniza, also known as ‘Jay C’, plays a huge part in keeping the hip-hop culture alive on the University of Buffalo campus. The ‘UB Breakdance Club’ has an exhilarating hip-hop scene worth looking into. The Westchester native and Long Island resident is the senior adviser and former vice president for the UB Breakdance organization. Ceniza is a senior year student majoring in exercise science. Although if he had to go for a Plan B, it would definitely be something arts, theater and dance oriented.

Coming from an education oriented family and being a first generation Filipino in the United States, dancing wasn’t in the plan. Like most parents, Ceniza’s mother and father were uncertain about him dancing at first, due to their strong belief in education being a primary focus. Rome wasn’t built in a day but he is appreciative of the eventual support he has received after expressing his love for the art form to his family.

Growing up, the first rapper that Justin took to was Joe Budden, attributable to him watching the street dancing film “You Got Served.” This film featured Joe Budden’s hit record “Pump It Up,” which triggered his interest for the dance scene. However, when he is geared up to dance or simply practice, he’s listening to break beats from the likes of DJ Lean Rock, DJ Fleg, and a range of others. His favorite dancer happens to be Neguin, a Brazilian native B-boy.

Eat, sleep and dance is Jay C’s routine outside of his studies. “The man who practices a thousand punches once will always be defeated by the man who practices one punch a thousand times” is his go-to quote supporting his reasoning on why dancing is solely the leisure activity he chooses to focus on.

Ceniza has been dancing for about seven years. Break dancing specifically holds a significant part of his life, but not all of it. Starting off with break dancing, over the past two years he has added Latin ballroom dance, modern hip-hop choreography, salsa, and bachata. He frequently reaches out to other student association clubs on campus to learn different forms of dance, which encourages unity among college organizations.

The UB Breakdance Club, founded in 2006, is one of if not the most influential clubs on University of Buffalo’s campus. The longevity of this organization is truly an achievement. Ceniza attributes this to Buffalo being far away from New York City’s hip-hop scene, therefore making their club easily noticeable.

“We definitely try to inspire other people to learn about the dance, the culture, and what makes Hip-Hop so great,” Ceniza said. Students often join their club due to their admiration of the art form. Many times, when others watch them dance, they instantly become eager to learn. The UB Breakdance Club prides it selves on a technique called ‘Each One, Teach One’. Justin emphasized the technique to be “Whenever we see someone off to the side and they are just watching us, we can definitely tell they can be curious. We talk to them and say ‘Hey, Would you like to learn something?’” Overall, this club is very welcoming and looks for dedication in their members.

 “People think that breaking and hip-hop is an intimidating culture, people may think the music is too hard, scary or dynamic for them but were all the same in the sense that people can be shy. Don’t be afraid to get to know one another,” Justin said. The most rewarding part of it all to Justin is what people say about them and the reputation they build. Tony Wang, President of the UB Breakdance Club says, “We want to change the stereotype of Hip-Hop. We host workshops and teach others. We are trying to instill our work ethic for the generation behind us and maintain our presence on campus.”

Everything takes hard work and they have truly built their reputation from the ground up. Their organization has grown, not only in size, but also in reputation and that’s the goal of it all. Thanks to Justin Ceniza and the members of the UB Breakdance Club, hip-hop culture is able to survive on this college campus.