Emilio Austin Jr

Emilio Austin Jr., known professionally as Buddha Stretch, is a Brooklyn-born choreographer, dancer and teacher who brought freestyle hip-hop from New York clubs into music videos, concert tours and mainstream studio instruction. Raised in Brooklyn with early encouragement from his father, Emilio Austin Sr., a dancer himself, Stretch learned his craft through the social spaces and hip-hop culture of the city rather than a conservatory path. His first music-video appearance was Eric B. & Rakim's "Eric B. Is President" in 1986. Through an audition for Diana Ross's "Working Overtime," he met dancers who would become the Mop Top crew, a group that practiced at venues including the Tunnel and developed a freestyle language responsive to changing hip-hop and house music. Stretch's choreography work began with Joeski Love's "Pee-Wee's Dance" and expanded to include Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" in 1992, the same year Elite Force formed with Stretch, Henry Link McMillan and Jamel "Loose Joint" Brown as its foundation. Throughout the 1990s, Stretch and Elite Force gained visibility through videos and tours for Mariah Carey, TLC and Will Smith, earning MTV recognition for work on "Men in Black," "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" and "Miami." In 1989, Stretch became the first hip-hop dancer to teach the form at a mainstream dance studio when he began classes at Broadway Dance Center. His teaching and international workshops have positioned freestyle as a musical and cultural practice rooted in improvisation and musicality rather than as a fixed sequence of commercial steps.