Culture Shock Dance Center, which opened in September, is the brainchild of longtime friends and partners Joe Savant and Angie Bunch. Located in Old Town, the center has three separate studios comprising 5,000 square feet of dance studio space. They offer classes in a myriad of dance styles and performing arts, including hip-hop, break dance, jazz, street jazz, ballet, capoeira, and salsa for pre-school aged children, six to 10-year-olds, pre-teens, teenagers and adults.

“We are a gay man and a lesbian woman who have been friends for 24 years, at least,” says Savant. The pair met while dancing in parades at Disneyland, and have had a close relationship ever since.

Bunch, a San Diego native, worked for Nike for 12 years teaching dance and fitness, which took her all over the world. In 1993, she founded Culture Shock Dance Troupe, a nonprofit professional hip-hop group and youth outreach program, in San Diego. The troupe now has companies nationwide and internationally. She has taught dance at Mesa College for 18 years and at Grossmont College for the last two years. She operated Culture Shock Training Academy from 1998 through 2001 at the Naval Training Center in Point Loma, but the Academy closed when the city took over the NTC and evicted all the tenants.

Savant moved from Los Angeles to New York City 11 years ago to perform professionally on Broadway, but saw Bunch whenever work with Nike or performances with Culture Shock brought her to New York. He spent 8 years in New York, performing on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Peter Pan, among other productions.

Though bonded by a shared passion for the performing arts, the concept of co-founding a dance center with Bunch was not what initially drew Savant to give up Broadway for San Diego. It was parenthood.

“About four years ago,” recalls Savant, “I got a phone call when I was living in New York from Angie, and she threw out a little proposition that I couldn’t pass up. And now that little proposition is [sitting here] watching television at three years old.”

Savant and Bunch are the biological parents of a daughter — they currently share a house and parenting responsibilities, though Bunch has sole custody.

“Honestly I never thought of anybody else as the father,” Bunch says. “I said, ‘Well, I’m having a baby, and you’re choice number one.’ I didn’t have choice number two or three, I just knew that was how it was going to work… He called me back 24 hours later and he said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’”

In the summer of 1999, Savant came out to help Bunch with the process of artificial insemination. First, he had to make a sperm bank donation and the bank had to store it while the parents jumped through the necessary medical and bureaucratic hoops. Because they were not married and because of their alternative lifestyles, both had to do a lot of interviewing and many, many tests; Bunch had recently turned 40, which placed her in a higher risk category for birth defects and pregnancy problems, and Savant, being a gay man, was subject to health exams and an HIV/AIDS test, as was Bunch. For Bunch, the journey was not all that fun; it was simply the steps required for motherhood.

“The counseling thing was always interesting,” Bunch says. “One guy said straight up, ‘Well, I don’t agree with your lifestyle, I don’t agree with what you’re doing, but here’s what you’ve got to do to do it.’ So he was professional enough to say these are the steps that you have to go through to do this.”

The process of insemination – all the tests, interviews and appointments with specialists – took six months to complete. For some people, the insemination process can take several years, but Bunch and Savant were lucky.

“On a Saturday in November, I was inseminated,” says Bunch, “and I was pregnant that night. I just knew; all of a sudden there was something different. I just knew this was the beginning.”

Savant returned to New York, and initially that was how things were to remain. Arrangements would be made for their daughter to have long-term visits with Savant either in New York or in San Diego, but Bunch would raise her. However, after their daughter was born in August 2000, things changed.

“Joe realized when he went back to New York after her birth that he was through with New York and he was ready for a new life,” says Bunch. “He quit Beauty and the Beast, sold his apartment and moved to San Diego.”

Forgoing Broadway for fatherhood, Savant found it difficult to find work as an actor and performer in San Diego. Bunch lost the lease on the NTC property around the same time; the Culture Shock Dance Troupe was having a hard time finding studio space to rehearse in.

To create a stable future for their daughter while continuing to do what they love, Savant and Bunch pooled their resources. With 40-plus years of combined performance and teaching skills, Bunch’s experience running a dance academy and Savant’s business background, Savant says, “the obvious choice was to open our own dance studio. It took a while to do it and it took a lot of effort, creative financing, and finding the right property, but it came together.”

What made Savant think they would be successful in San Diego, when he was having so much trouble finding work in the performance art industry himself?

“San Diego doesn’t have much to offer in the way of dance,” he explains. “There are a lot of little dance studios that have things going on, but nothing really comprehensive.”

Another thing is that Bunch has a huge local following. The San Diego Culture Shock troupe regularly performs all over the county, and recently returned from Hong Kong, where they did a special performance for the Asia Pacific Nike Group. “They are definitely the best hip-hop dance company I have ever seen,” says Savant. “They’re really, really good.”

Plus, the 7,800 square-foot center is a beautiful space. “We hired four graffiti artists to do this incredible mural in our reception area, so that when you walk in you’re literally surrounded by art,” says Savant. “We just wanted to create a very exciting, appealing, nurturing environment for people to be able to come in and do their work, and learn, grow and be creative.”

Coming from the arts, Bunch and Savant are new to marketing and advertising. They have run ads in a few local papers, attended Greater San Diego Business Association meetings, and passed out flyers at different dance studios. Ad reps and business owners in the GLBT community have offered good advice, but most of their business comes through word of mouth.

Classes are filling steadily. Weeknights are doing well, and they are seeing an increase in numbers for all age levels. They are looking for things to add to the schedule as demand for them arises.

One of their goals, Savant explains, is to develop dance companies like Culture Shock Dance for other styles besides hip-hop, such as jazz, ballet and musical theatre. They also want to bring in professional teachers who work in the industry to teach the younger generation, so that up-and-coming performers get a realistic perspective on how to manage a successful performing arts career.

“That’s kind of what we have with our hip-hop dancers,” he says. “Our teachers are working professionals.” One teacher recently finished touring with Destiny’s Child and has done videos for them, as well as for Missy Elliot and Britney Spears. Another teacher has worked with Nelly Furtado and Britney Spears.

Although it could be another couple of years, Savant’s personal vision is to develop a full musical-theatre training program, including voice, to compliment the center’s dance and performing arts programs. San Diego used to have a huge musical theatre training program at United States International University that attracted performers from all over the world, but that folded and the university has since changed its name. Savant would like to bring that tradition back to San Diego.

“I would love to create a repertory company in San Diego [similar to New York’s American Dance Machine in the 1970s and 80s] that performs great musical pieces from musical theatre,” he says. “That is part of our culture and one of our idiosyncratic American art forms. It’s kind of getting lost through the ages; just like the opera, there are great musical theatre pieces that are classics and need to be preserved.”

In the meantime, Savant and Bunch have plenty to keep them occupied. Culture Shock holds two major events a year, one of which is coming up on Nov. 9 at the Center for Performing Arts in Escondido. Produced by Culture Shock, Choreographer’s Showcase is a symposium of hip-hop performers and choreographers. All eight national Culture Shock troupes will perform, along with special guests and troupes from France and Switzerland. Call (619) 299-2110 for further information, or visit Culture Shock Dance Center at 2110 Hancock St.