How the self-taught Stomping Grounds Street Dance Festival creator is doing his part to keep the culture alive in the ‘Burgh.
By Angela Bronner Helm
Mario Quinn Lyles is a man of many talents—entrepreneur, battle dancer, special education teacher and the founder of Level Up Studios, a creative playground and event venue for local artists to dance, yes, but also to celebrate and preserve hip-hop culture. Lyles is also the creator of Stomping Grounds, a three-day dance festival and tournament culminating in epic one-on-one dance battles, now in its fifth year.
Lyles arrived in Pittsburgh 20 years ago to study motion graphics, broadcast graphics, and animation at the Pittsburgh Institute of Art. The Buffalo, NY, native says that at that time, dance was just a “backburner hobby.”
“I’ve always been a visual artist and just a creative person in general,” says Lyles. But the dance realm really came to the forefront when he met a guy named Louis “Streetz” Short in 2006. Lyles says it was at a practice for his dance club in his dorm gymnasium.
Streetz, a popper and funk-style dancer from the Get Down Gang, one of Pittsburgh’s most respected dance collectives, was Lyles’ first dance mentor in Pittsburgh. He introduced him to the battle circuit and piqued his interest in the culture and history of dance.
“I just saw how hip-hop is one of those things that can really bring people together; it’s not just about dancing but more about having a voice,” he says.
During his mentorship with Streetz, Lyles began delving into films, videos, and documentaries on hip-hop and dance culture. That, in turn, led him to want to teach others what he had learned.
“Truthfully, I’m a teacher at heart,” says Lyles, whose day job is teaching special education students in Pittsburgh’s Propel Network. “I just love helping people and working with people and collaborating in that way.”
But when it comes to dance, Lyles has learned that study is essential for greatness as well. However, the self-taught terpsichorean knows that this doesn’t have to necessarily be via formal education.
Once I learned about the importance of preserving hip-hop culture, that’s what really got me to the place that I am now, owning a place that’s strictly hip-hop and trying to represent that culture here in Pittsburgh.
Mario Quinn Lyles, founder of Level Up Studios
Lyles said his dance form really started to elevate when he delved into research on the greats in the street dance genre –Popin’ Pete and the Electric Boogaloos; Mr. Wiggles; Skeeter Rabbit; POP N TACO; and, of course, Boogaloo Shrimp from 1984’s seminal hip-hop film, Breakin.’
“Getting better at something is learning about the thing that you’re doing. If you don’t know where something comes from, if you don’t know the foundational moves of why someone did X, Y and Z, you’ll never really have a true appreciation for the craft,” he stresses.
He says that his love of dance started right at home, courtesy of his mother and big sister. In fact, his energetic mom, aptly named Sunshine, was a dancer herself, who used to have a pop-n-lock crew with her sister, (Aunt) Trina. Sunshine, who was always blasting Michael Jackson and Kirk Franklin in the house, always stressed fun and encouraged self-expression.
Dancing in the Street: Lyles showing off his stuff in Southside Pittsburgh on Carson Street in April 2025. Photo Credit Emmai Alaquiva
Lyle’s big sister, Joy, was part of the antics, too. She swears that she taught him how to really dance.
“I was very, very stiff,” Lyles admits. “If you look at how Michael Jackson dances, it was smooth, but it was also very sharp. Robotic [motion], moonwalking, waving, it was just easy to pick up. But I had no rhythm. The stuff I was bad at was the traditional hip-hop stuff, like keeping the bounce, keeping the groove.”
Yet, bit-by-bit, Lyles committed to the craft and got better. And by the time he was in high school, he and his crew were performing at talent shows all around the city, sometimes for crowds of thousands.
“It was literally just because it was something to do, something fun, something we really enjoyed,” he says. “One of the kids I was dancing with was my sworn enemy for the first two years of high school. Then we found out we both could dance, connected on that, and we’ve been cool ever since.”
Lyles saw firsthand how dance could unite people. Even excite people. But he never saw it as his life work until he got to Pittsburgh.
“Hip-hop started [because of] what was happening in the Bronx during that era. The people were impoverished, there was a lot of violence and young people didn’t have an outlet to express themselves,” he reflects. “Once I learned about that and the importance of preserving [it], that’s what really got me to the place that I am now, owning a place that’s strictly hip-hop and trying to represent that culture here in Pittsburgh.”
That place is Level Up Studios, founded by Lyles 2016. He was working for another dance studio at the time, run by someone who wasn’t representative of hip-hop and Black culture. “I felt like I could do this better,” he says. “This is MY culture. This is something I live every day. I’m not just trying to make money from it.”
Two years before, he pitched his own studio concept to entrepreneur Noah Cohen. Cohen had a building in the Strip District. Lyles was able to convert the back of a media center on the fifth floor into his very first dance studio.
“I had the jankiest mirrors you could think of,” he reminisces. “There wasn’t even a front entrance. You had to go through the freight elevator.” But some of the students from the other studio followed him there.
“I saw how hip-hop is one of those things that can really bring people together; it’s not just aboutdancing but more about having a voice.
Mario Quinn Lyles, creator of Stomping Grounds Festival
The next year, he got a job at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater as a studio manager, effectively teaching him how to properly run a studio and facility. The Strayhorn had an accelerator program called Penn Ave Creative, which committed to getting young, BIPOC artists a more meaningful presence on the rapidly gentrifying Penn Avenue business hub in East Liberty.
The program helped him to develop and complete his business plan, which he later pitched to the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, a nonprofit community development outfit that manages several storefronts on Penn Avenue. In July 2016, Lyles was able to bring Level Up Studios to that neighborhood.
Eight years in, Level Up is Pittsburgh’s only hip-hop /street dance studio, but classes run the gamut from Bollywood, K-Pop, locking, and funk to boxing, a heels class, and jazz. But the core will forever remain hip-hop/street.
Level Up’s customer base is split evenly between young professionals and their kids taking dance classes, and street performers who go to battles and sessions—structured meet ups to practice and explore moves and get feedback from other dancers. He says that crossing those two customer bases has enriched his business. The older heads for wisdom, the younger ones to keep on top of all the new “dance crazes” on TikTok and other social media.
“We try to have that kind of exchange between older folks and younger folks, all generations,” he says. ‘It takes an entire village to raise a child. It also takes the entire community to try to move things forward.”
The strategically placed business, in the heart of Pittsburgh’s arts hub, has allowed Lyles to develop and execute other programs like First Friday Night Market where independent vendors and craft makers sell their products on the first Friday each month, when the galleries, studios and art spaces on Penn Avenue are free to the public.
And, four years ago, Lyles debuted Stomping Grounds, an annual street dance battle, which has grown exponentially. At the most recent Stomping Grounds Festival in September 2024, there were about 60 or so competitors, and hundreds of spectators. The event was held in Bakery Square, and sponsored by Duolingo, 1Hood Media* and Walking Miracles. It also received support from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
The event last fall featured panel discussions with legendary dancers—Popin’ Pete; Buddha Stretch; Beast; and El Niño, who was on the breakdancing Olympic team. Topics ran the gamut from ways to stand out as a battle dancer to tips on how to take care of your body as a dancer. Of course, there was “school” on the true origins of street dance and hip-hop culture.
“We are trying to ask meaningful questions that we feel will really help our audience,” says Lyles. The dance legends also served as judges for the last day, the dance competition. The winner, Zay “Brutal” Irving, from Cleveland, Ohio, won the $2000 cash prize.
In addition to everything else, Lyles continues to stretch all his artistic joints. He most recently appeared in Dominique Morisseau’s Obie Award winning, Tony nominated Broadway play, Skeleton Crew, which ran in Pittsburgh in February and March 2024.
“It was cool—it was my first time doing something like that,” he muses. “But it definitely opened my eyes to all the possibilities of where movement can go for me and my career and so I’m open to doing more of that.”
For Lyles all of this work is synonymous with his time in Pittsburgh.
“It’s definitely a show and prove type thing,” Lyles says of the city. “It’s not like you can just be like, “I’m an artist. You have to put in the work.”
*1Hood is the publisher for BlackPittsburgh.com
Angela Bronner is a writer and editor living in Harlem, NY