Dancing in the Super Bowl was a dreamlike experience for choreographer

Bruno Mars and Phil Tayag at Super Bowl 50.

REMEMBER all the smooth dance moves Bruno Mars and his Hooligans performed in the video for "Uptown Funk?" The choreography was created by Phil Tayag, the Sacramento-based dancer who gained fame as a member of Asian/American dance crew JabbaWockeeZ, the season1 winners of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew. 

Remember him? The guy with a mask? Oh, right, they all wore masks. It was part of their trademark look and they never showed their faces.

RELATED: Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk"

Tayag was the dancer known as Swaggerboy, aka "S.B." In an exclusive interview in Billboard,  the Filipino/American explains how he and Mars teamed up to create the video for "Uptown Funk" and how the Filipino/American entertainer asked the NorCal guy to join the Hooligans dance crew for Super Bowl 50's epic half-time show with Beyonce and Cold Play.

"I don’t believe in coincidence," said Tayag. "This particular performance was a very significant one for me because the name that was kind of given to me coming up -- I dance and I do music, rap, produce -- was 'Swagger Boy' a long time ago, like maybe in ‘05, and it turned into "S.B." I’m from Sacramento so I came up in Northern California, and the Bay Area was pretty much like our stomping grounds. This is where I was groomed. Where we stayed in the Bay is where I used to perform when I was 16 years old. Behind where we stayed was this Johnny Rockets where I had my first date. So it was a very big deal to be out here. 

"Coming up (as) this struggling artist, street dancer, garage kid, coming up and, you know, things kind of popped off for myself and my crew Jabbawockeez in 2008. We were on MTV, won America’s Best Dance Crew. After that, that was where everything kind of took off. When we went on tour, I was really only listening to two artists at the time: Coldplay and Beyonce.​"

Read the entire interview here.

The JabaWockeeZ is currently performing in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. Check here for dates and times.

The white masks became a trademark look in the beginning for the JabaWockeeZ dance crew. 

Super Bowl: Filipino/American football player puts himself in the record books.

Watch Jordan Norwood's record punt return.

Jordan Norwood

A FILIPINO/AMERICAN put his name in the Super Bowl record books. Jordan Norwood of the Denver Broncos returned a punt 61 yards, the longest punt return in Super Bowl history.

He caught the ball surrounded by Panther defenders but apparently, they thought he signaled for a fair catch and didn't tackle him as soon as he caught the ball. Somehow, he eluded the would-be tacklers and ran to the opposite side of the field and down the sideline.

His run set up a successful field goal by field goal kicker Brandon McManus to put the Broncos ahead 13-7 at halftime.

The Hawaii-born Norwood's mother is a Filipina/American. His brother is one of the stars in the  professional basketball in the Philippines.

Oh - by the way - the Broncos upset the favored Panthers, 24-10 in what may be the 40-year old quarterback Eli Payton Manning's last game.

The highlight of the much-anticipated half-time show was the sizzling dance off between Beyonce's army of black-clad dancers vs. Bruno Mars black leather-wearing male crew. 

Fireworks introduced Mars and he started singing his Grammy-award winning dance favorite "Uptown Funk" highlighted by his signature dance moves. Right away, the burst of energy picked up the tone of the performance started by Cold Play's frontman Chris Martin, who inexplicably had mike troubles making most of his lyrics inaudible. 

Then the camera was on Beyonce, wearing two bandolier-looking bands across her chest, and her militant-looking dancers. She sang her new ode to feminism and race relations "Formation," which was released a day before. 

The sexy, tension-building aggressive dancing had me cheering as the camera switched back and forth between the Beyonce dancers and the Filipino/American entertainer's Hooligans. To say the two R&B stars stole the show would be an understatement.

Beyonce and Bruno Mars heated up the stage during the Super Bowl's halftime show.

Afterwards, there was much discussion about the outfits worn by Beyonce and her dancers. She was either paying homage to Michael Jackson, who wore eerily similar costume when he headlined the Super Bowl halftime show; or it was a tribute to the Black Panthers, who were headquartered in Oakland a few miles north of the stadiium because the black berets and leather jackets became their trademark look.

What did it all mean? The colors and the final message put forth by the card-carrying audience the stands, "Believe in Love," made others believe that it was honoring the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ community, which is very influential in the Bay Area political scene.

Who knows? Great art is open to interpretation by the viewer. Entertaining halftime show, nevertheless. All I know, someone has to figure out how to get Bruno Mars and Beyonce back together again.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier versions of this post didn't have comments about the meaning of Beyonce's performance.

For more news about Asians/Americans and Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.