Dancing South Africa's way to Lav Vegas



Flyer to DTLV 2012

 This is an annual competition
that is held across South Africa
to choose the dancing crews that
will represent South Africa at the
International World Hip Hop Dance and World Battles  competition in Las Vegas which was founded in 2002.

Each year the judges choose 12 top crews from across South Africa to compete to represent the country. The top 3 crews from each age category will qualify and from the Mega Crew section, and 12 Solo dancers will be selected to represent South Africa in the World battles. This competition is very big and well known among the dancers in the SA dance world, but i fear that it is not very well advertised as not a lot of ordinary South Africans know anything about it. Let me try break it down on how it works.

Solos Section : Locking Battles, Popping Battles, All style Battles

Crews : All style Battles

Mega Crews : All style Battles

The normal crews have to have a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 8 dancers. These crews have age restrictions. Junior: Age 7-12 , Varsity: Age 13-17, Adult: 18 +. The mega crews on the other hand have to have a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 40 dancers with no age restrictions. these crews can have male and female dancers in the crews.

You may get your tickets at your nearest Computicket. This dancer competition is one of the most anticipated competitions here in SA, and i feel it should be more advertised around the country. I feel there are so many more South Africans who would love to support such an event.

So get ready to be wowed by the talent that South Africa has to offer, and keep your dancing shoes on.

1 of the crews that compete

If you want more information that you think i cant answer you  can go to www.hiphopdancesa.com

Chomee

Thulisile Madihlaba

Her birth name is Thulisile Madihlaba, she was born on the 6^th of October  1986 in meadowlands, Soweto, in South Africa. Well this young lady started off as a dancer at the tender age of just 9 years old for an artist named Arthur Mafokate. She spent most of her years as a dancer.  She eventually started her own dance crew called Dance Divas. She is currently a judge of a dance show called ‘Turn it out’. They were doing good, they were seen as South Africa’s version of the spice girls, which I completely disagree with.

chomee rocking the stage

Chomee came in the industry with her outfits and caught the attention of quite a number of males and young girls.

Yes I am saying it, Chomee is a very good dancer. Then she went and ventured out to singing. Some of her better-known songs include Jiva Sexy, Dlala nge Figure, Cried all my Tears, Uthando Lwakho, Stranger, Tell me what you want, Ziyawa La, This is for the ladies and Jika Sik'bone.. Her choreography for her music videos was good, but Chomee as a singer? Well people all have their different opinions.



chomee and her dancers



Well she is very good on stage, has the energy  and can get the crowd pumped up, but can she truly sing?

So You Think You Can Dance?

Do you truly think you can dance?  If so then by all means go try out for the Dance competition TV show. In South Africa we have our version of this show which is doing pretty well. We have only gone through two seasons but it is quite visible that it will be a great success. My one main insight on this matter is that the show is for a variety of dance styles but it seems like the same person won both  seasons.

Season 1

Elizma when she won SYTYCD South Africa,season 1

In the 1^st season we got Elizma Wildschutte a 31 year old female from Cape Town, South Africa. Elizma is a freelance dancer who specialises in Contemporary dance. She started training in ballet and modern jazz at age 5 with C.A.F.D.A school of dance under the direction of Wendy Abrahams. She trained there 'till matric after which I joined Jazz art Dance Theatre’s training programme for 3 years. She then left for Johannesburg at the end of 2002 where she freelanced for 5 years doing various corporate gigs and back up dancing for local artists.

Season 2

Lulu when she won SYTYCD South Africa,season 2

Now came the 2^nd season where we saw Lulu Mlangeni taking it all. Lulu is 25 year old female from Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa. Lulu is a freelance dancer who specialises in Contemporary, She started dancing in Soweto (where she lives) in a community dance group doing modern dancing. Later she got introduced to contemporary in 2004. She has worked with the most prominent choreographers in South Africa such as Gregory Maqoma, Nelisiwe Xaba, P.J Shabaga, James Ngcobo etc. She has toured nationally and internationally (including Germany, Tanzania, Mexico, Brazil, Paris, Amsterdam etc.).

Elizma Wildshutte

Here you see the pictures of the two dancers and you can see the similarity between them. But this is only just the visual similarities, after going in depth of research about these two dancers I noticed other similarities in how they carry themselves and their dance styles.

Lulu Mlangeni

For a dance show that prides themselves in the variety in dance styles this I find weird. Not saying that these two dancers weren’t good just that I’m sure some of you guys had your favourite dancer. Which one was your favourite dancer?

Luthando TJ Mthembu

Before I start I would love to apologize for not blogging last week, but it being the Easter weekend I got caught up between my promotion job and being at church the rest of the time.

This week’s blog is about Luthando Mthembu, better known as TJ, a very talented young man that is 22 years of age. TJ was born and raised in Durban, well TJ is not only just a dancer. He also Raps, Sings, does Photography and models  mainly he deals with media.

TJ starting rapping since 2005 and hasn’t stopped since. He loves rapping and in my opinion is good at it. Being the good rapper that he was he didn’t get noticed by rapping. He was and still is known in Durban as 1 of the good Krumpers that Durban has to offer. He got inspired to start dancing from the movie ‘You Got Served’ and since then he has been in love with dancing. TJ doesn’t just Krump  he is a dancer in all aspects he also break danced at some point in his life.

TJ started  dance crews which did
well but because loyalty is very rare
 with young dancers some of those
crews fell through, but that didn’t
stop him from his love of dance.
His experience with all these different
 dancers has taught him a lot about the
 world of dancing.

TJ doesn’t just want dancing to be all he does in life (don’t  get me wrong, he loves it and has a great passion for it) which is why he got into modelling and photography. I guess you can say that he is a jack of all trades. He is a part of a dance company called Break Thru Dance Company BTDC in Durban, he is a dancer there uplifting the youth in dance and making the people around him understand more on Krumping. I have a feeling everyone will be seeing more on TJ as he has quite a bright future.

TJ behind the lense of his camera

What is dance?

Dance is a type of art that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, performed in many different cultures and used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting. A form of nonverbal communication between humans. Well that is what Wikipedia says. I say its close enough, just that Wikipedia has the technical definition of Dance.

There are a lot of different definition of dance from all the different dancers. Some will say dance is life, while others will tell you dance is expression. No one is wrong, just that everyone has their own ways of expressing what dance is. People seem to think that dance is just all about professional competitions. But dance can also just be for the pure enjoyment of it and just letting loose.like these people.

So seeing as though there are different definition of dance, what is yours?

Pansula

It seems like in my previous blogs I’ve just been focusing on Hip Hop dancing, don’t get it wrong South Africa has a whole lot of different genres in dancing. Today I shall touch on our proudly South African dance… Pantsula. The Zulu word  ‘pantsula’ means to “waddle like a duck or to walk with protruded buttocks”.

The pantsula became a very popular form of dance in the 1980s among young men and women in townships of Africa. They didn’t just use it to express themselves but it also became a way of life for them. In those days pantsula was regarded as a proper dance. Well time has changed and perceptions of dance have changed over the years. Pantsula now is seen as a dance styles for rebellious youth, tsotsis (thugs). Pantsula as a dance is explained to be a flat footed African tap-and-glide style of dance.                                                 This dance style was always normally performed on the streets anywhere. Now they have music with the dance (kwaito). The pantsula’s have a specific attire that the dance in.

Pantsula is seen as a dying dance style.

So in your opinion, is this dance style dying, or is it forever going to be there and a proudly South African style?

In Beyoncé’s music video for  ‘who runs the world (girls)’ Pantsula was one of the dance styles represented.

HappyFeet society

This is a society dedicated entirely to Young aspiring dancers around South Africa. The teachers of the society are all young dancers and have be travelling around the world for competitions. Today i shall focus on one of the choreographers: Rudi Smit

He is a caucasian male age 19 with green eyes from Cape Town, South Africa. He has been dancing since he was ten years old, but dancing professionally for 5 years.

Rudi has been using dance to express himself for quite some time now. His preferred dance style is Waacking. Through his dance you can see clearly his emotions. His interpretation of the music is precise and on point. Rudi has gained his exposure through uploading videos of his routines on YouTube www.youtube.com/RubeTube14. By doing so he is letting the world see him and his passion. This also has led to rudi getting opportunities to choreograph for shows. This has therefore taken him to places LA, Las Vegas and Germany to name a few. Rudi is not just an average dancer, he also choreographs for 2 dance crews : Primitive dance crew and Untamed dance crew (both these crews compete annually at the Dance to Las Vegas competition)





“Your dance identifies who you are.”

“You have to believe there's something at the other side.

And you have to have faith in yourself.

You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it.”

- Twyla Tharp

The begining of something good

Welcome to the first post of Dancemania. This blog will be focusing on the dance worls of South Africa and maybe touch on Dancers from else where.

There are quite a few great dancers here in our country that are not getting the exposure that they deserve, and is this partially because dance is not a rcognised sport here in South Africa?
So these dancers expose themselves by uploading videos of their routines up on YouTube for people to see.

Did you know that South African dancers compete in worldwide dancing competitions every year and are representing the country quite well. on this blog i shall be giving you feedback on the happenings of the dance world as a whole.

These dancers also hold workshops around the country so that they teach other aspiring young dancers about the new dance styles.

Hope you enjoy what i have in store for you.