SINGAPORE GOT DANCE

Kyogo in SHINGAPORE

2010-08-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

This year has been really awesome! We have Bobby Mileage, Brian Green, WCO, Sala who visited Singapore but I have never dreamt that D'OAM, Kyogo would be down in Singapore as well!

I'm really glad that I took the opportunity and committed a week of training and performance for Esplanade's 4Flo 16 Dance Challenge Festival. I HAVE TO SAY IT AGAIN. IT WAS AWESOME!!! Minus school in the morning though.

I have to thank Willy and Melissa for asking me to participate in this. It was a very last minute decision, we choreographed a routine within 2 hours just a night before audition on the next morning. You should have seen our faces, we got so damn excited when we met Kyogo in person! His english is superjitao the dope and he is so humble!

That is also the most hectic week ever. We have to learn the choreography within 16 hours. Monday to Thursday from 7pm - 11pm. Usually we have to end up taking cabs home, my bank savings are depleting like crazy on that week as well. LOL.

I feel that Kyogo is really an awesome teacher and a dancer. He has been very patient with us, guiding us with passion, and giving us words of wisdom in dance. Hanging out with him is pure joy as he's a very nice and outgoing person. I really admire his style of Hip Hop and I like his style too. Too bad he won't be in Osaka in October Marzipan. :'(

Then again, I'm so excited! Marzipan, Rach Hoho, Imoto and I are leaving for Osaka soon! Whee-o-whee!

Stay tune for more videos as I'll be editing more! Here are 3 videos first. Heh.

Kyogo's Routine :) He took over Melissa's position as she sprained her ankle 2 days before the performance. But it was such an honor to be able to dance on the same stage as him! *Faint*

Food For Thought : Popping is like driving

2010-08-03T05:59:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, its been awhile...anyway just wanted to share a thought i had the other day.

I was teaching poppin class and while i was trying to find a good way to explain why we pop, i came across this "metaphor".

Well, when u are dancing, its like driving a car. You are driving along the highway which is the music. And on this highway(of music), you come across many humps along the road. These humps are your drumbeats aka Pops. So as a car, you drive on continuously until u hit a hump on the road, and then resume your driving. You dont purposely plan to stop every 10 secs to meet a hump, you just drive and let the hump come naturally.

So its the same with popping. While u dance, the drumbeats/snare comes naturally along. You let the beats affect you and make you pop. You dont plan to pop. You dont plan to pop at say every 2 counts or 4 counts. You just do it, you react to the sound of the pop....all the while dancing. So sometimes u pop at this count, sometimes that, sometimes in between movements. It gives u the ability to really dance, while still having pops.

So always imagine yourself driving along the highway and meet humps as u go. Dont plan for humps :):)

And final note, as always, eat food for thought in moderation :)

-Marzipan

Eventful June!

2010-06-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Its been awhile since i posted, but June was another crazy month full of events.

In case anyone missed it, Bobby Mileage from Elite Force Crew was intown!DAaaaaaaayuuumm! Finally EFC man! His course was very enriching and i hope itll help lay down the foundation of Hiphop in Singapore. Please spread the love and knowledge people!!!

Alright, in case you missed it (You will regret and smack ureself on your forehead!),

You missed :

1) Super Jam(s) at Music Garage

2) EFC workshops n course at YMCA (Courtesy of Da bomb)

3) Swagg out! 2 with Kyle, Ellen and Lyle

4)Elm workshop at Danz People

5) Mileage High Party!

6) And lastly, you missed the tribute jam for Wild Cherry... Lets take a moment to reflect on this OG of Funk and Asia. He truly was an inspiration and great forefather of Asia's streetdance scene. Rest in Peace Wild Cherry, the world will not forget you...

===========

Ok to end this off in a brighter note,

Somethings not to miss in July :

1)TBG workshops!! OMG

2) Crazykyo+Woong Workshops at Dope studio!

3) The Big Groove!!!! Yeahhhh! Cant miss this man, all the big names coming down, you will see the whole dance scene at the same event..hahaha cant wait to see all u guys man

Cya guys and peace out!!

-Marzipan

Words of Wisdom

2010-06-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

I chanced upon this clip on youtube
(the full-length DVD can be found somewhere in O School)

Before I link the video, I want to say this:
I've said the same thing to so many dancers so many times, but not many took my words seriously... not many actually paid attention... not many listened...

now hear the same words coming out of the mouths of Bobby Mileage, CEBO and Ejoe...
listen and understand...

NTU FUNK JAM VOL1

2010-05-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hey! Apparently I'm the only person who didn't do the write-up on SDD :p

Anyway! NTU FUNK JAM VOL.1 was held last Saturday (If you had no idea about it!), and it was a blast!

This event was organised by Fabian from Soul Funky and a few of his other friends from NTU Funkstyles (Nocturnal Nut & Soul Funky). And I believe all of them would have felt accomplished to have the whole event running so successfully.

Being the judge for both Popping and Locking categories, along with Bboy Larry for Breaking, this is also probably the first time that I've seen so many lockers, poppers, and bboys down for the same event. You can probably say that it's the first funk event that we have in Singapore which is being organized by ourselves, PLUS the additional fact that this time, the Popping and Locking categories were specially catered to the younger dancers. (Not gonna touch on the Breaking category)

My truthful opinion? Quite a good event. Achieving a total number of 32 lockers and 24 poppers without the more experienced dancers was an incredibly good turnout. (Where were all the lockers at during FTL2010?!)

It's so hard to judge the popping and locking categories alone! Every decision lies on me myself, and any mistake in it would results in the anger and wrath of the audience (ok I'm just joking hahaha) But truthfully speaking, the competition among the lockers were incredibly tough! I had such a hard time deciding who had to go on the next round. I have to say that my favourite lockers were Uncle Tan and Marzipan! I totally love the chemistry between them, don't you guys agree? Besides that, the competition among poppers were tough too! Mouse and Josh gave a good fight (especially Josh) against Timothy and Melise for the popping side. For the locking side, Augustine and Wei Sheng (WASA) had also displayed their own unique style of locking, up against Darren and Aloysious (Lockers AD)

The final winners were Mouse and Josh (MOSH), Augustine and Wei Sheng (WASA), and Hazrul and (sorry i dont know his name) (FTC) for the popping, locking and breaking categories respectively. A big congratulations to the winners! You guys gave a good fight during the battles.

The committee has put in a painstaking amount of effort to organize the whole event. On behalf of the poppers and lockers, I would like to congratulate, and thank the committee for pulling their hair off and racking their brains just to make the event a successful one. Keep your funds going Soul Funky~!!!

And also just to let you people out there know, I'm actually also organizing a dance event too! The
event name is Get Down! Vol.3, and it's going to be a 1-on-1 Freestyle Hip Hop battle. No gimmicks, no tags, its just going to be strictly street dancing. Check out http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=117430821618902&ref=ts for more details!!!

Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 01 - Bonus

2010-05-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hey hey what's up SGD.

everyone's probably gonna do a small write-up of probably the biggest dance competition event (even if it's not the biggest, i dare say the strongest IMHO):

Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 01

instead of doing my own writeup (which i MIGHT do, because I was the Emcee and prize sponsor for the event hahaha), here's a little special bonus for everyone.

Enjoy!

Peace.

SDD Review!

2010-05-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Singapore Dance Delight was AWESOME! I feel really inspired by all the dance crews! Congrats to JATB for representing Sunnypore to participate in Japan Dance Delight! Singapore's dance scene is certainly getting bigger and better!

I want to thank Raw Street Code for the wonderful journey. We've been through a lot, like really a lot. I like girl power, so does RSC! We super love girls to the max. No guys allowed. HAHAHA. Okay I'm just kidding on that part. But really, girls should represent man! We must show them what GIRL POWER IS! MUAHAHAHAHAHA. Joyce and the boys too power already. JOYCE YOU SUPERJITAO ROCK TO THE MAX!

Okay, and then I was suppose to upload Ryan's Interveiw part 2. BUT THEN MY HARD DISK CRASHED. #@!$#!#%&^*$^&%^#%^ So, I will have to re-edit the videos all over again (Heng I still have the tape). Somemore 3rd year in RP, have to chiong for Portfolio and FYP. Give me some time, I will do my best to update asap!

Oh yes! For all you Poppers! Super Jam is hosting an event "Pro-Am" battle. Do come on down and experience the Pro-Am battle style if you're interested! I is am joining. Damn nervous. I can't freestyle Popping for nuts but I is will try! See you all on this coming Saturday if you're coming!

For more info, do visit http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=116924521674380

Peace

Review : Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 1

2010-05-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Singapore Dance Delight.... It was something that was just a dream. A few years ago, SDD was like something we all wished would come to Singapore some day...And it did!!! so much sooner than expected. It is really one of my dreams coming true, to be able to take part in a Dance Delight. :) Im sure many would share my sentiments!!

SDD Vol.1 was organized by O-school with main sponsors F&N, AD HIP and as well as our very own Psyk's Sexy Diamond! SD!!! SDD = Sexy Diamond Delights?? hahaa

I must say that this competition is really one of the few times(Maybe only time) that ive seen the whole dance scene come together!!! Its like every group out there from everywhere is in this competition...even the overseas participants!! You can never find another competition (yet) that has this force of attraction!

WE NEED MORE OF THESE SORT OF THINGS SINGAPORE!!! CMON RICH INVESTORS...lets boost the scene with more crazy events!!

SDD Finals was held at Scape Warehouse....The stage is awesome man!!! JDD REPLICA...hahaha....more events should be held there. The only setback was that the audience space wasnt as much as expected. A stage like that can impact much more crowd.

Ohhh and actually, i wished there were more JUDGES !! hahaha...just to see them dance and get to meet them!! Itll be crazy if there were like 8 judges...WOW....crazy impact!!!

Oh and the groups! The groups were all tooooooooo crazy!!! I cant even start to name any cuz all were so good in their own style. Its times like these that I would like to say "It sucks to be the judge" hahaha... I mean, this is really a perfect example of our "Rojak" culture... Every group is strong in what they do best, and its really a plethora of styles!! I was telling some of the groups that maybe SDD should have like 10 winners....each category one...hahaha.

Anyways, do watch out for the DVD... GET IT! SUPPORT LOCAL SCENE AND KEEP A PART OF SINGAPORE DANCE HISTORY WITH YOU ALONG YOUR LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY SET...ahaha

-Marzipan

Events!!!!!!

2010-04-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Yo just a heads up for the most happenin events this EVENT'FOOL' APRIL :)

SBDC was just over!!!!

now here are the next few things to look forward to!!!

Fuyo Interschool and warmup party! 9 and 10th April!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108348385856259&ref=ss

R16 SEA Preliminaries for poppin, lockin, breakin 1v1! 10th April

www.r16southeastasia.ning.com

What The Funk vol. 10!!! 11th April!!

http://whatthefunk.blog.com/

Singapore Dance Delight Vol.1 Finals! 18th April

www.dancedelight.com.sg/

yeah!!!! Its really eventful man!!! Come support all the events :):)

-Marzipan

Marzipan : Recital Weekend

2010-03-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, i know its a little late to post a weekend reflection, although the next weekend is just around the corner...hahah... But the past weekend was really a backtoback weekend of performances!!!

First off, on fri i went to catch Temasek Poly's GEM5: The Labyrinth.

The cool thing about TPDE's concerts are that they always stick to a centralized theme. So you can always expect to follow a plot! This year, it was about a Big bully (Hazrul :P) who managed to turn over a new leaf. This year had much more breaking elements thrown in, perhaps due to the influence of Floor Technics Crew and their members in TPDE. Very interesting to see how TPDE style would be re-influenced and evolve in the near future! Also, some nice props graced the stage such as the human-birdcage-lamps and the crazy pipe tree. :):) Lovely...maybe could be a whole item itself nexttime! Popping item was a different too! Nice play of the story :) Goodjob all you TPDE guys!

Next up, on Sat i caught KOOL AND THE GANG! WHoooooot...at the Esplanade Concert Hall. They were in town for the Mosaic Music Festival. There are alot of hot acts in town for this festival, so guys go check it out yeah! You dont wanna miss it! www.mosaicmusicfestival.com

What can i say? It was definitely a FUUUUUUNNNNKKKKYYY night! We sat at the last row on top, straight in the middle! So we had all the action and space to dance...hahaha...shake that asss!!! Ceeeeeellllaaabrate good times CMon!!!

For all those who missed it, too bad...hahaha but this is their second time in Singapore, So my gut feeling is they will come back again, and dont miss it this time! (Oh yes, to add, even our Taiwanese locker friends Aga,Boui and Xiao Zhang came down...Xiao Zhang came to Singapore mainly for this concert!!)

Lastly, on Sun i went to catch Flair Nation's production. It was a collaboration between them and Luminique Bboy crew. I must say im very very proud of them being the first independent production of this scale!! It was a really cozy environment with good food, snacks and dance!! First time watching a production with nasi lemak and snacks provided! whooot!! hahaha and sometimes a few balloons might drop by for souveniors. The performances were great, with alot of versatility in the dances, many genres were covered that night from Jazz contemporary to Krump....hahah what a range... Keep a lookout for this Crew/fam as they will be bound to make waves in the dance scene.

I would like to say again, Good job to all dancers and performers !!! Keep Singapore on its feet and go spread the LOVE for dance!!

-Marzipan

LOCKDOWN 2010

2010-03-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! It's been one week since Lockdown 2010...
And I was thinking randomly about the current Locking scene, so I wanted to take the chance to post my thoughts about the event...

Firstly, Lockdown is the first locking event in the past 2 years.

It started off with Ian(Chunky) organizing a solely-locking dance battle event, which was held in NYP Blk E studio, with K-Lock, Fong, and Cee Kay being the judges. I still remember being a contestant at that time, and Jin (my partner) just started locking for 3 months or so (because he was watching Show Luo on TV)

And 2 years later, the both of us (Lock Out Loud) are actually on the judge panel, along with Aga and Boui from the Swift Lockers (Taiwan, Max Studio), looking at the younger batch of dancers dancing against each other, and showing everyone the best that they can possibly do. It's really been a long journey.

THEN THEN THEN THEN THEN!
Firstly, a big thank you to Aga and Boui for coming down all the way from Taiwan to support the locking scene in Singapore. You guys have inspired not only the dancers who join the battle, but everyone who was there at the event.

I would like to share a quote that I remembered Aga telling everyone after the top 16 battles.

"Open your heart to the music, not your mind."

Sometimes, dancers spend much time trying to think of moves to follow the music, and they end up anticipating the beats and stuff like that. I feel that dancers should firstly learn how to enjoy the music first, because that's the reason why we wanna start dancing. In addition, Aga also mentioned about trying not to listen to the same piece of music too many times, because then it becomes memorizing the song, and you're not dancing to the songs but rather dancing to what you memorized in the song.

To sum it up, basics and techniques are the fundamentals of dance. Do not forget them, and keep practising them as if you are never good enough to master the technique. Dance to songs that you enjoy, be it popping, locking, hip hop, house, or other genres of songs. Never dance without the music, because that would be just practising steps. "Dancing is moving along to the music, not memorizing steps and executing them along with the music."

Next, I'd like to thank all the people who came down for the event. You guys made the event possible, and without you guys supporting the event, it would not have been a success. At the same time, I'd like to take the chance to credit Sha and Mel for pushing their juniors to join. We had a number of SDZ representatives for Lockdown this year, and we had a representative, Wei Sheng, who made it all the way to the finals against Diane. Good job! Keep it up!

Last but not least, i'd like to thank the people who helped out for the event. They are namely Dj Smoke, Ian(Chunky), Michael, Fong, Kenneth, Jin, Ceekay, Mian Bao, and the videographer (who was it i cant remember sorry). And definitely not forgetting the support we had from Ben, Elke, Chris, and the Malaysian lockers who came down to support the event! We'll definitely be looking forward to the next Lockdown *everyone looks at Ceekay*

Here's the link for the showcase that we did with Aga and Boui. Do check it out! LINK

Last but not least, R16 South East Asia Urban Arts Festival will be held in SG! Do check it out @ http://r16southeastasia.ning.com, registration is $20 per category. There's 1-on-1 popping, locking, beatboxing, and 2-on-2 breaking! Or similarly, just type R16 on Facebook, you'll be able to find it :D

(left to right) Ceekay, Jin, Boui, Kenneth

Everybody goinng 'OUHHH~' with Fong on the floor

Here is the muscle woman, Diane

Aga announcing the winner (Diane vs Wei Sheng)

Marzipan Small Talk

2010-03-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

Was just "day" dreaming awhile ago about those times when i just started popping, and how we(PAP) and the likes, used to hang out, used to be groupies...haha...those were the days. In an incredibly small popping scene back then, all we had were each other. All we knew were the poppers in Studio Wu. Back in those days, and up till somewhere in 2008, poppers still wore hush puppies, wore either dockers/dickies, wore baggy oversized Tees, wore cheap fedoras (except i liked to wear that hugeass straw hat) and carried or tried to carry Gregory/Northface Bags. As well as the early Carhartt sweatpants craze!!! Haha...Oh and michael aka Prince Jack swears by nike!

So if there was ever a history about popping culture in Singapore, that would do it for the fashion side..lol...nowadays its Puma clydes and Adidas Stan smiths/Superstars. And Chucks...oh yessss Chucks...gotta love em...Cheap and Great!!! For those of you who are wondering what are Chucks, its your standard run of the mill converse sneakers :)

For some, those baggy tees morphed to something more fitted, those baggy pants became baggy jeans and soon became fitted jeans....Those loud prints n colours too, soon toned down... Maybe its the shift of "culture" or just the blending into Singapore's regular crowd as everyone got older... Hahaha

Well, music, fashion, style, dance, and mentality have all changed. Lets see where itll take us! Exciting!

-Marzipan

Food For Thought : Knowledge and Teaching

2010-03-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

Just a personal reflection....While thinking about how we learn and the different knowledge that has been going around, Ive realized that the story is always told from different point of views, each almost as equally biased. BUT, Facts never lie or never tell stories...so i guess its best to just rely on those :)

One point id like to bring up is that, What does it take to be a good teacher?

Skills? Well yeah skills matter to a certain extent, as you cannot teach what you do not know. So with that in mind, yeah you can be a great teacher and teach 100% but you can only teach so much.. For example, if you know only 1 chapter of math, but you teach it damn well, you are a good teacher but you only know chapter 1....whereas if you knew the whole book, and you dont really teach very well, you are considered a not-very-good instructor.....but is it really fair to see it this way? Im sure you have to balance both out :)

Perspective. One thing i always stress on is perspective. When you teach, while its good to teach in your own opinions, you should always give a third party or neutral/non-biased form of information to your students. NEVER SAY THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO IT OR YOU CANNOT DO THIS N THAT. If you have to advise a student against doing something, tell him the real facts, and then tell them that maybe this can be done as a variation or something new etc etc...If everyone said that hiphop can only be downbeat....then u will see great singapore workout instead of hiphop dancers.

That is why, being a teacher is giving your students their direction and freedom of growth. It is nurturing them into their potential, rather than teaching them rules and making them slaves.

If you dont educate your students openly, they will never grow as much as they could or they will be equally as closed minded as yourself, and the scene wont grow.

Lastly, Attitude. The most important aspect of Staying a teacher. lol. Attitude is what makes you survive the lousy days, the bad days, and keeps you going, staying true to why you want to teach. Teaching for fame is a wrong way to go and fame will teach you a lesson one day. Teach because you like to teach, not because you feel that you are good enough to teach or feel that you want to be recognized :)

Yeah nowadays alot of new dancers are getting teaching opportunities and please, remember to ask yourself alot of questions like those above. You may think you are helping the scene but you MIGHT just do the other way around. That is why teaching is a scary burden...bear it before you take the step.

-Marzipan

Post FTL 2010 interview with AKA KIN

2010-03-01T05:20:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of a 3-part post-FTL2010 mini-interview series.

AKA KIN

Keep it real.

Peace.

Floor The Love 2010 Highlights + Extras

2010-02-25T02:34:00.000-08:00

From my camera to your eyes.

Enjoy!

Shoutouts to Chris & the KSDP team for making this possible. :)

Out in The Streets : SDD & SBDC

2010-02-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, GONG XI GONG XI. just thought I should mention the 2 huge competitions that are coming soon in Singapore!
EXCITING!

Firstly, for the 1^st time ever in Singapore,
SINGAPORE DANCE DELIGHT VOL 1 !

[taken from http://www.dancedelight.sg/about.html ]
History of Dance Delight (About):

Dance Delight is created by Mitsuhiro Harada a.k.a Machine.

Machine is the leader of the legendary break dance team ‘Angel Dust Breakers’ in Japan. In 1992, he founded the street dance promotion company ‘Adhip’ and started ‘Osaka Dance Delight’ which created a new wave of street dance culture from Osaka and the origin of all dance delight competitions. In 1994, the first nation wide street dance competition in Japan took place, this was the 1st ‘Japan Dance Delight’.

After 16 years, Japan Dance Delight has become one of the biggest international street dance competition, participating cities/countries include Paris (France), New York (United States), Taipei (Taiwan), Shanghai (China), Seoul (South Korea) and Singapore. The finals in Japan would attract audiences of up to 10,000 and the entire series of regional and cities level dance delight would attract thousands of contestants.

“From watching the competitions these past 16 years, I am so impressed with the skills and ambitions of the dancers every year. It is a dance contest, so there will be rankings, but dance is very artistic and so it can’t be rated as they do with time records in sports. In this sense, there’s no set definition for what is right and wrong. And so every year, it evolves from the young people’s new ideas and emotions. I think it will continue to evolve further. This is the most dynamic and fun part about the competition.” Machine

What are you waiting for!!!
Registrations are now open at O School!
More info at http://www.dancedelight.sg/detail.html
and http://www.oschool.com.sg/

I am super sure that SDD is going to be the MOST exciting and challenging competition ever to hit Singapore! J

And Secondly, SINGAPORES BEST DANCE CREW 2010

[taken from http://www.sbdc.sg/about.php ]
About SBDC 2010.

SBDC, Singapore’s Best Dance Crew is one of the major annual events organized by The A Team. The Biggest Hip Hop Dance Competition in Singapore is co-managed by Hip Hop International Singapore. As the official licensee in Singapore for Hip Hop International, the winners for SBDC are sent to compete internationally in the World Hip Hop Dance Championships in USA. SBDC aims to unite and strengthen the Hip Hop community and provide our Singaporean youths with the opportunity to celebrate in the attitude of Fun, Team Spirit & Sportsmanship.

So what are you waiting for again!!!
Registrations are now open too!
More info at http://www.sbdc.sg/index.php

Joyce and the Boys was really REALLY REALLY REALLY lucky and blessed and so so thankful to have personally experienced the World Hiphop Championships experience and it IS the CRAZIEST and CRAZIEST and UNBELIEVABLE and SURREAL and CRAZIEST EXPERIENCE EVER.

And it is all real. The prize is REAL!! Haha! We have learnt and experienced SO SO much not just about dance as well when we headed over to VEGAS and trust me its something you do not want to miss. It was by far one of the BEST experiences ever that we would never ever ever forget.
Blessed, lucky and thankful.

So register now!!!!!!

Let’s all work harder to bring Singapore to the next level!!
GONG XI FA DA CHAI!!

-Terence

Out In The Streets! Ryan's Interview Part 1!

2010-02-08T07:11:00.001-08:00

Hey hey! Ben and Jasmine here! Here's Out in the Streets with Ryan Tan who's a very well respected instructor and dancer in Singapore! I was very lucky to be able to do an interview shoot with him despite his busy timing!

This is for all you dancers who are considering to take up dance as a career and also to learn more about the local dance scene in then and now. :)

Thank you Marzipan for helping with the setup and everything! Coming up next, we've got something special! Haha. Part 2 of the interview is coming so please stay tune and please be patient as I'm currently having my final year 2 exams.

Peace and GONG XI FA CAI in advance! :D:D

FA DA CAI YA FA DA CAI.

Marzipan : Random thoughts

2010-02-04T03:51:00.000-08:00

Hello guys, just thought i should post some random updates about myself... ha.

Life has been t slow paced this Jan, although it has significantly picked up speed over the past 2 weeks! Feb and March are going to be a busy month....Alot for u guys to look forward to as well....Been trainin quite abit in both teaching skills, and dancing skills. 2 totally different skillsets i must say. tough tough tough!

Anyway, last month i attended the opening party for Geseho Flagship store. In case you dont know, Geseho is another local streetwear company which does "Motorshop" themed apparel. Dont worry you aint going to look like a masa-wannabe.. Do drop by and see for ureself, visit www.geseho.com for more details :)

Support local talent!!!

Looking forward to Chinese New Year man, Good food, good company, Good moneymaking :)

Gong Xi Fa Cai people!!!

-Pineapple Marzipan

Out in the scene - events

2010-01-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hey people!
It's been awhile since we had competitions the start of the year!

Firstly, there's gonna be Code Edge, as mentioned by Marcus.

Then I'd like to take the chance to tell everyone that the Gatsby Styling Dance Contest will be held this Saturday @ the fountain area outside Bugis Junction, from 3-5pm.
The winning student team gets to represent Singapore to the Asia Finals in Tokyo, Japan! How cool is that!

In addition, What the Funk Vol. 9 will be held right after the Gatsby Dance Contest @ 7pm!~ It will be held @ Studio Wu. You can't miss this, because the judges are gonna be Aus Ninja and Michael "Prince Jack" Sim! If you wanna see tough popping matches, Saturday's the day!

Last but not least, I'd like to sneeeeeeeeeeak preview another event that's coming up really soon.
It's going to be a locking-genre event, and you lockers from LCL are not going to give this a miss!
It's going to be the biggest locking event this year! (I hope there's more to come!)

Anyway for those who have registered for FTL 2010, all the best to you guys out there! Be it poppers, lockers, hip hop/LA dancers, waackers, or even the house dancers. It's going to be a hell load of events in the first quarter of the year!

Event : Code Edge 3 International Finals

2010-01-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!!! Code edge is back again, this time with many international entries gracing our sunny Swingapore. Its definitely going to be jam packed with a whole lotta action. So check out the trailer and get your tickets and workshop spaces now!

"CODE:EDGE ASIA Finals Date: 27th February 2010 (Saturday) Time: 7pm - 11pm Venue: D'Marquee @ Downtown East Buy tickets from: http://www.tdc.sg/home Catch S**T KINGZ (Japan), Parris Goebel (New Zealand) & Aus Ninja in action at the Finals! Performances by Studio Wu Elite Poppers, Elite Kids and Elite team as well! CODE:EDGE Website: http://codeedge.studiowu.com/"

Spotlight : Deydey vs Sou ala UK Bboy09

2010-01-17T23:05:00.000-08:00

Hi guys! Hope the new year has been good to you so far :) .... Time to take those sneakers out for trainin, Feb is gonna be a jam packed month!

Im going to start my first article of 2010 with something different; As almost ALL the previous articles have elaborated on guys dancing, lets get to know the ladies better aye ;)

Deydey :

First off, the music makes this video so much more AWESOMENER! Love this track!!!!!!Whoooooooot! :):):)

This is a battle taken off UK BBOY 2009 Popping 1v1. Meowlissa was damn lucky to be there to catch it live! DAMN! The whole event was crazy i heard, and Deydey took the win for Poppin category! First woman to win this event!! CONGRATS DEYDEY on creating another milestone for the scene! She went back to her hometown in Vietnam shortly after UkBBoy to give a workshop with her sister. Damn we should get her down to Singapore sometime, but an air ticket from France might be costly...hahah..

If you look at this video or most female poppers, you can see that Deydey's style is quite feminine, at the same time showing off some of popping's masculine roots. Id hate to say that poppin is a more male dominated scene, i mean, look at hiphop, it looks like an all boy thing but the girls can and continue to give them guys a run for their money!! So it seems poppin girls are coming up fast in recent times.

===============

On to the breakdown!

For style, Deydey has a very classic clean (And nice) popping angles, with good rhythematic stops. Her movements are big enough to take in, slow and steady and quickening at the right times. Also, having many clean stops help to enhance the definition of her pops. Sou hits hard like a madman but somehow you can see their intensities equalized. If you observe alittle more, you can see that Sou has a very typical japanese style. They like to be in sort of a constant groove mode and barely stopping for a clean pop. That style, versus Deydey's style, which has many pauses or "Poses", makes for an interesting matchup.

Dance-wise, you can see that both are on point, deydey sitting very nicely in the pocket and doing the bare minimum without compromising quality. Her lines are also very well defined and done 100% to the fullest.

In comparison, Sou is more flowy and moving inbetween sounds and rhythms, but may appear to be more "messy". Many of his lines also appear less defined, as he pops midway during a movement rather than aiming to pop at the end of a movement.

Deydey's rhythm is very strong, showing just enough dance and a clear "story" with the music. Although she is just moving to very basic angles, she feels the music throughout each movement. This gives life and depth to ANY normal movements she might make. Visually, its not easy to see many of the interpretations, but if you look carefully, you can feel the parts of the music that makes her move a certain way.

Sou is almost constantly moving, showing layers of the music with different parts of the body. This might make the music more obvious but it may also be overkill, as we humans cannot absorb so much going on at one time!! :P So knowing how much to pace yourself is also good. Sometimes show basics, and sometimes go into more complicated movements, but always stay with the music!!!

So i guess when it comes to looking at who is closer to the music, while still having a greater technical and creative level, is really really hard to achieve. Simply because technique, musicality and creativity do not come hand in hand. These 3 important areas must really be approached in different ways. But once mastered, application for them will come simultaneously, and your body will make them complement each other to be a crazy dancer :) And sometimes when it is too close a fight, might just come down to preference on whose style you like!

But at the end of the day, a battle or competition is just an event. It should not make or break you as dance is a lifelong journey. So no one can win every competition everytime. That is why Art is so unpredictable :)

And if you want to know, the people who approved of Deydey's victory were(in order from left to right, sitting- on-those-chairs-behind-the-contestants-in-front-of-the-logo) Mr Wiggles, Salah and Jr Boog! Woweee an crazy lineup....hope to see Deydey in future as the judge :):)

Till then, dont look down on any girl poppers man, they might just eat you up!! haha

-Marzipan

Happy 2010!!

2009-12-30T22:34:00.000-08:00

Hey guys!

It's me Ben!
Just like Marzipan said, HAPPY 2010!
2009 was a pretty tough year, wasn't it?
I remember how much fun 2008 had.

BUT... in with the new, out with the old, 2010 is here!

Speaking about "new"...
Bobby aka Mileage from Elite Force Crew has just opened his webstore, so for all you people who have been wanting to get your hands on that "Mileage High Club" or "Bobby Mileage Air" tee, here's your chance!

www.bobbymileageclothing.com

Also, he's gonna be dropping some new designs in 2010, and be on the lookout for hoodies coming your way.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an advertisement for Bobby, I'm just sharing with you guys because I know many of us out there will be interested to cop a tee or two... I've ordered 3 myself! hahahaha...

PS: Robin's in one of the pictures under the gallery section, can you spot him? haha...

Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

2009-12-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Singapore!!!!!! Hope your festive season was great :) Just wished it snowed here only on christmas...heheh... And Happy 2010!!!! 2009 was great, lets make 2010 even more awesome! Keep dancin Singapore!

jingle bells, jingle bells...........auld lang syne.........2010!!!

-Marzipan

Spotlight: KS

2009-12-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

Hey guys...haven't been appearing here for a very long time...

Was busy with my common tests earlier on in November and now I'm late for my article submission... *Marc pointing fingers at me*
But that's not the point. So let's carry on.

So yea from the title as stated above, we're going to talk about ME.
Reason being: I'm not good at analysing people, neither do I know much background information about internationally-reknowned dancers, nor have the ability to comment much about them.

Okay? Cool.

So...I started dancing during 2006, and I started with Hip Hop. (Yea I think most people started from hip hop too) Then attempted a little bit of jazz here and there and failed. Then I started taking popping classes because my friend showed me a video of U-Min's performance in 2006 (the one where they used beatronic and the musical box song) Then I took locking classes also because Michael was teaching locking too.

I believe that nobody at the age of 15 would have thought that he/she would be able to achieve any accomplishment in the Singapore dance scene. At that time, I was just wanting to be able to dance better, train techniques so that I will be a stronger dancer, and be able to do better choreographies. But a state of circumstances has changed me into a very different person from before. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those who have watched me grown from a young boy to a not-so-young boy, forcing me to do all the shit and stuff so that what-dosen't-kill-me-makes-me-stronger. Thank you for your help. HAHAHA.

Ok back to the topic. Here's two videos of me that I have:

The Locking video was 1 year ago, before Floor The Love 2008. I was training with Jin then. I remember that day I took Yuu's class (Hilty and Bosch) because they came down to judge for KO Night 08.

The Popping video was earlier on this year, right before I went for Taiwan to join MAx Party 6. It should be around late March this year.

Locking:
Moves in general is quite sloppy.
Form is not very strong.
Techniques could have been better.
Transition from moves to moves were quite okay.
Direction orientation could be clearer.
Intensity is constant throughout the freestyle.
Actually, it's quite a torture to watch my own video again D:

Popping:
Flow was pretty good, transition of moves was executed quite well
Form was not very stable.
Pops were okay, not too bad.
Intensity of pops could have been variated to create a different presentation.
Moves was quite constant and repetitive, and sloppy at some parts.
Levels was okay, but most of the time facing the front; lack of dimensions.

This was 40% of what I was able to do at that period of time. Personally I felt that my Popping was affected because I had been training 3 months for the locking item performance for Taiwan's Max Party 6 without touching popping.

But then again, when you improve in one genre, chances are that your other genres are going to be affected. When I started locking, people were commenting that my locking had some popping angles. Maybe that was really the truth, maybe it awas partially because they were used to seeing me do popping so naturally they'd see it from a popping point of view. But thankfully I think I've managed to balance these two genres quite well for now. I think.

To me, advising people how to dance is akin to teaching your newborn baby how to walk, talk, ride a bike and stuff like that. In the past, I would always ask my mentors and seniors how to exactly improve in dance, techniques-wise, flow, and rhythm. But slowly and gradually, as I learn more about dance, I understand that asking for advice may not necessarily be the best method to help you grow as a stronger dancer. The best way in my opinion, is to learn how to see and comment on your own freestyle. It's the same logic as you spending hours reading your exam notes trying to figure out the concept, but when you get the concept, it really goes into your brain. It's better than just asking your friends for help, and trying to smoke through the exam papers. At the end of the day, you will forget all these important knowledge that you did not make an effort to read, understand and apply.

Not gonna talk too much here. Remember, realise it yourself.

Style : Hiphop Choreography

2009-12-24T06:07:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody! My name is Terence and I am freaking new to this,
Firstly, thank you marc marzipan for asking me to try this out and write for Singaporegotdance.com. Its really an honor to write for such a website and also writing beside amazing people/dancers such as cheeBen psyk who is so sick he makes me pang sai on my pants everytime I watch him dance, Marzipan who is such a sick and creative popper, KS who is a freaking young talent and jasmine whose groove is beyond insanity! I was scared at first but hell with it im going to try at least haha, Like I said im new to this and one thing for sure, I’m not good at writing. But ill try my best! So bear with me if you don’t understand the heck of what the heck I’m writing the heck about ok?

Ok firstly, let me introduce myself since it is the first time I’m writing a post. My name is Terence and my surname is Then. Since primary school, when I was short, fat and had a bowl shaped hairstyle, people have been making fun of my surname like example, “Terence.. THEN HOW?!” or “Terence.. arbber then???” . I used to be very affected by the jokes but ever since I found dance, I’ve became much more confident and able to face the hurtful jokes. Ok im kidding, but im serious about being short fat and having a bowl shaped hairstyle. Anyway, I’m 22 this year, I love dancing and have been dancing for about 4 and a half years. I am currently in NRA and I love my second family and second home :). So yea, now you know me a little better, lets talk about the actual point of the post, Style talk for hiphop choreography.

Well, firstly, in my humble opinion, hiphop is a very very LARGE genre and to me Hiphop is kinda like nonya rojak. Not Indian rojak, but the rojak that has taupok and sticky sweet sauce and pineapples and radishes that you mix it all around. By the way Indian rojak the fried bread is just too damn delicious. Anyway I feel the term hiphop is so free and so huge. To me hiphop is just self expression of how you feel towards the music. Hiphop just like all other styles is dance. Hiphop to me is just mixing up all the styles you do and expressing it. So to me I don’t really see the mega huge difference between la hiphop, lyrical hiphop, japan hiphop. Because to me its all just different styles of hiphop that ppl do and dance to express themselves, in the end its still all dance. First thing dancers should STOP doing is cutting the line in between the 2. like dissing on the other styles just because you prefer a style. We should respect all the “genres” of hiphop and learn from it and stay open :). But that is to me personally, its ok if you don’t agree :).
For me personally I LOVE the flow of Japanese choreography and I LOVE the creativity and self expressions of U.S choreography, there’s so much to learn from both the east and the west so open up your minds and eyes and learn.

I don’t really know what style is it that I’m doing or what my style is, I’m just creating choreography the way I feel towards the music. Its hard but its good to keep trying. One thing I know for sure. It is VERY VERY hard to create a DANCE. It’s easy to create steps, its easy to create nice steps. It’s easy to create nice steps to fit to the song, but its extremely hard to create a dance. To me creating a dance is freaking advance stuff man.

Many of us including myself are just at the end of the day, creating a set of steps to fit it into the music. But its ok, just keep working hard and I’m sure one day we all would be able to create a dance instead of just steps. I am working very hard too, In the past, I used to choreograph to songs that I thought was dope, or songs that has beats that made me go crazy or like “WA LAU THE BEATS DAM CHIO!”. But nowadays I try to choreograph to songs that I like. Songs that I would never even thought of creating a dance to if I go back to when I just started dancing. Or ever back like 2 years back. Stereotypes mainly will go “wa lao this song can dance meh? Can choreo meh?”. I would answer yes. You should answer yes too. I believe that EVERY SINGLE song in the world can be made into a dance because dance is about self expression. Do not be afraid to just try to choreograph to songs that you feel its impossible to choreograph to. I feel when you like a song or when a song means something to you somehow, its easier to connect to the song and thus it is easier for a choreo to be created. You don’t have to force frames in it, you don’t have to rack your brains over the different layers, you don’t have to think hard on what step should be on what count, on what layer on what lyric. The whole choreo would just flow and come out the way you want to express it. So I feel choreographing to a song you love, a song that you can connect with would bring you up a higher notch somehow. It doesn’t matter what genre the song is , whether its vasamtham central theme song, or Beijing cultural er hu piece or Tibet folk music or backstreet boys or even your wake up sound from your alarm clock. MOST important is something that you are able to connect with, something you love, something you like!

Do not care about people’s comments or thoughts. Eleanor Roosevelt said to always do what is right in your heart, because at the end of the day, you’ll still be criticized anyway. Because that is you. And nobody can be you except you.. That is why dance is so damn amazing. Because we are able to use our body language to express the way we want to on how a piece of sound or music makes us feel.

I think that is roughly a few things I want to point out about choreography. I still have ALOT ALOT to say but I guess its super long already so till next time. :)
Singapore is a small country, but it’s seriously filled with many many talented hardworking and inspiring people and dancers. Keep working hard together guys! I’m sure over time we will be able to be known to the world that Singapore is small in size, but BIG in dance :)
Goodbye and keep practicing, keep dancing, but don’t forget to go back to your basics and foundations.

Terence.

Backstage @ O School Recital 2009 (Ben's Cam)

2009-12-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

Sup everyone

O School's 2009 Recital just ended last Sunday, and it really was a blast.
I'm really thankful for the whole popping recital team, they're a nutty, crazy bunch!

Here's a vid I compiled with the outtakes from my cam!

I hope you guys enjoy the video...
cos all of us had a really good time!

Peace,
Ben "pSyk" Koh

Out In The Streets : Spotlight Boogie !!!

2009-12-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yo people! Marzipan says eat chocolate coated marzipan daily for an euphoric experience. Sure to help in your dance. haha. Ok ignore the above if you are NOT a fan of almonds, of which i am dearly fond of. Go almonds! Go nuts on it!

Alright, enough about nuts. Lets leave them out of the spotlight; And speaking of spotlights, lets turn the attention out towards the streets...Or malls...or wherever la.

Just last week we had Spotlight Boogie over the Hari Raya weekend. It was a blast seeing all those people get down! THANKS again to all those who made Spotlight Boogie a success! Not forgetting you audiences too :)

For those of you who did not catch it, too bad! And for those who are wondering what in the world is spotlight boogie? Check out http://spotlightboogie.wordpress.com for more details including the winning team. Don't be lazy, go check the site. Anyway, it is Singapore's first 3 vs 3 popping battle! Shiok.

So here is my little review about the event. Before i start let me say again that i am reviewing purely as a third party perspective and please do not take offence to anything i say if i do, in any case, offend you. In short, i dont mean to upset anyone la!

First lets start with the hiccups, the not so good stuff. I felt that technical problems with the sound really made the event 30% less "happening". Not only wasnt there any sound technician to help, the speakers were rather crappy. Or the mics...or both...Cant really make out what people are saying even with no music in the background. In addition to the sound problem, there were some issues about song looping and music changing at the wrong time. Maybe it was a bad day for the ears. lol

The next thing that bugged me was that i didnt see enough TEAM ACTION!! Dont get me wrong, the dancers were great, but it felt more like 1v1v1v1v1v1 more than 3v3. I feel the thing that seperates a 2v2,3v3 or crew battle from a 1 vs 1, is the synergy and teamwork. If not, just join a 1v1. I feel its really important to show your teamwork by doing good tags, commando routines, and other interesting stuff that you cant do solo. So people! Go create some synergy!!!

Lastly my only other complain was that, there should be cyphers going on during such dance events!!! Thats what makes it part of the street culture !

Alright now on to the awesomeness things! Ok now i cant be let off if i dont say that the Poppers are crazy man, you guys are growing at such a sick rate. Everyone really leveled up, and some impressed me alot! Keep workin guys, and Singapore will be international soon yeah. WHOOT. Lets take South East Asia first..wahhaah

The other thing that i liked was that the crowd gave their support! At least people of all ages sat, or stood through the whole thing! Thats a start aint it ? :)

Also, thanks to the various sponsors for the awesomeness prizes...damn i wished i couldve taken part lol.. Doc Martens, Walux Caps, Heeren vouchers, ODM watches...what the hell!!

Lastly, thanks Studio Wu and Poppers Action Party for organizing ! Do keep a lookout for the next Spotlight Boogie, till then, its WTF every month for you funkateers.

-Peace,

Marzipan

Style Talk: History of Hip Hop

2009-11-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, it’s Jasmine and Ben aka pSyk again. This week, it’s about Style Talk.
Every dancer should know their history regardless of what style you are dancing to. Be it Hip Hop, Ballet, Jazz, Breaking, Locking, Popping, Social Dancing, anything. We need to make the effort in reading up on our history, or by watching videos.

Today, we will be covering on the history of Hip Hop.

In the early aspects of the Bronx before and during the creation of Hip Hop (the late 60s and 70s), there was a drastic change going on in the streets of NYC. A gang is like family members, and by that, it means that your family is your complete neighbourhood.

In Hip Hop culture, there is always an association of gang influence. There were many instances where Hip Hop heads were gang members themselves. DJ Kool Herc earned his respect from gangs by giving shoutouts to them while spinning on the wheels of steel, and he kept peace in the jams.

From South Bronx, the biggest gang leader who changed his gang into the biggest Hip Hop motion in the streets of New York and ultimately, the world, is Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation.

The first forms of Hip Hop music was born in the African Americans New Yokers block parties in the Bronx during the 1970s. In the first Hip Hop hits, performers began rapping when the music (especially funk and soul music) played. They were originally called MCs.

In the early 1970s, breaking began as part of the block parties as b-boys, and b-girls had cyphers (jams) and they danced to the drumbeats with footwork, toprocks, freezes and powermoves.

Freestyle Hip Hop came around ’84 as the overexposure of Funk and Bboying reached it's peak, with the release of movies like “Breakin”, “Breakin2/Electric Boogaloo”, and “Beatstreet” as well as other various commercials and videos. In ’85, the dance forms died down and it stayed dead til about ’86.

A club called UNION Square, gave birth to was what is known today as Freestyle Hip Hop. Buddha Stretch’s friend, Tron, prepared a show together with some bboys and poppers, to perform one night. On the night of the performance, the dancers decided not to perform due to the rowdy crowds but instead, they jammed. It was after that night that the club wanted them to perform every week.

Buddha Stretch was the choreographer along with Michele Ann Travis’s help who did the promotion for the club. It was the beginning of Freestyle Hip Hop dance as he incorporated all the dances he knew or just learned into their routines. From there onwards, he went on to dance for the famous group WHODINI, in the summer of 87'.

MOPTOP was officially formed in formed in ’91 and Elite Force did not officially come together as a crew until ’93.

Hip Hop dance is basically, as Buddha Stretched said, an "Urban Social Organised Dance".

Why? Hip Hop dance was inspired by the music. The music gave birth to the movement. And each song gave birth to a certain move. Everyone knew the song, everyone knew the move and they would do it together. It didn't matter who you were or where you were from. It didn't matter what dance background you had, or even if you had any. You could have been a popper, a locker, a breaker. No one cared. Everyone just wanted to have fun. If you went to The Monastery in St. Louis, you would be doing the move named after the club. We use this move so often in our choreographies these days but I think, only 10% of those who know the move actually know the history behind it.

Why is knowing your history so important?

Easy: If you don't know where you came from, you won't be able to move forward. Know your foundations, and understand them. Knowing your history helps you understand the foundations even more. And only by truly understanding your foundations, are you able to create something brand new out of it.

Resources:
http://www.breakcheck.com/index.php?pg=Article&id=11
http://www.mrwiggles.biz/hip_hop_influences.htm

Food For Thought : Understanding how to learn

2009-11-24T21:52:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Marzipan is this month's food for thought. But please don't head over to your nearest Candy empire and buy a box of it to eat ok? Might turn you into a rounder you! Haha. Hope everyone's been doing good, this month has been really hectic for me.

Caught the flu on my last day in Korea( yeah i know, scary huh. Its red alert there for H1N1). Spent the first weekend home down n out of action. Thankfully its just a normal flu. But flu wasnt the only thing that caught up with me. Had to prepare choreographies for show, performances and prepare workshop/class choreo as well. Hectic man! Oh and do support us for Spotlight Boogie ok? Its a poppin 3 on 3 event this Fri!!!! hooray... ALL YOU POPPERS BETTER COME

Ok i realized this is turning into a too personal post :) Now onto the article proper

==============================================================

Before i start let me say this again that any reference i make is mostly based on my own learnings and heavily referenced on the style : Popping. :)

Now the beef about this month's article is on understanding the various learning resources/channels available to you

Sounds cheem? Let me break it down.

First you need to know what you can learn from, and this comes mainly in the following forms:

1)Workshops

2)Classes

3)Courses

4)Sessions

5)Performances/Competitions/Battles

I can tell you without a doubt that all the above are essential to maximizing your learning potential. There are alot of people who say that "Sessioning is the best to learn" or "Taking classes is the only way to go" but i say, "DO IT ALL"

Why? you say.

1)Workshops

Workshops are a good one-off learning opportunity. They are useful for giving an introduction to something new, or like an update of something old. Think of it like an advertisement. Going for workshops will most of the time open your mind and open yourself up. You never know, a workshop might change your direction completely. Its also a nice way to test what you like (If you are a new dancer).

2)Classes

Classes to me, is learning about Inspiration, or rather, getting inspired. You do learn when you go for classes but the main thing is getting inspired by the instructor's style. When you go for a class, you learn how the INSTRUCTOR learnt it. You take home a part of the instructor. And when you do choreography, in some way you BECOME the instructor. You cant learn all these in a session, you SHOULDN'T!

3)Courses

Courses are the best way to get started once you know what you like. Think of it as primary+secondary school. It will be like a compulsory period to learn all your foundations. Open classes are too random to really learn foundation in a logical flow. So courses are your best bet in getting a set of basics down and ready to rumble!!! Courses can also achieve the same aim as workshops, but it lasts for a waaaaaay longer period. :P workshops are good for updating things as well.

4)Sessions

Ok....this is like probably the only thing we Poppers look forward to. I admit its a good place to "learn" but it is not the only thing you should do.I repeat its not the ONLY thing you should do to improve. Now what are you supposed to learn during a session? And how is it different from taking a class? Well to me, a session is learning about YOURSELF. It is discovering your own style and understanding how music manipulates your body. KEYWORD : DISCOVERY. It is like a mini journey of discovery in every session.

So how is it different from a class? As i said previously, in class you learn about OTHERS(Your instructor), but in a session you learn about YOURSELF. So please dont make a session like an informal class. Dont keep asking questions about techniques, but rather, just go dance and explore yourself. Keep the learning and stuff for classes. Moderation people!

5)Performances/Competitions/Battles

Ok the last bit is basically learning about the non-technical parts of dance. When you take part in competitions or do performances, you learn how to handle stress, handle other people, expectations, make-up, competitor stress, peer pressure, wardrobe malfunctions, Jittery nerves, etc etc...there are like a hundred of factors out there that you might not learn through class/sessions/workshops.

Yeap so to sum it up, your learning is never ever completely just through ONE source. Go find as many ways to learn as possible. Do not restrict yourself, give yourself the potential that you deserve. LEARN BABY!!! WHOOOOO!

-Peace,

Rainbow-Rice-Coated Chocolate Marzipan

-Marzipan

The "Core" of a move

2009-11-15T22:39:00.000-08:00

Sup everyone it's me, back again to hit you up with whatever's in my mind.

First of all, WELCOME BACK, MARZIPAN & ZHIMING!

and I wanna share this video with all of you...
to me, it's one of the greatest locking showcases (and it was supposed to be a judge move) EVER.

Lockin' Khan from Korea.

So now, to the main story!

I was having a long talk with Marzipan yesterday, together with Rachel (AKA Chio), Alex (Poppin' AC), Kie Loong, Keiths, and I can't really remember who else.

Marzipan was sharing with us about his experience in Korea, and I started bombing him questions like "who did you learn from" / "where did you go" / "what did so-and-so say" / "teach me!" / "show me!" and stuff like that.

Personally I got inspired by Marzipan's rendition of what he picked up from Zero, but the thing that stuck in my head was when he was talking about the "Hard Training" he had with, I think, Crazy Kyo. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

There was this part about a "flow of foundations" and it really struck me hard. Basically it was about knowing your foundation moves, and then understanding your foundation and realising that there is a "core" for every move.

I'll use a move that everyone will be familiar with for an example.
the "RUNNING MAN".

If you don't know what the running man is... then time for you to do some research.
hahah. so basically the "core" of the Running Man is the leg action of looking like you're striding / running on the spot. That's the "core". It means you can freely variate your arms, your head, your upper torso, and you can even variate the timing or number of steps of your legs.

In another sense, you're kinda "creating" a new move out of the original Running Man.

What about you? What about the foundation moves that you know?
Do you understand the "core" of your foundation moves?

I'll be real honest and upfront here.
I've been dancing for 9 years now.
And no, I don't fully understand all of the foundation moves I've picked up. Not even popping, and definitely not hip hop. I know my basics, I know my foundations, but I don't truly understand them.

Back to the lab.
Care to join me, anyone?

POPPING EVENT!!!

2009-11-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hi people,

Poppers' Action' Party is organising a popping 3 on 3 battle this coming 27th Nov.

Do check out the facebook link http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180604659480

Details for now:-
DATE = 27TH NOV 09
TIME = 730 - 930PM
VENUE = THE HEEREN SHOPS (FOUNTAIN AREA)

If you're free, why not just come down and take a look? :D :D :D

Mixtape!

2009-10-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

So here's a poppin' mixtape for everyone to get (for free).
I mixed this using DJ Smoke's turntables, about a month ago.

It was meant as a sort of promo for Sexy Diamond Singapore, but I've also decided to share it here.

It's mainly a Poppin' mixtape but I'm sure you hip hop heads can get down to it too :)
(Sorry to the lockers, housers and bboys! but I got love for you guys yeah?)

Download here

Anyways, here's the tracklist:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above The Law feat. Heather Hunter - Freak In Me (Instrumental)
Myko - Give It To You (Instrumental)
The Alkaholiks - Run Wild (Instrumental)
Utada Hikaru - Addicted To You (Underwater Mix Instrumental)
The Tyrezz Project - Chill Fix Zone
Dabrye - Smoking the Edge
Styles P. feat. Miri Ben Ari - We Gon Win (Instrumental) [Props to Bobby Mileage (Elite Force Crew) for this track!]
Suga Free - Where You From
DNOI Edits - Doin It Movin (DNOI edit)
Unknown
Georgee Talkbox - A Brighter Star (Phat Mix)
Mr. Wiggles - Bump
Tiffany Affair feat. Jody Breeze - Start A Fire (Instrumental)
Aelpeacha - Jamais Grandir (Dogg Master Remix)
Big Pig - The Best Works
C-Ray-Z - Bangloose
DJ Warrior - New West Same Gang (Remix)
J Wells - One Shot Kill (Big Pig Remix)
Brian McKnight - Don't Know Where to Start
Olli - BUUMMM
Kay Bee - Bring The West
DJ Renegade - Home Sweet Home!
G Funk feat. Rocky Padilla - Get Ready
pSyk - Flip That Shit
The Tyrezz Project - Strobelight Machine Zone
DJ Mulder - Bump (Remix)
JG - Ni Hao [Props to Kie Loong for the track]
pSyk - Bump (Remix)
The Tyrezz Project - Groove Zone Act 2
Michael Jackson - Can't Let Her Get Away [R.I.P. King of Pop]
Roger Troutman - So Ruff So Tuff (Remix)
The Tyrezz Project - Groove Zone Act 1
Unknown
The Tyrezz Project - Block Party Zone
Shalla - Funk Paradise
Skalp - Funkin' For Jamaica
The Tyrezz Project - Thriller Night Zone
Olli - Back To Decade 80
pSyk - Step To This
Studio R feat. Capitol A - A And R (Original Mix)
JG - Real Marvelous Funk 3
Olli - Pockets Fat
Rufus Troutman - Fight Of Faith
Dayton Project with Gutch-G - Party Down (Nu Tune Beat Mix)
DNOI - Sexy
J. Holiday - Oh Sheila
Michael Jackson - Just Good Friends
Black Eyed Peas - I Can't Make You Dance
Prince - Dance 4 Me
Unknown
DaFONK - Twin Cities
Nelly - Spaz Out
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys enjoy this!

Have a safe trip tomorrow night, Marzipan!

I Love Beatbox

2009-10-27T00:17:00.000-07:00

Beat boxing has got to be a dancer's best friend when it comes to wireless speakers and battery-less music players. Haha... Well, creating music purely from your mouth is difficult. Lets give these guys some credit man. Do support the Beatboxers as they do their stuff.

Who knows? Maybe they would replace all the music players in the future. :)

Click here to go to Beatbox Project

Do give your support!

-Marzipan

Food For Thought : If you're stuck, seek your thoughts.

2009-10-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yo yo! It's KS in the house *flabbing arms frantically*
In this post, I will be touching on how dancers can improve themselves BY themselves :D

I believe that every dancer has experienced the 'stagnant period' before, where you are unable to get a breakthrough from your dance.

YES. You might be wondering, what ways are there to get out from it.

Obviously, that the best way to breakthrough from it is to continue improving. (In terms of free-styling)
For me, I like to take videos of myself down whenever I have the chance to session. Usually I'll just ask my friends to help me comment on me, and we'll repeat it vice versa. Here's the thing: You don't get to see yourself dancing. So whenever I comment on my friends, I will take a mental note on myself not to repeat those mistakes. Similarly, if there is any good parts, I will try to make an analysis on why that particular set was good.

**********************************

DISCLAIMER:

There are some 'theories' that should not be analysed, and BY RIGHT should not be explained (notice the contradiction here), because I believe that these are things that differentiate the good dancers and the BETTER dancers, in terms of both dancing and judging. If you know it, good for you. If you don't know, learn :D

This one, quite bo pian, you need to train by yourself and learn through experience. Otherwise you'll never be able to apprehend it completely.

One more thing. Don't try to explain too much of dance in theories. Bad for health *coughs*

**********************************

This is how I break it down: (comes with additional locking terms)
1a.Flow (how the movements alone transit from one step to another)

I like to see movement alone when people are doing sets. Like for example, how a person transits from a wrist twirl to a double lock and then a kick-ball-change.
You could do it the simple way. Or maybe do a single lock on both sides. Or you could transit to a whichaway after the kick-ball-change.
You could break it down into isolations, dance with a stiff body (which looks more animated), or add in the upbeat rhythm.

1b.Flow (How the movements goes in sync with the music)
Obvious examples would be like: When you hear a trumpet sound in the song, it is natural to 'whip' out a point. Or you don't do beat-ish steps when the music has a drag in it.

In general, every song has their own 'feel' interpreted differently from each dancer, expressed through different musical instruments. That 'feeling' that you get from your interpretation, will represent your flow when you dance to the song.

For example, a locker doing moves to a funky song, as compared to another locker doing moves with and extra upbeat to a funky song. The flow that comes will definitely be different, because the second dancer has added rhythm into his dance.

2.Rhythm
Rhythm is referring to the way your body move in a rythymic manner.
A good example would be drum beats.
Simple rhythm, 1 2 3 4, 5 6 7 8
Alternatively, 1 2, 3 and 4, 5 6, 7 and 8
OR maybe 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, 5 6, 7 and 8

So when the music goes a normal basic rhythm "Boom, pa, Boom, pa, Boom, pa, Boom, pa",
This is where you start to create your own rhythm. Take note, you don't have to neccesarily follow the normal rhythm. In general, good dancers are able to follow the rythym. But better dancers create their own rhythm and add it into their freestyle.

3.Musicality
What's the difference between musicality and rhythm? Well, rhythm is representing the basic and regular beats that you dance to when you freestyle. Musicality on the other side, refers to hitting irregular beats, or very subtle sound effects that may come out in the song.

Let me use a song as an example: Blockbuster - rhythm heritage
A simple explanation of rhythm, would be dancing to the basic beats of 1 2 3 4, 5 6 7 8.
Musicality comes in when you hear the very climatic parts (eg. trumpet)
These are the parts where the beats are irregular, and hence different from the normal basic beats of the song (rhythm)

After understanding these 3 basic components in doing a good dance free-style,then you will be able to do your homework - record your dance videos and comment on it. This will help you to see your weaknesses and strengths in a clearer view so that you can work on them.

Just one point to take note of:
One thing about musicality, is that dancers are trying too hard to hit all of the subtle sound effects and crazy beats. However, when we dance, we need to maintain the rhythm and flow to be able to present the crazy beats at its best. Otherwise, you'll just end up waiting to freak the beat and it's back to waiting for the next beat to freak, which doesn't make sense because you're supposed to dance.

I will recommend everyone to get a pair of good inner-ear earphones and start listening to the different layers of instruments to understand the song better. House songs in general add/remove another instrument in the song in every 4 sets of 8, so it will be easier for people to differentiate the layers :D

"If you're stuck, IMAGINE." - KS

Styles : Popping - The Rite Of Passage

2009-10-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Its Marzipan here with your style article of the month on Popping!

As you all know, popping has been viewed as rather "solo freestyle"- Thanks to all the hao lian kia around ... hahah you know im just kiddin about that last part right? Dont get offended all you poppers! Freestyle is the main element but choreography or group dynamics dont escape either. But for now, ill just elaborate on one of the main aspects of freestyle : The Dance Circle

Anyways, when we all first started, most of us are pretty scared of the circle. Yea you know which one im talking about, THAT circle. THE Circle. Otherwise known as The Arena, The Cypher, The RITE OF PASSAGE. Im sure you get my drift.

This Circle is an intimidating one, and you find your knees sometimes reduced to agar-agar, the cold wind blowing your teeth to a chatter and you might also end up vibrating into a pop... Haha. But yet, its such a part of our lives like our waistline....Ummm.. Yes the growing circle is good but not a growing waistline :P Anyways back to the circle, it is a place for you to show what you got and to just dance your heart out. Dancers sometimes say they get into the "Zone" where by they just get possessed by the music and everything else just comes subconsciously! Waaaaaay better than drugs dont you think?? Also, the circle is sort of like a platform for dancers to just come out in any situation, formal or informal. Think of it as a Personal Stage. Isnt it nice? A personal stage at almost anywhere with music!

Almost anything can happen in a circle: a callout, a battle, a showcase or just taking turns dancing. But as all dance ethics go, no fighting. The most popular forms are the Cypher and Battle Circles.

Now how do you get those nerves to stop shaking when you enter this nefarious sounding circle? Why, Practice of course! The more you enter the more confident you will feel. It may sound so simple but it really takes alot of time and frequency before you finally find your comfort level in a circle.

This now leads to the question of how to find a circle? Well, the best way is to find out if any poppers around you are going for a "session". Alternatively, you can start your own session and call others down! Sessions are a great opportunity to form a cypher circle and just watch each other dance. Comments and suggestions can come after the dancing is done. This is also one of the fastest ways to improve your dance as well as your circle-nerves. :) Thats why having a community is so important. Sessions also help to keep people together and helps new dancers feel more welcomed. So guys go out there and LET THERE BE SESSIONS!!!

As part of the effort that SGD is putting into growing the scene, we may come up with Session timetables next time. So you guys can find the nearest cypher location and dance! But please try to get this culture going. Its not just popping that has this culture. Every other street dance was born like this!

"When you dream you dance with your eyes closed. When you dance you dream with your eyes open"

-Marzipan

Spotlight: Elite Force Crew

2009-10-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Sup everybody, it's Jasmine and Ben aka pSyk comin' at you with our first post for the revamped SGD!

As you know, we're part of the SGD team and we're going to cover anything that is under "Hip Hop Freestyle",
so we both decided that a great way to kick things off is by having our first spotlight feature on
the legendary Elite Force Crew.

Since both of us are doing this post together, we'll write it in a "third person" sort of perspective so it's easier for you, the reader, to see who's writing what.

If you guys don't know about who the Elite Force Crew are, they are, in a very concise nutshell, a group with a long history, and are the very people who helped shape the culture of "Hip Hop" as we know it today.
(talk about Living Legacies eh?)

On a side note, if you haven't watched Reckin' Shop: Alive TV,
then you're really missing out on a whole lot of history on the dance and the culture.

So on to the video(s) that we are highlighting on this post:

This footage is taken from a guest performance that they did earlier this year in Beijing, China,
at Keep On Dancing Vol. 5.

Ben spoke to Buddha Stretch and Bobby Mileage regarding this performance,
and so he decided to spread what he learnt here.
(For identification purposes, at the start of the video, from left to right: Buddha Stretch, Bobby Mileage, and Henry Link)

We'll start off with part 1, and then move on to part 2 as we progress.

They start things off with a tribute to Michael Jackson,
and maintain the "Who's Bad" theme throughout the entire showcase.
If you're wondering why "Michael Jackson" since this footage was before the King of Pop passed on, it was because the Elite Force were choreographers for some of MJ's music videos, most notably "Remember The Time" in which they invented and performed the move known as the "Bart Simpson". They actually perform a part of the "Remember The Time" choreography at 2:12, right after the trademark "Thriller" move.
The "Bart Simpson" is performed at 2:19-2:27. I'm pretty sure alot of you know this move but just didn't know the name of it. We'll talk about names and history of moves in another post!

Well anyway, just watch and enjoy as they display their vocabulary in Hip Hop and House. The amazing thing to note is that they build their choreographies around basic and foundational moves, without much variation.

Some of the House vocabulary they use are "Farmer" at 2:42, followed by "Criss/Cross", "Skate", "Loose Legs", "Salsa Step", "Jacking", "Tip-Tap-Toe", and even some toprocking!
It's amazing how much vocabulary we can learn just by watching them dance.

"It's very important to expand our vocabulary,
because not only do we aquire more knowledge, but it also helps to aid us in our freestyle. " - Jasmine

Sometimes we feel stagnant, or rather repetitive when we try to freestyle. It's okay to be repetitive as long as you have your swagger on and you know what you are doing. But if it's the same vocab in every stage of your freestyle, it just means that there's more vocabulary to be learnt!

The term here is "Swag" - the short form of "Swagger".
It's all about your swagger.

Swagger: to walk or strut with a defiant or insolent air.

It's not about how difficult your moves are, it's all about how you perform / execute them. How much swag do you have? It's about enjoying the music, enjoying the dance, and showing how well you can do what you do best: be yourself.

Most of the time, we tend to think too much when we dance to a song (especially songs that we don't know). We get so caught up in thinking of what we should do, and we end up forgetting to enjoy the pleasure of dancing. Usually we attend classes to learn new techniques, and we just keep practicing them. We can pre-plan choreographing techniques and steps but we cannot do so in when it comes to freestyling. Freestyle puts us to a test of skills in everything we have experience and learned throughout our dancing exploration.

Especially in freestyle battles, that's the time for you to get your swag on.

So after the first solo (Bobby Mileage), they come back together and perform a choreography to T-Pain & Ludacris's "Chopped & Skrewed". The beauty of this choreography is that it truly shows what Hip Hop is about, not conforming to any particular style or genre. It's all about drawing inspirations and falling back on different roots of dance, and putting your own swag into it.

Next is Henry Link's solo.
This solo is one of Ben's personal favourites of all time, simply because Link destroys a track that is labelled as a "Popping Track". Look at his swag... as Kanye West would say it, "Swagger on a hundred thousand trillion". No boundaries, and not conforming to any rules. Link dances with a myriad of influences such as Popping, Locking and House, but he puts that "Link Swag" into the dance, and tears the roof down.

After Link's solo we see a canon-type of routine (made very popular back in the day by groups like Medea Sirkas aka Demons Of The Mind). Simple yet effective. What struck me was that the Elite Force were bringing things back to the roots, not just in dance, but in the music. The song they performed to is "Universal Mind Control" by Common, and Common mentioned in an interview that he drew inspiration for his track from Afrika Bambaata's "Planet Rock". Really puts a spin on "Old Skool, New Style" haha...

Following that is Buddha Stretch's turn to perform his solo.
He, like Bobby, performs in 2 segments, which sees him start off in straight Poppin (because Popping is his favourite dance style), followed by Hip Hop. In Ben's opinion, he feels that Stretch is the most technical dancer out of the whole of Elite Force, because he's able to dance a handful of styles but he never "fuses" them.
When he dances hip hop, it's 100% hip hop. Likewise when he dances Locking, Popping and House.

"Every time I watch Stretch perform his solo, it strikes me really hard that he's able to dance a full-length solo based on only foundational and basic moves with very few variations, but 100% swag." - Ben

They end off their showcase with a "routine".
"Routine", because Stretch told me that they wanted to introduce 2 new moves
and this was how they wanted to do it.
(and of course, they picked the perfect song: "Swagger Like Us")

The last routine begins with a new move called the "Imari Stomp" (7:25), named after Bobby's son, who invented the move. at 7:36 we see them do the "Bad One". I'm pretty sure you've heard some tracks (especially DJ Webstar's tracks) with the vocals saying "Bad One, Bad One" or "Do the Bad One". This is the move!

We hope this spolight entry will fill you with some insight and inspiration.
Stay tuned for the next post... until then, remember, it's all about YOUR SWAG!

Singapore Got Dance

2009-10-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

Hello guys, its been a long while since ive posted. Hope everyones been doing great! It was a pretty eventful year thus far, with many overseas talents inspiring sunny Singapore. What surprises will the year end hold? I wont know, but i can only hope to be pleasantly surprised. Haha.

As you guys can already see, the blogsite is currently under revampment..if there is such a word. Give us some feedbacks and let us know if it is too glaring for your eyes, or if you fell asleep navigating, or if you are just plain fussy...haha kiddin on the last bit.

Articles coming your way VERY VERY soon...and ill bring back more stories from Korea :)

-^_^arzipan

Marzipan : Food For Thought : Celebration

2009-07-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

After spending the whole week partying with a few diff people, ive come to realise that parties are where we get to know each other better. Especially in the dance scene, you can finally throw away the "competition mode" and just talk to everyone. Not to mention seeing rare sights of drunk tantrums. :)

So its always good to organise more parties on top of the birthday ones. Have a clubbing outing or makan outing. Itll definitely be fun!

Invite your friends and keep the invitation open, you never who might become ure new hangout buddies !!

-^_^arC

Marzipan : Food For Thought : Judging

2009-03-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

Its been too long since ive posted. Sorry for the delays n all, but will be MORE ACTIVE :) Ok well another post regarding my thoughts on judging. This will mainly be in perspective of judging a popping battle in my point of view. For all u other genre dancers out there, please substitute the terms relevantly heh heh :P

Ok well, ever sat down and watched a battle and wonder how the hell are the judges gonna decide whos gonna win!??!?! Its like both guys are either damn good, or theyre strong in each other's weak points. Well, i guess first each judge has to define what he/she is looking for, as well as one's own definition of dancing.

First lets talk about what judges look out for. Its usually unique to each judge but some events do call for certain criteria. Personally, if i were to judge say a beginners popping battle, id look out for foundation over style. Because being a beginner you need to have the solidness of foundational skills before venturing too much into style. Just an example there! So sometimes judges need to modify their expectations and their judgement according to events.

The second point is what is ones definition of dancing. There are a million different perspectives on this and i suggest finding your own reasonable definition with substantial logical backing and stick with it. Dont just say something or believe in something that doesnt exist.

For me, what i try to breakdown when i see someone dance is 2 things.

1) Foundation/Technic

2) Person's expression of music

1) Firstly, you can argue that yeah maybe if this guy's wave is not as clean is forgivable because its just his STYLE. But no, to a certain extent, style has to portray a level of technical mastery. Even if its ure style, u need to make it sharp/clean/tight. Unless its really really a VERY deliberate style to make it sloppy. But generally not the case. So when u see a person dance, i give 50% of my judgement based on his foundation level. If i see him struggling with a roll or unable to pop properly, means his technical level is not there. If he tries to do a sick move but u see the move as sloppy or could be much better, means lack of technical level.

One problem is that you may ask what is an acceptable level of technical/foundational proficiency? Id say, make your technics full, clean, and find a benchmark. Usually if youre technique is say as clean or better than 70% of the population, you know ure around the average mark. And i mean GLOBAL population. If not, its time to work. To be international standard id think u need to hit higher than 80% level.

2) The other thing is the dancer's expression of music. When you see someone dance and it feels good to watch, chances are he is feeling the music. If u see someone move exactly like the music, chances are he is expressing the music very well! So there may be times people feel the music but they dont show the music that well, or vice versa. You need to be able to know what ure good at and work on it. Its like, if u cant show me u feel the music well, u need to show me that u can express it well. Because i believe that if u can do either pretty well, u will be decent in the other.

For example, Acky. He can dance and u will just be able to feel him dancing to the music. You can see him feeling the rhythm of the song and flowing with it. He is feeling it.

Salah. He doesnt dance as much, he still does but his forte lies in his Showing of the music through his actions. He can do sick stuff that really matches the music like a glove. That is feel as well.

So those are examples of how ppl express the music. And for me if i would try to fairly judge someone, I would try to judge them base on technic and expression of music. probably on a 40/60 percentage.

You can tell when someone is technically lacking and you can tell when someone doesnt feel the music. :) work on it people!!!!

-MarZipan

Marzipan : Food for thought : Welcome 2009

2009-02-01T22:06:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, Its been a long time since ive posted anything :)

Firstly a Happy new and Niu year to everyone! I hope 2009 will bring an even better year than Awesome2008 for dance.

Lots of year end 08 events that happened which totally rocked. All the major dance recitals and productions really brought a nice end to the year. Congrats to everyone, it was all :):)

And to kick start this year, was Funkamania XIV! Congrats to all teams who made it to finals and to Pink Dollar for winning it. Amazing performance!

Winners : Pink Dollar$

2nd place : Poppers Action Party

3rd place : Fantastic Remix

Funkamania this year was pretty different in a sense that not only the rules were modified, the scale was different. Although it was nice to see that this year was on a grander scale, due to its late timing (starting at 10pm and ending close to midnight!), many supporters couldn't come; As well as under 18ers. Being a tertiary event, this shouldnt really be happenin but yeah...shit happens i guess. Youtube youtube. And the rules involved a dance battle for the top 2 (what!!) Yeah weird right? Those 2 should never mix in my opinion.

I hope the upcoming dance competitions in 2009 will bring more street credit to the dancers as well as to the events themselves. Its time for real STREET DANCE competitions to come out. Commercial viability can always be done for other competitions. Let there be REAL street competitions. No gimmicks. Just pure dance. We need this in 2009 :)

That being said, i wish everyone all the best and may the year bring you joy, your heart thumping and your feet happy !

-Marzipan

Jack and his box.

2008-11-24T16:47:00.000-08:00

Nice one Marzipan. Congrats btw! really gotta hand it to you.. haha.
For those who hates writing compositions and essays, THINK AGAIN!! lol.

Adding on some thoughts and suggestions along the same line.

Sometime during freestyle practise sessions, we need to watch what we say to each other.
The choice of words are very vital, because it can completely change or destroy a person's idea or style.

Sometimes you get comments like, "You move too much, messy", "Not enough angles."
But I think it should be rephrased as, " your movements are not detailed enough."
"the angles you trying to show are there, but are not clear"

Because, you might just stop some guy from completely moving around, when he loves to move around a lot. Or maybe impossible for him to stop moving.
'Moving around a lot', COULD, be his advantage and style, instead of his downfall.
So instructors and friends, do think before you speak.
Are you looking at his style? or his technique?

From talking to a student, GuangJie, recently, our characteristics are dependent on our friends as well,
"hey, you talk too much, you should shut up sometimes..."
And your friend could pretty much shut up for good.
hahahaha.

So don't take assumptions and make people walk the wrong path. ;D

Some of you might ask about, how to get a good flow? That's about the same as, how do you speak well?
Speak clearly, aduibly, understandingly, etc.
Go fig.

Just a personal experience to share, in one's practise to become better. I will not be clear, being vague forces you to think about what I just said. And I hate to spoonfeed. :P
You have to overcome your weaknesses. Quoting on Wild Cherry once told us ,"If you know your weakness, that's good, you found places where you can improve on."
Techniques - are like vocab, you have to know what they mean and train them well.
When you dance, the moves flow with the music, if your Techs' not strong, you're going to stutter.

Your 'body' is made up of various parts. Train them.
Go fig.

Anyway, just a shout out to all the dancers at FTL08, keep dancing and trying. Hope to see everyone soon for the next battle. Good job everyone.

Marzipan : Food for thought : Feel

2008-11-12T19:59:00.001-08:00

Just thought id share something before floor the love :) We ( as in the regular ppl ive been practicing with) have begun to really stress alot about feel these days. Now as i posted earlier, i feel that when you have rhythm, it makes you seem like you are dancing, but feel is what makes you dance. So feeling is important to cultivate. Well ive been thinking and while finishing my exams the other day(yay!) , i thought essay writing was a good analogy for battling.

It might be a little long and i dont really have time to edit now, but hope you guys can get some inspiration from it

Ok here goes :

Lets say you were to write a composition, and you had a theme or topic to write about. And you choose to write it in english. You write the essay, using your own style of writing. You write with a good flow and end well.

Yup thats the scenario. So let me break it down into dance terminology.

Firstly the music is the topic. It is the thing that gives direction and goal in your dance.

Then, language is the style. Like for example, writing a very similiar in meaning compo but one using english while the other using chinese, have very different structure, although sharing same meaning. The way vocab is used, sentence structure, forms of expression are all different yet convey the same meaning. That to me is like hip hop, popping, breaking, locking, etc Where we all learn to express the music, but using different methods/styles.

Ok so for me i would write this from a poppers point of view, so lets say popping is english. So im writing now in english.

Then next would come the actual writing stage. How do you want to write your essay? Do you want to start with a bang and then end low? Build up the climax? Start funny end serious? Start with a mystery? a twist?? Etc... this is how your freestyle battle will look like. You can choose the way you want to tell your story while u dance. And just like some stories, certain combinations are ideal but not essential. Take for example funny stories, It is effective to start out with a bang and hold readers attention and end nicely. For horror stories its good to build suspense and end with a climax. Translate those into dancing example and itll be : For a fast funky song, it may be good to start feeling high and then end nicely. For a heavy repetitive song, it may be good to slowly buildup ure set and end with a climax.

Thats just like ideal methods for certain situations, but of course you are free to find your own way as that is your own style of writing. we can always start or end however we want it to cuz ultimately it is our OWN freedom of expression.

Which brings me to the next part, post analysis.

Like compo, a good flow is essential to convey the story perfectly. It is weird if you write your intro paragraph and then suddenly out of nowhere throw in a twist, then climax, then suddenly jump to the end and back into present. It is too complex for people to understand at first read ( which is what happens during a battle. There is no way for judges or people to rewind the battle over n over again before judging) . So thats why EVEN THOUGH you really feel the story and express it in your OWN way, it might not be enough. Because in this world, everyone has certain norms or certain unspoken rules to things. So even though we do have our right to 100% freedom of expression, if we want to be judged well by others, we need to stick to certain norms. Thats why flow structure and the way you structure your freestyle is important. You cant just go out there and let loose, hoping itll be good. Sure u will feel the music n all but then there is a chance most people wont be able to "read" your dance well. So having a good idea of how u want to structure different song types is a good training topic as well :) keep in mind!

There is one more point id like to bring up as well. That is "Biting". You all know that biting means stealing/copying something and using it. Well that can be translated to essay writing too. Lets say you read a very well done novel that is based on romance. You really like the way the person structures the story or maybe u just like the way he starts or ends. You then remember it and then when next time you write on a romantic topic you write the exact same thing for your start or end or whatever part u copied n pasted. If the person who marks your paper doesnt know you, he would read it and feel yeah that is a really good paper and he would give you good marks. But if he has read the romance novel before, he would recognize the exact same style and he will penalize you. Not only that, if you do get away with it and get high marks, in the future, you wouldnt be able to write your own essay because you are so dependant on other people for help. You need to "bite" to come out with "new" things. But in truth u are just 1 step behind the person you bite always.

Some lessons to be learnt here. For one, if you like something you see/read, take the essence of it not the whole thing. Take some time to think or study it. Dont just copy wholesale. Ask yourself how did this person think of this? or why this person does it. Or maybe it makes sense to link it that way? Or maybe its just a random thing? Yeah and take that lesson and apply to your own thinking n freestyle. Not COPY. That way it is yours and still you make use of something you like, and make ure ownself grow. If you rely on biting or videos always for inspiration, that is not very healthy because you will always be a follower. Without those videos you will never GROW on your own. Whats the point?

*Added on : When you are helping someone out, you cant say whats wrong or whats right when it comes to feel or freestyle. Only technique can be more fairly judged wrong or right. Feel can only be commented on. So when you see someone freestyle, you should guide and comment on them rather than teach and tell them dont do this or do this. Techniques can be taught but feel can only be guided. Everyone is unique so we cant teach our own uniqueness. We can only guide them from your perspective and give suggestions. Look at it this way, if you were to mark someone else's essay, youd definitely be able to see whether grammer is wrong, or spelling is wrong (technique) but how can you say his storyline is wrong??? its his own story. Not yours.

So please start watching videos with a proper mindset and you will be amazed at what you can come up with YOURSELF. Not by biting. Inspiration is important, but dont be a thief.

-^_^arC

Marzipan : Event : DANZATION 2008 by NRA

2008-10-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

Yo guys please support NRA's annual concert :) It will definitely be a great show. Not to be missed, so get your friends and head down ! Wuhoooo! Exciting stuff.

The low-down :

Danzation was first held in 2006, with the purpose of providing a platform for dancers in NRA Dance Club to showcase their talent and love for dance to everyone. This year, NRA has decided to take it one step further, by having a unique collaboration between dance clubs that has never been done before. Together with 10 distinguished dance crews from other schools all over Singapore, NRA Dance Club aims to bring you yet another dance extravaganza not to be missed. Under the guidance of Principal Choreographer, Ann Tan, NRA's alumni and senior choreographers will come together in showcasing their different dance styles. Despite the differences in culture between the various schools and dance clubs, we believe that all dancers still share one thing in common - the passion for dance. And with that, Danzation 2008 will be the biggest dance production that you have been waiting for.

The NRA Hip Hop Club will hold their bi-annual Concert Production - Danzation 2008 this year. The theme to this year's Danzation is "Breaking The Boundaries & Unity".

The details are :

Date : 19 and 20 Dec 2008
Time : 7.00pm
Venue : NP Convention Centre
Duration : 2 hours
Tickets : $15.00 (free seating)
do visit http://www.danzation.blogspot.com

========================
On another topic, What makes a dancer?

A person may be able to move well to the music if he has good rhythm.
But a dancer is a person who moves with FEELING. Being a dancer is about feeling the music, and having rhythm. I guess maybe thats why some people can "fake" through. Rhythm and Feel is totally 2 different things

Something to think about :)

-^_^arC

Lyrical Hip Hop?

2008-10-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Sup guys.

this is a brand new vid posted by Buddha Stretch.
the person who was interviewing, i think, is Christepher Su (bboymonkeyking) of KSDP.

check it out... and before you do, remember, it's just information for everyone.

Event : Danz War and MUSE

2008-09-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Heya guys just a couple of updates... Just finished Code Edge 2 heats today and do catch the finals at Zouk on the 18th of October :)

2 other upcoming events as well :

1) Danz War 2008 organized by Danzpeople and Judged by none other than Wade Robson! Happenin on the 1st November. Registration for competition closes soon so hurry, Workshops also available for registration - Do check out www.danzpeople.com for more info :)

2) Republic Polytechnic are combining all their various dance CCAs into a single performance at their cultural centre. Its happenin on the 12th November. The event promises to satisfy all your dance needs as it hosts a variety of dance genres :) Do support. Find out more at http://trcc.rp.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=83

-^_^arC

Marzipan, Food for Thought : Freestyle

2008-09-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Finally there seem to be a growing trend in freestyling over here in Singapore. With competitions like KO Night and Floor the Love leading the way, many dancers here are beginning to get a taste and join the frenzy of freestyling/battling.

Just a tip for those who are new to freestyling, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS remember to start by doing the pure BASICS. IT IS SOOO IMPORTANT. Skipping basics will always make you regret sometime in the future, trust me. Looking good in the short run isnt worth the long run trade-off. And if your basics are good and solid, you will be able to be more creative in time. I will write a more in depth article about freestyling soon. But remember........DONT GO INTO MOVES OR WHAT LOOKS NICE if ure starting out freestyling, JUST DRILL THE BASICS INTO YOUR DANCE. Phewwwww

-^_^arC

Style differences

2008-09-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

As what was mentioned in the earlier posts. For illustrational purposes, below are 2 clips that would show the difference of the styles.

Its the same song with different interpretations of the music.

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzu5xPjPjI

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=KuH2muS3pIg

credits to Byrin for the vid search.

Dance Battling

2008-09-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

In the midst of the battling scene that is coming up in Singapore, there has major changes in the way dancers here freestyle already. Although there has been growth, i think there is still a need for people to here to understand what does these dance battles are.

Its very much about the rhythm and movement accrding to the music played and how well you can improvise on the spot. Very often, people come in with pre-choreographed pieces and fit it into the music. It would be very good if it flows nicely with the beats but if the dancers are not dancing with the music, it would become just movements and not actual dancing already.

In anyway, looking forward to Floor the Love coming up in Novemeber and perhaps more of these events in the coming years.

Just some food for thought.

Caleb

2008-09-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here's another video I have for everyone...

Introducing MAIKA-chan, from the dance team "RUSHBALL". RUSHBALL is a freestyle team, and they're educated in a myriad of styles. Everyone who knows her, including the members of WCO and Elite Force, have all said that she is a prodigy.
i remember first seeing her in DOMINIQUE's hip hop class the first time i went to OSAKA, which was in April last year.
i saw her again last November when i went back there and made friends with her.

this was taken after the Bobby "Mileage" (Elite Force) workshop in OSAKA, 24th August, 08.
he was playing some house music, and i asked MAIKA for one move.
this is the result. enjoy:

mind you, she's young.
only 10 or 11, if i'm not wrong.

but she can burn me badly.

Bobby aka Mileage (Elite Force Crew)

2008-09-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Sup guys!

Like i mentioned to you last week...
i was in Osaka and i met a whole bunch of people, namely, the whole WCO crew, Buddha Stretch (EFC), Mileage (EFC), Mr. Wiggles, Onion (PI), JeDi.NiCe (PI), Katalyst (PI).

i also watched Japan Dance Delight Vol. 15.
it was a really great experience, getting to hear MC USK's voice live, and to experience the whole show. it was 10 hours long, i gotta say.

GLASS HOPPER + PINOCCHIO took the champion trophy,
followed by Repoll:FX,
and in 3rd place was Dedson & Stephanie (from France).
this time around, there were a total of 3 Special Prizes. I think it's the first time in Dance Delight history where there are 3 Special Prizes given.
they went to: Bottom Bounce, Rm Sister and Mortal Combat.

one of my favourites was Shuffle!, but they didnt win a prize. they did a beautiful and very, very entertaining routine to Relight My Fire.

anyways, here's the main point of the post.
after taking his workshop, i managed to steal Mileage for a couple of minutes and here's the result:

Stay tuned for even more updates.

NUS Dance Ensemble presents The Next Wave 2008

2008-08-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

It's here again. I'm praying hard that those who've come before will come again to see yet another side of the choreographers that you've seen before; those who've not been to any of The Next Waves to please give it a shot at least once; and those with scheduling clashes to reconsider scheduling your stuff on 19 or 20 Sep to another day, please !! Varied styles, one common ideal of pushing the limits of dance. Hope to see you there. Here's the official word on it:

Be mesmerized by NUS Dance Ensemble in The Next Wave 2008 as it sets out to redefine the conventional concept of dance whilst still adhering to the discipline and spirit that encapsulates the very essence of NUS Dance Ensemble. Under the direction of their founder and resident choreographer, Zaini Mohd Tahir, the Ensemble has matured from its humble beginnings in 1992 to the established dance company it is today.

This year our external choreographers include Dan Kwoh; graduate from LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts and Marcus Foo; Jitterbugs scholar. Our internal choreographers include alumni members Shaun Lee and Zhou Suli, famed commercial choreographer Shahbirul Zaki Ahmad and Resident Choreographer Zaini Mohd Tahir.

Tickets at $19, $16 and $12*

Prices exclude $1 SISTIC Ticket Handling Fee.

Tickets are available at all SISTIC Outlets and online at www.sistic.com.sg. Tickets can also be booked through SISTIC hotline at 6348 5555.

For all ticket catergories: NUS Students are entitled to 15% discount. Group discount of at least 20 tickets are entitled to 20% discount.

You can also contact your friendly neighbourhood Ensemble member.

More details at Facebook Events: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=30140854922.

NUS Dance Blast! - Shut Up And Dance: "Monsters of Hip Hop"

2008-08-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

NUS Dance Blast presents Shut Up And Dance for the second year since 2006. Choreographers include Patrick Loo, resident instructor for Blast!, Joo Teng, Ahmad, Idil, Jiexiao, collabos between Rebecca and Lina, Calvin and Taufik, Caleb and Candy, and Blast alumni collabo between Justis, Yisi, Calvin and Glady. Guest performances by NTU MJ and a couple of individual showcases to watch out for.

Details in Facebook Events: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=22579081699

or in the Blast official website: www.nusdanceblast.com

This is happening at the following times: 13 Sep 2pm, 13 Sep 730pm, 14 Sep 730pm @ NUS UCC Theatre. Unfortunately most tix are sold out. If you are still interested, you may want to email monstersofhiphop.danceblast@gmail.com or reach out to the "black market" to try your luck. Thks to all who are coming !!

Floor the Love (KSDP)

2008-08-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

The next few months will be a very busy time for singapore dancers. Floor the love will be in November this year. Battle format competition in locking, popping, hip hop and bboy categories.

For more details please logon to http://www.floorthelove.blogspot.com/

Code Edge 2

2008-08-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

The next big event for the year is coming up this October with workshops from JP, Mariel Martin as well as Wild Cherry.
Please visit http://codeedge.studiowu.com/ for more details.

K.O. Night Finalists

2008-08-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

It was an intense battle earlier today at K.O. Night.
Thanks to the guest judges, Ann Tan, B-Boy Mahmud, and SGD's very own Prince Jack for gracing the event.

We're done with the semi-finals and the victors have emerged, thus, the lineup for the finals will be:

Hip Hop: Rated PG vs. Red Line
Popping: Freqance vs. Sunset Alleycats
Breaking: Floor Tech vs. Intertia Crew
Locking: Faith Society Crew vs. Fonkay Styles

remember, the finals will be held on 5th September, at Singapore Post Center.
tickets available only at O School!

I definitely had fun this evening.
man, everyone's improving so much. it was such a blast watching the event!

Spotlight : Events this Aug

2008-08-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yo guys sorry for long updates...We are in the midst of redoing the formats n posts, as well as many of our guys are busy with big projects! :) updates coming soon!!! In the meanwhile, here are 2 big events this August.

Suntec Dance Heats : 16 & 17 August at Suntec(Outside Harrys)

and

KO Night Semifinals : 16 August at SMU

Come and support your friends!

-^_^arC

Spotlight : Mixstyle/Freestyle Battles

2008-07-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a damn entertaining dance battle that really brings out the fun and the real dance. Sometimes in battles we are so caught up trying to win but this is really a let your hair down event. Enjoy the vid :)

-^_^arC

Lime's Dance Competition + K.O. Night Semifinals

2008-07-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.

I'm here to drop some info on this competition (because I have the flyer with me right now):

"LIME'S FUNKMEISTER DANCE CHALLENGE '08"

Organised by Lime Magazine

There will be 2 categories:
Solo / Duo & Group

Prizes for Solo / Duo Cat:
1st: $1,000 cash
2nd: $500 cash
3rd: $300 cash

Prizes for Group Cat:
1st: $2,000 cash
2nd: $1,200 cash
3rd: $600 cash

Special Prizes:
"Most energetic dance group": $300 cash + $100 Cadbury goodie bag

Event Dates are:
Auditions: 8 & 9 August (O School)
Semi-finals: 16 & 17 August (Bugis Junction - Bugis Square, Level 1)
Finals: 23 August (Bugis Junction - Bugis Square, Level 1)

Closing date for registration is 6th August.
"This contest is open to all residing in Singapore, regardless of nationality, aged 16-28.
For enquiries, call 6483-8403 or email dance@lime.com.sg
Registration Fee: $10"

I'm reading the rules and some of the prominent ones are:
- "Type of dance: Hip-hop"
- "Each contestant is allowed to participate in only one category, i.e. either Solo & Duo or Group"
- "A minimum of 3 members and maximum of 6 members per team for Group"
- "Each act is required to showcase not more than 4 mins of dance performance to music of their choice without explicit contents"
- "The dance routine must not have won in any contests before."

And that wraps up my entry on Lime Magazine's dance competition.

On to the K.O. Night Semi-finals.
If you dont already know, the semi finals will be held on 16th August (Saturday), 7:00pm @ SMU Arts & Cultural Centre.

Entry is free but the seating capacity is only at 280, so first-come first-served.

See you there, whichever event you're planning to go.
(just a side note, if you're wondering, Lime's event on the 16th is held in the afternoon so there's time for you to make it for K.O. Night Semis, haha)

SGD goes Korea

2008-07-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

Heyya to all SGD readers,

We've been a little busy recently. Just back from China. Updates on this coming up soon.
In any case, here's an interview from Korea from Mr Big of Ghost of soul crew, credits to Chris for the link up and Sue-Ann for the interview and translations.

So... How long have you been dancing?
I’ve been dancing for 10 years in total, 6 years as an amateur, and 4 years professionally.

Why did you decide to start dancing?
When I thought of what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to choose something that I was good at and something I enjoyed doing, that’s why I chose dance.

What is your favorite style of dance to watch?
From an audience point of view, I enjoy watching house, b-boying and locking because they are very fun styles to watch. Tap and swing dance as well.

5. Why did you chose wacking?
I started off as a hip hop dancer, and first came into contact with the wacking style when I went to Osaka in 2005 to learn dance. In 2006, together with the ‘Ghost of Soul’ crew, we studied and practiced the style.

6. Why do you like dancing so much?
I see dance as a form of communication, it’s like how people enjoy interacting with each other through having a good verbal conversation, I enjoy interacting with others through dance.

7. Why do you teach dancing?
It is a chance for me to pass on the knowledge I have to the younger generation of dancers, and I hope that through learning this style from me, they are able to incorporate this along with other styles they learn to come up with new styles of dance.

8. Who is your favorite dancer/inspiration?
My favourite dancers are my fellow crew members from Ghost of Soul, and I am inspired by Tyrone, Marty and Ducky, amongst many others.

9. What is the dance culture like in Korea?
I think compared to other countries, the dance scene in Korea developed a lot faster. The problem in Korea is that even though we have extremely talented dancers, the audience is still very immature and they are unable to appreciate the amazing dancers we have. Also, because people do not think that dance is an important profession, the older generation does not support their children becoming dancers as they won’t be able to earn a proper living by being a dancer. I think for the dance culture to improve, the general public should learn how to appreciate dance because we already have very good dancers whose talent is often under appreciated.

10. What is your philosophy on dancing?
Challenge and perseverance. Always challenge yourself, and keep working at getting better. Practice and work hard until you get where you wanna be, and then challenge yourself to new heights

Link to his videos: http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=WwdjcQUGOCA&feature=related

P/S : As some of you might have known, we hope to be able to do our interviews in the video format to make it more interactive for our readers. Feedback is welcomed. Please feel free to contact us if you do have an interest to help us @ SGD in one way or another.

Marzipan, Food For Thought : The Global Playground

2008-07-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hello all, just a simple post.

Where do you dance?

On the streets? In the studios? At home?

I believe the street dancing culture in Singapore is fast coming up. Share with us your favourite dance spots and lets build this thing!

Leave your comments :)

-^_^arC

Marzipan, Food For Thought : Recitals

2008-06-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, its been awhile since ive posted. :P Been pretty busy with the WuZone recital as well as KO Night preparations! Well one thing I want to talk about is Dance Recitals.

Now while we were in the preparation stages of the recital, many of the choreographers had very great plans for their choreography. Crazy ideas and crazy steps, and im sure not just for this recital but this happens in every other recital out there. Throughout the mid-to-later stages, sometimes the choreography or concept had to be changed because either the goals were changed, or the people were not ready for some of the choreography.

So pondering more on the subject of "Why do we join recitals" or for choreographers "What do I want from this recital", I spoke to a few people and got some mixed answers. Well firstly as a student/casual dancer/class taker, im sure most of us attend dance classes as a pastime. We are all eager to perform and improve but too much effort in pastimes can sap quite alot of energy from your work/school/etc. Therefore to us, recitals are a chance to really get on a stage and PERFORM! Its one of the rare chances we get without actually having to be part of a group or gain recognition in the scene before being able to do so. For the veterans, it is to network or catch up with people in the scene, not to mention also making it another benchmark in their dance lives. For the choreographers, it is the most important day of all (especially those doing it for the first time), it is the chance to really show your stuff. The chance to play with ideas and concepts, the chance to influence others.

Everyone has different objectives in recitals. The veterans and choreographers should be experienced enough to know what to expect, otherwise this would also be a good learning journey! Its not easy you know, handling expectations, knowing how high to set the bar or learning to compromise. It all goes beyond dance itself. Sometimes we lose sight of why we are choreographing, and concentrate too much on the visuals. Expectations also have to be managed very carefully as it is a touchy issue. Its really a very challenging task, but if you do it well, it will definitely be worth the while.
Thats why I feel a recital is not just a performance, its a journey that we all take together, to grow in more ways than one.

I would reccomend all casual dancers to take part in whatever recital there is out there possible. Because dance is dance, no matter what the affiliation. And as a casual dancer there are only so little opportunities to put yourself on stage and learn from this experience! Its definitely one that is more challenging than it sounds. I believe we dance to express, but we also dance to influence. We are hardly dancing alone always, therefore we need to learn how to dance with others, for others. So take this chance!

To end it off, recitals are also the best chance to get to know your fellow dancers better. Who knows? You might be talking to your future dance partner or even instructor. Haha... on top of it all, I gurantee you will have an enjoyable experience if you think about it and do a recital for the right reasons. It doesnt matter wether youre a beginner, a veteran or a choreographer. Know why you do what you do. Dont just take it as another hobby.

That is why if you really put your soul into it, you will suffer post recital trauma... haha

-^_^arC

Shout out from Luam

2008-06-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

This time we got a shout out by Luam herself all the way from New York.

~Credits to Glen for the vid

We're Back!!!

2008-06-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Hey,

Sorry for the lack of posts for the past week. We've been really busy with all the dance events that has been going on.

We'll be having a revamp of the blog and more interesting information up in this coming week. Please feel free to contact us if you have any feedback or suggestions or specific areas of interest you would like us to write on.

~Caleb

15 Minutes with Patrick Loo

2008-05-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to interview Patrick from Danz people. He can be considered the Godfather of Hip Hop in Singapore being one of the pioneers that did Hip Hop way back in the 1980s. Advocating a local style for the hip hop in Singapore, he has charted the path for the growing scene in Singapore.

1. So when did you start dancing?

It was way back in 1986 where I started at Neptune theatre restaurant. I then joined the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation as a full time dancer in ’88.

2. So its been like 20 over years you’ve been dancing… What got you started and what kept you going on with it?

Believe it or not it was because of the dance movies back then. It was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Fame and of course Break dance movie. I started with popping back then but with SBC, I was required to do Jazz and Ballet as well. My hip hop influences came from Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown. The important thing is that you wake up in the morning knowing that you’ll be doing something that you love.

3. Could you tell us about the changes that had happened in the dance scene since back then?

There was no materials back then for Hip Hop. Everything was quite DIY. Only later when we had the VCR and video cassettes tapes that we started to have a bit more to work with. It was more of sharing among peers.It’s the better days now for hip hop then ever before. As long as artistes continue with hip hop songs the dance will stay.

4. Could you tell us more about your recent trip to LA? What is the difference between us and them?

LIGHT YEARS!!! It’s a totally different scene. Its all about the attitude. People over there are generally very much “in your face”. Singaporeans are so shy in comparison. And the people there are more open to criticism, they just move on despite the bad stuff they encounter. Like how you see it on American idol, everyone who auditions thinks they can sing and will not be put down so easily.

They also have a very mixed genre of dancers with examples of Tucker, Kenny and Misha which are trained classically but are as competent in street styles as well. Its all about versatility.
As for the standard of dance in Singapore, I believe we can go very far with the exposure in recent years we’ve seen Singapore dancers going to places like Australia to compete. It’ll be just a matter of time before we get on par with the international scene.

5. Any advice for the younger dancers out there?

Its all about hard work. Talent is 10 percent, hard work is 90 percent. A person who goes crazy working on dance whenever he/she goes would definitely be better than one who has talent but doesn’t practice at all. What I can say is practice, practice, practice.

You can see some videos of his classes @ http://www.youtube.com/user/yippy43

Jack and his box.

2008-05-22T10:35:00.001-07:00

Hi all!

Anyway, for all you dancers out there. Instead of "chiongin" non-stop 24/7.
I'm taking this time to talk about HEALTH.

Of course, our knees. The ones that hold up to 30kg and beyond. ;P
So remember to check this out. Gulcosamine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucosamine

There are quite a few brands out there, currently I'm taking the brand "Ocean Health".
Mustafa got sale. LOL.

And get those milk mustaches as well. Not ice cream.

Last but not least, I do have some posts, do check them out to. :P

And keep on dancing.

straight from the oven!

2008-05-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

sup everyone. i just got back from one amazing round of K.O. Night.
it was super tough judging it but anyways i want to put an update of the battle results...

Battle 1: (Popping)
Sunset Alleycats vs Flip Art
winner:
Sunset Alleycats

Battle 2: (Popping)
Bone & Jelly vs Freqance
Winner:
Freqance

Battle 3: (Hip Hop)
Red Line vs Sopeez
Winner:
Red Line

Battle 4: (Hip Hop)
Blackjack vs Ekzident
Winner:
Ekzident

Battle 5: (Popping)
Gosh vs Funk Faction
Winner:
Gosh

Battle 6: (Popping)
Groovie Boogie vs WAH!
Winner:
Groovie Boogie

Battle 7: (Hip Hop)
White-T vs HE-EY
Winner:
White-T

Battle 8: (Hip Hop)
Rated PG vs DUOS
Winner:
Rated PG

i just want to say...
DID YOU GUYS SEE ZAIHAR'S HAT TRICK?

i almost stood up and shouted!

so remember, the point system is:
Win = 3 points
Draw = 1 point for each team
Lose = 0 points

i'm working on the videos, i'm working on them, i'll try to get them up asap i promise!

the silence is over.

Spotlight : KO Night 08

2008-05-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Well, having seen snippets of the past few rounds of KO Night, Im pretty sure this event is gonna be one of the most happenin ones this year! Lots of dancers are coming out and showing their stuff on the freestyle grounds! :) Alot of teams look good! Way to go Singapore...our progress is getting pumped up haha... Enjoy some snippets

-^_^arC

Shoutout by Gigi Torres

2008-05-05T06:35:00.001-07:00

For those who miss Gigi from Project Element Singapore last year, here is something for you all the way from the US.
Credits from Candy Mak who was there just 2 weeks back.

~Caleb

Fbodz In Taiwan - Part 8 - "Look mom! im on DVD!"

2008-05-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

FB's Representitives : Joey, Ah Hei, Lesner, Wee Kiat, Ryuta, Huang Peng & Ahbentoh

Seeing our routines in homeland and seeing it here is a really different feeling man. If i didn't know these guys and had a look at this for this first time i probably will think they are some kinda Taiwanese Yandaokiahs. Right now, im still looking at this over and over again thinking, 'dayyymmnn...we were actually there.'

Singapore Boleh!!

Honestly, i have seen Trademarks (the team that represented Fbodz) done alot better during their 1st till 4th or maybe 5th time using this routine for a performance. However, this might have been the 3214876213th time they would be dancing this routine after Funkamania. Hence that might maybe explain their lownessless in some point. But who cares man. They are going to be in the super hip-ultra-cool DVD that be selling across Taiwan. Check out the cool cover on the link below
Click here to view super-hip-ultra-cool Max Party 08 event DVD

For those who are interested to get a copy of the DVD please let me know! I will tell the Taiwan Langs to DHL here or something.

By the way for all those who have been following the Fbodz In Taiwan clips, you would have noticed that the post for our Sunset Alleycats performance was trimmed. For those who were curious to know what the centre bit was, i tell you now la. Since i cannot escape anyway. I secretly didn't want to show you guys how my fat backside knocked skinny David over too many times in a routine. And also i was afraid to show the world how i couldn't pop. As much as many of you love laughing the world out of me, i hereby post up the full thing for time killing purposes. I feel bad for David. And sorry for the mistakes here and there. But 'daymnnnn..we were actually there!'

Anyway, let me sidetrack abit. Candy is in the US of A now. And i last heard from Caleb that she met many many big names. (like Buddha Stretch of Elite Force Crew). Please keep checking to see updates from halfway around the world!

Singapore Boleh x 10000,

Chunky.

Article : Dance Styles, Part 2

2008-04-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

Ok guess Ill start on my 2nd part of the article! :) once again as I said before these articles are purely based on my point of view and open to discussion.

Now that aside, previously we discussed about genre(mainly the music element) and style (the broad headings eg. Krumping, "newschool hiphop", Popping, Bboying). That was the most difficult 2 actually... haha.... substyles and character are slightly easier to understand cuz once you get the idea of where everything falls into place, the whole thing starts to make sense.

-Substyle-

A substyle can be seen as an element of a style that is as unique as the style itself, but yet still being just part of the style.
Sounds confusing??? Ok lets take it from the top again with another example. (sorry if I keep referring to hiphop/popping examples as I am more familiar with them)

Ok so the example will be about popping. This will be the tree that we will be looking at :

Genre : Funk / Funkstyles
Style : Popping
Substyle : Tutting

Ok so we have a funk based dance called popping, with its basic foundations. Then as time passed and people got more inspiration, they decided to try new stuff and some of these "experiments" developed into their own sorta "style" which becomes the substyle. (I said "style" so not to confuse with our definitions).

Lets say in our example, tutting was inspired by the egyptian hieroglyphics and their drawings. It encompasses of using your arms and body parts and making 90 degree angles. This substyle was then put into the style popping.

So people started dancing with tutting substyle, but still with the foundations of popping because popping is the main style that this substyle(tutting) came from. Even though a substyle may contribute to even about 80% of the dance itself, the foundation is still from its style>genre. For example if you are a dancer who is tutting to trance music, then there would be a new tree being formed under the Trance genre called tutting, rather than you still being under the funk>popping>tutting tree.

I think almost everyone who dances has at least a substyle. It is still possible to dance purely to the main style, but then again its like saying you want to learn how to draw art but you dont want a wider range of crayons.

Ok now that substyles are more or less explained, I will talk about character.

-Character-

This is the most personal bit of dance and everyone has their own unique character. Even if we were dancing the same genre, same style , same substyle, the character is what sets us apart.

The basic roots to dancing again is about feeling the music. So character will show when you just feel the music. Imagine you forgot all the technicalities of dance. And you just hear a song. You groove to it, and some people may feel happy while listening to a song, others may feel sad while listening to the same song. Thus that is what character is. Its your own intepretation of the music and the song. Throw in technique and you get a "dancer" dancer.

If you are naturally a happy person, then when you dance your character will come out. It will show in the type of dance you dance or the way you dance. This is most obvious in freestlye as freestyling allows for the most self-expression. It is still evident in choreo situations as you tend to subconciously input ure own feel into other people's steps ( maybe thats why its so hard to cleanup the steps for choreos when everyone's feel eg character are different).

Yup so to end it off, its always good to have your own character and develop it. We dance to express so that is the ultimate level. Be yourself and not a copy of another person. It is good to copy sometimes to learn, but to Learn, not to BE. We should copy to improve technique and learn ideas but we should never copy and claim is as our own. Only we ourselves can be our own judges. As a dancer it is always good to spend time to think and reflect on what genre/style/substyle you are dancing and know its roots.

Freestyle is another important part of any dancer. I will talk more about that in the next article! Till then hope this helps you guys get a bigger view of the picture :)

-^_^arC

Studio Wu Recital

2008-04-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Tickets for Studio Wu recital is up for sale.

Call 6223 4722 for more details.

Emotions

2008-04-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

I was taking a look at the Christepher "Monkeyking" Su's blog,
Floor The Love, and i came across this video:

Hojin (K-OGS) vs J Rong (NY Crew)
it's a mixstyle battle but what's worthy to note is the 2nd round...

i couldnt resist wanting to share this battle with everyone. you may have seen it already but what the hell, just watch it again.

Hojin completely murdered the 2nd round. he won the battle in the end, but truly, this is something you dont see in battles. the musicality... and the emotions.
as i watched the battle unfold, i found myself literally gritting my teeth, trying to hold back the emotions that Hojin was pulling out of me. i know this sounds strange but it's truly how i felt.

Hojin's only 19, and he's the youngest member of one of the pioneer popping crews in Korea, K-OGS.

mad props to Hojin.
and mad props to Monkeyking for upping this vid. i hope all of you enjoy it.

the silence is over.

Fbodz In Taiwan - Part 7 - "eyes! many many eyes! ahhh!"

2008-04-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

to all the people cursing at why this player is so slow, okay im sorry. i stick back to youtube next time.

As promised earlier here is some of our action at Max Party 08. So much eyes looking at us literally from 360 degrees! Here many of us are dancing first time to a very different kind of format. As this were the Audition rounds, we had to dance to the music they played and as you can see we only have so little time to clinch a spot in the best 32! However, all of us were pretty comfortable with this format. I took some time to study the facial expressions of the rest of them right after their rounds. Their faces either read 'sweee ahhhh' or..'sibei song leh'. But you really do feel a sense of satisfaction and shiokness after every run. Maybe we are sua ku la. Don't expect like superifically ultra hip and cool stuffs la...but i hope most of you guys see it like...whoah whoah whoah! singapore singapore! it's singaporeaan!!

In order of appearence:

1. Xiao Ling aka Ah Hei
2. Wei Jie aka (dowan to say later he angry)
3. Wee Kiat aka Wicked Jelly aka DJ Jelly aka The Dude Who Doesn't Want To Stop Smoking
4. Lesner
5. Melanie aka Smellie Mellie
6. David Lee Zhi Wei aka Da Stickman

I know you guys surely also want to see raw outtakes of the other styles of the Taiwan Langs. On the way. Okay? Patient!

ps. caleb everytime on SGD website the bg music i can remember in my head. I dreamnt about it a few nights back. nothing. i just want to tell you.

Chunky.

it's my first post, and it's gonna be long...

2008-04-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

hey hey everyone!

It's an honor to be a part of SGD, big ups to all those who've been contributing, like Candy, Caleb, Marc, Princejack, and Chunky.

Hello to all the readers out there!

since it's my first post, i'll post something that i had previously posted on my blog. so here it goes, the title of my post is "Something to think about":

Well I was having a chat with Terrence from NRA a couple of nights ago and we were talking about dance and stuff... and I said alot of thing that, surprisingly, amazed myself. More like, intrigued myself. So I decided that I'ma blog about it.

First of all, in this post, I mean absolutely NO OFFENCE and absolutely NO DISRESPECT, to anyone, to any dance style, to any artform. Also, I mean absolutely NO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION.

That said, I'll start my post about what I realised about dance... and you can go think about it too.

I was just chatting with him about my trip to Japan and my experiences and we suddenly spoke about the different "styles" of dance you see nowadays and how people express themselves and stuff. We were talking solely about Hip Hop so I'm sticking to that.

Nowadays, the Hip Hop dance style can be categorised into so many different various forms / manifestations. First off, we have the "street style" Hip Hop, which (I apologize if I'm wrong) is kinda more "ghetto"... then there's the more "gangsta" type, the "raw" forms of hip hop, the very "expressive" type. And on the other hand, you've got Lyrical Hip Hop, Jazz Hip Hop / LA Hip Hop, the more "refined" type.

One can say, "Street Style Hip Hop" and "Commercial". Call it what you like. But the different dance styles were born from the very same genre of music.

Lately I've really gotten into Newstyle (more like Electric Style, because I'm a mad fan of Electric Trouble...) which was pioneered by crews like the Mop Tops (who are now Elite Force Crew - correct me if i'm wrong, but I think I'm correct!). This street / raw style hailed from NY. It's got different elements of other dance styles in it, which makes it so unique. I'm not saying "this is the best and one and only dance" but this is the dance style that I dig.

Then there's LA style, which, as the name implies, hails from LA. I don't know where Lyrical Hip Hop came from, but I'm guessing it's due to a fusion of Lyrical Jazz of some sort. In Osaka, I learnt that LA Hip Hop is called Jazz Hip Hop. It's got Jazz techniques and elements in it.

Now as I was chatting to Terrence, I was "laying out" these two dances in my mind. And I suddenly realised, most of the top Newstyle dancers (pioneers / innovators / famous heads) are blacks, while most of the top LA style dancers (pioneers / innovators / choreographers) are whites. Like I said, I mean absolutely no racial discrimination here.

This led me to think about the background (lifestyle / living conditions) of the dance / dancers (from whatever I know thru watching movies / shows / documentaries / reading articles), and I came to this conclusion: Although both styles dance with the same music, the black dance to express their hearts, their thoughts, with their bodies as their voices, while the whites dance to express the song, it's meaning, with their bodies as an instrument, as if they're part of the song.

Terrence mentioned that one is simply more expressive than the other in it's own unique way. The blacks are more "raw", while the whites are more "refined". Probably, to a certain extent.

[Blacks: Heart & Soul / Whites: Mind & Body]

After looking at it like that, I realised it's kinda like the "Yin and Yang of Dance"... they are entirely different, yet, they are part of the same circle. I've yet to see someone able to mix the two styles into one, but for now, this is what I thought about, and this is what I wanted to share.

Lastly, before I end my post, I would like to stress again, that I mean ABSOLUTELY NO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND NO OFFENCE / DISRESPECT TO ANYONE AND ANY ARTFORM, AT ALL.

I know also that Brooklyn Terry (EFC) stated that there isnt a "Newstyle", that it is just essentially Hip Hop... no disrespect to the man. I stated it as "Newstyle" in my post because I wanted to accentuate the difference between different Hip Hop "substyles / feels".

the silence is over.

Article : Dance Styles, Part 1

2008-04-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

[Edited 18/04 11:25am]
Well, before I start, let me say that this article's contents are based mostly on my own opinions and insights, and I do not claim that these are the most logical/best/only way to view this topic. So read it with an open mind, and I hope it clarifies some questions. Im open to any suggestions or discussions that you might have, we can all learn and benefit from each other :)

Now, for the sake of discussion, let us seperate dance into different layers. Mainly in ascending order :

Genre - The widest broadest level. Usually defined by music. Eg Hip Hop, Modern, Funk, House

Style - A unique way of dancing the genre. This is usually based around a central idea. Eg Krumping, newschool/style, liquid popping, locking.

Substyle- A further breakdown of the styles. General dancers actually use a variety of substyles but some dance purely the substyle. Eg in popping, we have tutting, waving, etc etc.

Character-The most personal level of dance. This would be putting your OWN character into any style u dance to.

-Genre-
Ok so with that in mind, what happens when you use techniques in a certain style, and use it in another music/style? Are you then dancing the original style? or the one which techniques you were using.
Simply put, lets say: You decided to use the waving and hitting techniques of popping, and you do it when you are dancing hip hop. Can you righly say you are doing Popping? Most people will tend to say "Oh that person is popping!"

To have more understanding about this, we'll go back to the very basic theory of dance :

"Music Inspires Dance"

Based on that, if you are the person in the above example, you are STILL dancing hip hop. You cannot really say you are popping. That is because the feel of the music and the dance is STILL hiphop. You are just borrowing techniques from another style(popping). You can only call it "Popping" when you are dancing to its roots. That is funk music. Because popping was inspired by funk music, it generally is done to funk songs.

Some might argue that the feel may be right. Like when I pop to house or techno, the popping n hitting makes the heavy beats come alive. Well, even if it feels smooth, or right, it still cant be called popping. The dance always has to stick to its origins when you refer to it.

The only way it can evolve is when the root music; funk(for popping example) music evolves. Another type of evolution would be when the techniques could be used in another genre. If hundreds of people around the world are beginning to pop to house music, then a new feel comes that is based upon popping techniques. Further refining of this will lead to a new style being introduced. We cant really call it popping. We can only call it a new name, which evolved from popping.

Therefore in this sense, the basic rule of determining what you are dancing is

1) What kind of music is it?
2)What is the original dance that was inspired by that music
3)Its evolution and growth

Be clear of what you are. Dont go around doing locking to hiphop music and say you are locking. You are a Hip-hop dancer. You are using locking techniques, not locking.

Note: Genres and styles tend to be often fused and combined, due to the free nature of dance. But you have to know and understand what you are dancing. Respect the roots of each genre/style.

-Style-
Styles are usually the most common thing that we associate ourselves with. We call ourselves Jazz dancers, hip-hop dancers, poppers, lockers, house dancers, Bboys. All these styles came from each genre. The birth of a style is usually due to an idea or inspiration- most of the time with influences from local culture or based around a certain principle and still sticking to the type of music that it came from.

For a simple case study, throw away all you ever knew about dance. You hear some Hiphop music. The heavy beats n bass make you start to groove.

The music makes you naturally start "bouncing" subconciously into a downbeat groove. Then you start adding basic everyday movements to it such as waving your hand, or shaking your head. Then you pay more attention to the lyrics and the feel, and try to incorporate it into your movements. Then it becomes sort of becomes very "street" and raw looking. The local culture also will effect this intepretation of the dance. And after alot of fine tuning, it will slowly becomes a style of its own

Put it in today's context and you can see how newschool came about (This is my own hypothesis, correct me if im wrong). Its mainly the evolution of hiphop dance due to todays culture. Other styles such as popping/locking/krumping/house have become more popular and people get inspired by them. As such, the central idea is to use those techniques and apply into Hip hop music.

Tastes and preferences change over time, as well as ideas. So thats why the dance is always evolving, but still staying true to its foundational roots. Every level of dance (genre,style) has its own roots. And once those roots are changed, it becomes another dance. It cannot be called the same thing.

Thats it for now...Pretty late and brain dead haha... Well so far we have covered genre, and about how styles came from the genres. Next post I will cover more on the various styles and their substyles. Hopefully ill be able to finish my thoughts about personal character and freestyle.

-^_^arC

Fbodz In Taiwan - Part 6 - "The Good Bye Dance"

2008-04-15T03:15:00.000-07:00

Here is me and fong getting down with some funky Taiwanese friends that we have mad. It was a parting dance because the whole lot of us was saying goodbye to each other as we will be leaving Kaohsiung for Taipei the next day. Bittersweet but this was sorta like a last dance for us in the most special way. Love them Taiwanese folks for the warm hospitality. The reason why we all had fun is cause of these folks!

In Order:

1. Fong aka Fongky (Sunset Alleycats/Fbodz)
2. Chunky (Sunset Alleycats/Fbodz)
3. Sun (Max Studio)
4. Ah Niu (Funky Chicken)
5. Yu Zhen (Junkie Lockers)
6. Abo (Junkie Lockers)
7. Wei Wei (Junkie Lockers)

ps. if they were to post this video on their blogs, it will probably be titled 'how i got to join Foreign Bodies Taiwan'

Love the ending!

Fbodz In Taiwan (Almost Live) - Part 5 - 'Exchange Programme Ft. Wei Wei'

2008-04-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlement gentlement and ladies i hereby present to you the funkiest Taiwan Lang you can ever have as a friend/tourguide. WeiWei is the joy of the people there. I really don't know if my words could do her humour justice so i just leave you to watch it. But hey you could learn some locking from this as well. Wei Wei is dope. Mel enjoys a good laugh and Chunky hates to not be able to laugh behind the camera.

Muack.
Chunky

Fbodz In Taiwan (Almost Live) - Part 4 - 'A Sunset Alleycats Experience'

2008-04-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

Sunset Alleycats - Chunky, David aka Stickman, Fong & Weijie (Alex & Rachel not in routine)

Here is part of the showcase routine from the Sunset Allecyats for the Max Party. Did not show the entire routine because it was too lengthy. Wanted to prevent anyone from falling alseep in the midst of watching. Props to david for putting up an amazing front despite his brain beating itself up. Waiting gives David headaches. Team Trademarks represented well too but i do not have a front view captured for their routine! When i do get hold of one i would definately post it up. Meow. Sorry la i don't like to post very boringly but im really tired today! We are going to Taipei tomorrow!

Oh yes i know some of you thinking, where the hell is the Max Party action? I know you freaking want to see all the action from the event. I know I know. Give me more time to gather my footages and i will put it up okay? Keep tuning in! At the same time, you could check out the battle footages here. http://www.youtube.com/user/gogoeri (props to Ah Niu. Within 8 hours after the party, all the clips had already been up. He must have super freaking fast internet conenction.)

ps. Fong can really sleep everywhere.

Love,
Chunky.

Event : KO Night

2008-04-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

For all you dancers in Singapore, its time to get those gear shined up and hit the battle arenas! Its come a long way and finally battles are beginning to show up here in Singapore. So be part of the culture and battle it out. Dance battles are games that dancers play. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, you just have to feel it and go with it. No single dancer can be the no.1 in every battle. You can only beat yourself everytime to the music. Not beat your opponent everytime. So dont wait, dont be shy. You will never regret taking the first step. Everyone has to start, so why not now.

Bboy, locking, popping and hip hop categories; And awesome prizes as well

Check it out , and GO REGISTER QUICK

http://oschool.com.sg/konight.php

-^_^arC

Fbodz In Taiwan (Almost Live) - Part 3 - "Terry Educates!"

2008-04-07T03:44:00.001-07:00

Interview with Brooklyn Terry from Elite Force Crew, NYC

Need not say more, the man himself, the pioneer, the legend and the very few that laid the foundation for us all, Terry Wright gives Singapore something we need to hear. Shut that music, stop talking, don't blink and just listen.

Chunky

Fbodz In Taiwan (Almost Live) - Part 2 - "Best 8!"

2008-04-07T02:47:00.000-07:00

hey guys sorry for the late updates. The Max Party battle has ended. I must say it was one hell of an event. The dance standard was awesome, the people were friendly and the events were really entertaining. What touched us most about the event was it's people and their mindset. The general participants have this level of fun as they dance and you could tell from their faces that its a damned priviledge to be dancing on a stage like this. While Singaporeans love to compare others and try to be the 'best', the people here compliment each other with their dance and try hard to entertain, more than impress.

A good news i would like to deliver is that i have achieved a Best 8 placing out of the 90 odd that joined the locking category! I didn't really expect that but was secretly happy also la! hehehehehehehhehehe. Let me bring you through my journey during the day.

ps. See i am so patriotic. i wear our national colour okay!

Best 32 Audition

This was my second set by now. I have had gone through the 1st round of auditions to get into this best 32 selection. According to Melanie, she said that my style for the 1st round was too laid back and that i needed more Ommmppff!! So i tried that a little although down here it still does look like i am laying back! I like the other guy's set too. Love his ending!

Best 16 Battle

For best 16. It was already battle rounds and i am honoured to be dancing with Ah Niu from Funky Chicken crew of Taipei. I was happy because Funky Chicken is one of my favourite performance crews in taipei. I must say i was really lucky for this set because they played a music which i knew!

Best 8 Battle

At this point of time i already know that my route ends here because Air Con from Chayi City is a well known Locker who has great music skills. I would already consider that he was playing nice with me on this round la.. but you see i so gabra on this round i din even look like i knew what i was doing. Was talking to Nick from Studio Wu today and he felt that i lacked the levels. Which i think was so true. But it was all good because i think it was an honour to be on the stage stage as these guys. I enjoyed it thoroughly!

Other results: (will post videos soon. Still sourcing)

Hip-Hop Best 16

Melanie Tay

Hip-Hop Best 32

Ah Ben Toh

Lesner Chua

Melanie Tay

Ah Hei

Yours Funkily,

Chunkier

Fbodz In Taiwan (almost live) - Part 1 - "Infiltration"

2008-04-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Earth to SGD, Earth to SGD. The Taiwanese have kidnapped us. Sorry for the delay on posting the first video up. The schedule here has been tight and full of issues (good ones). Yes i used the word 'schedule' because the kind Taiwanese have actually planned up a timetable for our stay here. So pai Say.

I would like to apologise if i would take 1000 years to post up the next video because you know we end our day late. But anyhow, just do keep checking this space la can? Read the older post la? Read already before then read again. If not feel free to visit the links we posted. Support abit mah.

Our stay so far here for the last 1 day has been great and enjoyable man. I first would want to declare that there might be no other place in the dance world that has more warm and hospitable and nice and friendly down-to-earth's-core people as the people here are at Kaohsiung. Everybody is a dancing santa claus. And everyday is christmas. So giving. Im surprised that we have gotten pretty used to the life here within the first few hours. It was so nice to see a place finally without any Mas Selamat pictures around.

Sorry i had to give you one mouthful but still yet to talk about Part 1's video feed. Part 1 is called infiltration because we feel like we're on some top secret mission. As you can see from the post we do lots of stupid stuffs. Beleive me we have had lots more dumb footages that we had from the plane but we couldnt post it up because i think even youtube maximum time limit also cannot handle our stuff. Sorry for the looney tunes standard of dance in the video. Although it was pure embarrasment content, this blog is still called singaporegotdance. Cannot be post something then no dance mah. So had to make do with that.

17 motorbikes to pick up 17 naive kids who some prolly still dont even know how to tie their laces. This must have been the coolest thing that could happen to me in a long time.

The Max Studio Party 2008 is starting in 7 hours time. Some of us are going to take part in the battles. While Team Trademarks and the Sunset Alleycats are going to put up guest performance for the event. If Terrence(NRA) was here he will probably go " wah this one feel like going for Dance Delight in japan leh" Lots of great dancers are going to be there man. Popping Kwon, Popping Snowball, Originality Lockers, Terry Wright (Elite Force Crew) are going to be there.

I know many of you sure thinking, Wah Lou why this Ian person talk so near the Camera? I tell you its because i have this habit of doing so because i want the sound to be damned clean near and clear. I do not want to lose the the background sound. Stop counting my pimple. And many of you thinking, why this guy is called Chunky. For the 32423409809th time,yes i am fat. okay?

Watch out for my next post k? Alot more is going to come out from this next one.

As of now.. i would like to say:

- Hello Sabrina. Im doing fine. I miss you.

- To Fong.Is.Dope Crew(invitational only), Fong is doing fine and he sleeps everywhere

- Wassup Caleb. Multiply how?

- Hey Marcus! can you ask Caleb: Multiply how?

- To Diane. Fong was trying to contact you just now but cannot. He whined like a 4 year old.

- To Ben, we are fine here. Your Ah Hei is doing fine.

- Robin, yesterday i dream we join KO night together. We joined bboy.

- Jasmine, you told me Taiwanese people way of saying Dope is Hao Du Ping Ah! You were right.

Chunky. (peed once today.beat that)

Going Taiwan

2008-04-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

Our dearest Ian will be flying off to Taiwan (Kaoshiung) with 16 other members of FBodz today for the Max Studio Party!!!!*Jealous*

He'll be updating the misadventures and happening stuff on his trip on this space here. Do keep a lookout!!!

Caleb

Article : Style?

2008-04-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Just a short prelude/preview of my next article.

What makes a style? Can you truly say you are doing hip hop or popping or are you abit street jazz or reggae - When you dance???

What happens when you put a jazz dancer in a hip hop environment? Vice-versa?

Music and dance is so free yet society imposes the limitations on itself; But that in turn gives birth to the word 'Style'

Thats all for now...Keep a lookout for the more in depth thought spiller one. Haha...

-^_^arC

ALMA House

2008-03-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

ALMA. One of my favorite house crew in Japan. Enjoy.
:)
Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack.

Princejack.

Media : Pushing On @ Blujazz

2008-03-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

"Pushing On @ Blujazz" spotlight coming soon! The fun'kiest event every last friday of the month :)

-^_^arC

15 minutes with Ian (aka Chunky)

2008-03-23T07:55:00.001-07:00

I met up with Ian (aka Chunky) at a locking session he organized over at Danz People Studio. It was a fun session with an educational purpose. This session was actually the first for the Lion City Lockers, a group started where dancers who enjoy locking come together to jam.

Caleb cornered me with his camera. Ahh!

For those who are interested in joining their sessions can drop us a mail to check for the dates of their next upcoming session.

The funkiest breed of dancers coming out from the Lion City Itself!

QN 1. How did you get started in dancing? And what made you a Locker?

"I began sometime in 2002. I started with watching Korean Music videos by H.O.T and Shinhwa and tried copying their choreography. Like any other typical newbie, I mistook what I was doing as Hip-Hop. However, unknowingly some of the moves that I copied were Locking moves. Thus my dance steps were fed to me by the videos I watched. (very ‘biter’ right?)

The one event that changed my perception of dance was from Break! The Urban Funk Spectacular held in mid 2005. The Lockers were dancing to James Brown’s ‘Get up off that thing”. The horns kept sounding into my ear. It really blew me away. The Lockers wore the funkiest things ever. The big apple hats, suspenders, stripey socks and their repertoires of moves glued my eyes onto the stage. It hit me hard. It was so different and it was something more than ‘cool’ or ‘attitude’. It was mad fun to watch. With that piece of music in mind, I continued to explore this music style. Boy, I fell in love with the Funk, and learning to Lock was the only way I could connect with the music. This was the beginning."

QN 2. Could you tell us more about your experience in being a dancer?

"I started very much on my own trying and experimenting with different things I saw on videos. It wasn’t an easy process because there was no one to guide me and I had to correct a lot of wrong stuff as I progressed along the way. It was frustrating to relearn things over and over.

It all changed with the invention of Youtube. The only way I could improve was to post up videos of my dancing and await critiques by other dancers. My fate changed on the day I met Aga, a Locker from Taiwan whom came across my videos and made friends with me. Through his generosity, he fed me with music, knowledge, clips and a lot of support to what I was doing. It was through him where I got to know Lockers from other countries as well! My contacts have grown. Until one fine day, I realized that Aga was one of the first Lockers in Taiwan. A true pioneer and he belongs to a crew called Swift Lockers; a revolutionary group from Kaohsiung that has won a series of competitions(like KOD 06 in China).

In a way Aga has became my shifu (master) and I’m indebted to him for all that he’s taught me. One thing that impressed upon me was his notion of Lockers a brotherhood and just because we had the common thing in Locking that he was giving me so much help. I could not have gotten where I am today if not for his love."

QN 3. Could you tell us more about your trip to Taiwan last year.

"I actually went down to Taiwan twice within a short span of 3 months. The first trip was for a performance with O-School and the other was a solo trip for training. I met up with Aga for the first time finally. He brought me to his studio, Max Studio. I was blown away by the great warmth and hospitality by their dancers there. There was no such thing as ‘levels’. As long as you’re a street dancer the amount of respect is always the same. Dance is seen to be expressive there, unlike our very commercial local scene. Things here were simple but the dancing was always genuine. Everyone was humble and it was a great experience to be able to jam with some of the funkiest lockers in the country. The laymen in general knew the differences in the different dance styles (when asked what is locking, they would give a wrist twirl and point). It shows how educated their scene is."

QN 4. Updates on your Foreign Bodies (FB) project?

"We’re currently working on a DVD which will tell people more about Foreign Bodies. It will hopefully be out by the end of the year."

click to find out more about the project

"What is interesting to me about this project was how I blog about my progress. So people will know what is coming up and will anticipate it. An update to look out for is that FB will be traveling down to Taiwan in April to be part of the Max Studio Party 08. It will be a showcase as well as a battle event with Brooklyn Terry from Elite force gracing the event. I reckon a lot of great footages will be prepared and posted! So watch out for that!"

QN 5. What is it that keeps you inspired and motivated in dance?

Dance brings people together.

"Music was the thing that got me dancing and I believe music inspires dance. Dance to me is a universal language and like how the singer sings its like how we use our body to make music ‘visible’.

I believe that Locking (and other street styles) are ‘Social Dances’. Meaning it brings people together. You can never dance alone. Dance to me is a connection from me to you. When you point, I lock! When I jump, you twirl! The fun and connection I have with friends when dancing in a circle always keeps me going. Being the ‘best’ and ‘dominating’ doesn’t interest me a single bit. Dance is more than that and I love it because I enjoy the power of interaction through movement. Locking allows that.

I feel that I could use dance to portray a huge chunk of my character. It is difficult to tell someone: “hey I am Funky and full of mischief!” and expect them to understand what I mean. Let my moves show you, because it’s the best language for me to converse in. Putting a smile on people’s face is the best reward anyone could get. It keeps me going."

QN 6. What is it about your specs that you keep them on all the time?

"My specs is my Mojo. Actually it was just to complement my face shape (because i grew rounder) but later it very much became part of my character; so much so that after a while people remember the specs and stopped paying attention to the face (that’s kinda sad). Thus without this big piece of plastic hanging over my face, I don’t think Chunky can ever be Chunky. It’s part of me now." *fondles specs at this point*

Caleb

Evocation 2008

2008-03-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

Evocation was wrapped up last Saturday. It is one of two annual concerts put up by NUS Dance Ensemble, with Evocation being a sort of preparatory ground for the bigger scale The Next Wave.

With that in mind, this reflection on Evocation is not about dancers who shine on stage or inspire millions. Neither is it about good, bad or could-be-better choreography. Evocation is about a dancer’s journey to somewhere – be it to gain experience before The Next Wave; to become a better performer; to grow as a dancer into a choreographer; to experiment with new styles; or anything else. There is no way a dancer can stagnate or be less of a dancer after a production, unless he or she did not reflect, learn and be brave enough to change for the better.

Evocation to me is especially about the journey to becoming a choreographer. Choreography is certainly not something that comes naturally to everyone. It also means a lot of homework to familiarize oneself with history, vocabulary, styles, ideas, meanings, context… to decide for oneself what ideals to meet, what visuals to create, how to tell the story, what to do with the dancers you have, how to teach, how to adapt to changing circumstances, how to help people respect you and your choreography, and, returning to square one, to decide for oneself the answer to ‘why choreograph?’.. Kudos to everyone who survived the entire process, and more.

I initially thought it was a natural and logical process that dancers want to become choreographers one day, but I found out it wasn’t always true. I cannot fathom the reasons for not having the desire to choreograph – can someone enlighten me? I do know, however, that taking that step helps you look at dance from the other side, and that the little choreographic endeavour will benefit you immensely when you go back to being a dancer, learner, performer. And after being a choreographer, what’s next? To be an artistic director in all senses of the word? To spread the love for dance in some other ways? If a dancer thinks long-term, I’m sure that’ll be on his or her mind. Tell me what you think.

Credits also go to Ensemble founders who realized this platform for aspiring choreographers. It was a decision made with plenty of foresight. It also speaks a lot about the passion that existed in the dance company – then. It still remains to be seen if years down the road Evocation is still viewed in the same way as it was originally intended to be; organizations have to experience ups and downs. I certainly hope Ensemble continues to grow dancers well, if not better.

Evocation 2008 displayed a varied repertoire. There seems to be more and more variety each year, which serves Ensemble’s strivings towards versatility well. This variety does more than achieve higher entertainment value for a concert. It also displayed the fact that dancers cannot and do not want to be pigeonholed. Hence every year we see no lack of choreographers coming forward to propose new concepts and styles, and we keep seeing ballerinas attempting zazo; hip hop-based people experimenting with contemporary movements, as well as fusion-everything, where in this case “fusion” should mean building onto something, rather than to dilute or confuse.

To qualify, one cannot be termed a versatile dancer just by the number of uniquely different items he or she “collects”. One has to genuinely understand where the different forms are coming from, accept them, and put equal heart into each of them before anything can be gained from such dabbling. The individual has to also organize oneself in relation to these experiences – what are my strengths and weaknesses that were exposed in the process? How do I apply these insights and new dimensions in movements to enhance how I move currently?

Having said that, Evocation 2008 went well despite the usual production woes. Surviving the journey and getting something out of it is probably the best measure of success here. Cheers to all others embarking on any big productions/ projects.

And the question for those who just came out of one:

So, how was your journey?

~Candy

Event: 1000 Camels by Arts Fission

2008-03-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

The above poster was taken from their E-newsletter. Please do support :)

-^_^arC

Media : In the beginning, there was HOUSE

2008-03-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Let there be HOUSE!
Koki's personal video :

-^_^arC

GEM 3 : Ignite Your Senses!

2008-03-18T06:43:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was jam-packed with dance events ! It was really crazy but yet good to know dance is getting more limelight :)

Well, to kick start the list of events was Temasek Poly Dance Ensemble's Dance Production; Gem 3. It all happened on both fri and sat( I managed to catch the friday one). It was held at their main auditorium and I must say it was a pretty nice place!

Overall the dance items were pretty entertaining, concepts were great escpecially the item about the girl who couldnt walk and with Ryan Tan in it. There was also a few nifty bonuses such as a funkstyle item, some acting, as well as a really great solo performer. She really took up the stage! Great! Most of the dance items had alot of people, I didn't have the chance to view the blocking as I was sitted at the very first row. Thus could only see the choreo details. Im sure the blocking would have looked much better from a higher(further?) view.

The only dissapointment was that it was or seemed pretty short. Maybe its cuz the items were revolving around a theme, with 3-4 items per theme.Hmmmmmm....maybe thats why... :P Was an enjoyable night, Ryan, Gin and the Last Night part did it for me. This looks like a very good progress for dance in schools here in singapore!! Kudos!

Cant wait for more productions to come :)

Last night? Last night! Oh Last Night!!!!

-^_^arC

RF Anniversary pictures (ZOUK, National Museum)

2008-03-17T02:26:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of shots of the Radikal Forze Crew anniversary.

Bboy Felix on da mic. Day 1 at Zouk

Bboy Mahmut.

Sylvin and Trinity posing with Bboy BigMouth, where Taiwan had won the crew battle on the 2nd day at National Museum.

www.radikalforzecrew.com

Camera man PrinceJack

URBAN LEGENDS: Nick Demoura

2008-03-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

Sharing some videos from the EKETC workshops.

Fyuuuuuu,
Caleb

Calendar Of Events

2008-03-11T10:16:00.001-07:00

This will be the calendar of events that we will post future events in. You are always welcomed to contribute events by emailing us (keepingtherhythm@gmail.com) or leaving a comment! :)

-^_^arC

FUYO Inter-school 2008

2008-03-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Callin all Bboys and street dancers!

This weekend FUYO will be having their Inter-school 3v3 Bboy competition :)

15th March 2008 (Saturday), 6pm - 10pm
Singapore Management University - Arts & Culture Centre.
$5/admission ($6/team participating)

Full details can be found here

For those who signed up for Studio Wu recital, the first round auditions will be tmr! All the best to everyone :)

Updattttez

2008-03-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey guys sorry for the very rag-tag layout and event list. As soon as I get the relevant info and organize it properly, the "E-calendar of events" will be up and hopefully it will look more organized! :)

oh for all you funkstylerz out there :

Kenneth aka K-lock is organizing a mini battle event....Please support if you have the time; Details as follows

16th march 08, sundaytime will be 6pm onwards.pls come early. Entry fee $5.pls let kenneth know whether you are coming!contact him @ 98313460cheers ppl!venue will be @ Music Garage (bugis area)Meet 530pm at bugis station, he will bring you guys there.
Judges are Michael, Ben and Octo.

Spread the love!!

Check out these 2 vids... damn..jealousy reigns

and

Radikal Forze 10th Anniversary

2008-03-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

Well guys Radikal Forze's 10th anniversary is happenin tmr at Zouk!

9.30pm - 11pm at Zouk main room for the Pre-party performance :)

and

on Sat 4pm-late will be the International Battles held at National Museum Gallery Theatre!
Tix for it going at $10 and camera fee will be $15.

Show some support :) Details from www.radikalforzecrew.com

On a second note, Temasek Poly's Dance Ensemble will be having their Dance production on the 14th of March, Friday. Its at their Auditorium 1. 7:30pm-9pm. Tix going for $15 and its free seating.

Step up 2

2008-03-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

Well the movie looks real promising. Saw the trailer and wonder if those masked men were the jabbawockeez :P

Anyway something closer to home : The Step Up 2 Dance competition ! With $5000 cash+prizes, its definitely something! Check out the finals at Lido Shaw House lvl 5, On the 15th of March this month from 2-5pm :)

More details

http://www.shaw.sg/sw_promodetails.aspx?promoCode=34%2060%20202%20148%2069%20126%20154%2094%20185%2032%20240%20142%20100%2075%20160%20152

-^_^arC

Events Events!

2008-03-02T07:22:00.000-08:00

March will be a happening month! Lots of stuff coming up. Will post as soon as i get the dates fixed :)

Incomings:

-Temasek Poly Dance Production
-Danceworks 08
-NUS Evocation
-Funkystylz battle (2-2 pop/lock)
-Studio Wu recital auditions
-O school KO night details ??
-On a side note Step Up 2 is opening as well :)

yay! This month is really going to "march" past

-^_^arC

Keep the Rhythm

2008-02-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

Hello all, this is officially the first post of Keeping the Rhythm! We hope this blog will help provide you with more insights and resources about dance. Not to mention an avenue to share your thoughts and moves ( links to your vids? haha) Well for starters lets give our winners for Funkamania XIII some airtime! :) Congrats to Trademark for winning as well as the other great awesome teams. Dance in Singapore has really gone up another level thanks to all you crews out there!

Signing out,

- ^-^arC