Bust a move
So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Move Like Michael Jackson: TV these days is saturated with dancers popping, locking and crunking across the stage to hip-hop music. The dance world, previously considered formal, has shed its ball gown for street gear and the music of yore for something decidedly more modern.
Competition aims to select Flemish dance ambassadors
The talent, though, is every bit as amazing, and the work it takes to look good every bit as gruelling. That is why Danspunt was founded. An organisation sponsored by the Flemish Region, it holds a competition to reward hard-working dancers in four categories – Folk, Modern/Jazz, Hip-Hop/Urban and Contemporary – with the title of Ambassador of Amateur Dancing.
“This contest helps us to determine who is best suited to represent Flanders abroad,” organiser Ton Schipper says, “be it at a festival in Europe or farther away”.
The next competition will be Hip-Hop/Urban on 5 November at the Entrepôt in Bruges. Seven teams will compete at an event called Dance Kicks. Genres are hip-hop, funk, street dance, break dance and others. Whittled down from a large list based on submitted recordings, the teams will put on a spectacle of 10 to 15 minutes. The jury of five professional dancers and choreographers come together to announce the winner, not based on points but on overall appreciation.
The first edition of the event was in 2005. “I have seen it every year,” says Schipper, the event’s organiser for the last five years. “And every year, the quality of the dancing improves, as does the storytelling and the use of the stage, which is not easy in a real theatre. The performances are getting more artistic and nicer to watch.”
They’re not solo performances, he explains. “There are a fluctuating number of dancers who are telling a story on stage, an original piece that they themselves will have to have choreographed. The music tends towards hip-hop, but it can also be classical. People are very creative these days.
