From hip-hop to locking: All about moves, at ‘Dance your Style 2024’

Watch: From hip-hop to locking: All about moves, at ‘Dance your Style 2024’

Sprawling on the floor, Ivy Mugler looks like she has fallen asleep for half a second. Till she hauls herself up, in one exaggerated move, springing to her feet. Even as her legs wriggle, Ivy, hair up and swaying, starts dancing. Her steps are quick and rapid. And yet, graceful.

The US-based vogue-style dancer (a style involving catwalk and floor work) is as much at ease performing to one camera and half-a-dozen people inside a conference room at The St. Regis Mumbai, as she is to 20 cameras and a 100 mobile phones in the packed National Sports Club of India Dome (NSCI Dome) auditorium.

Over the last weekend, top 16 performers from the world competed fiercely in the world finals of Red Bull’s ‘Dance Your Style 2024’.

A global all-style dance series, the competition saw performers in a battle format that showcased styles such as hip-hop, waacking, locking and popping. Testing freestyle and musicality skills through tracks ranging from global hits to classic numbers, the contestants — picked after 145 events in 49 countries — had 55,000 dance-crazy Mumbaikars swaying, moving and voting for their favourites.

Ultimately, Vietnamese popping sensation MT Pop clinched the title, even as he shook a leg to the iconic ‘Mundian To Bach Ke’ (Panjabi MC), creating a video moment that is bound to go viral. “We are here for the love, for the culture and for the dance. We don’t speak the same language but here tonight, we shared a language and a message with dance,” he says, after his electrifying showdown against France’s hip-hop dancer Rubix.

The evening showcased not just energy but also various dance styles across the world. Like locking, a street dance style from the 1960s that involves freezing from a fast movement, holding the position and then continuing at the same speed. Kenneth Martinez — known in the dancing community as Klockwise — is from Philippines and a master at locking. Inspired initially by Quick Crew, a Norwegian dance group, Klockwise is a name he chose because it represented his “personality.” “In school, I loved solving problems that involved clockwise and anti-clockwise challenges. As I was interested in the locking dance technique, I thought this was cool,” he tells us.

Nico Chanh showcased ‘martial arts dancing’. This Belgium-based performer incorporates his early martial arts training into dance. “During the pandemic, I had a lot of time and realised that when I danced to some videos, I was using poses from my martial arts training days. Martial arts is also based on movement, as is dance,” says Nico, who describes himself as a “fighter more than a dancer.”

MT Pop
| Photo Credit:
Johan Sathyadas

Among the crowd’s favourites at the event was Saumya Kamble, a Mumbai girl making waves for her unique style. Saumya started professional belly dancing when she was six and has been at it ever since. “I add elements of popping and waving too in my performances,” says Saumya, who has also choreographed Bollywood film numbers and music albums apart from participating in dance battles. At ‘Dance your Style 2024’, Saumya’s performance also included elements of Bharatanatyam, something that took the audience by surprise. “Belly dancing and Bharatanatyam are from two different worlds of dancing, and combining them on a big stage was a great experience,” she adds.

If Saturday evening at ‘Dance your Style 2024’ was about milling crowds, the Friday evening bash at Mumbai’s Famous Studios was more intimate, and groovier. Here, the ‘Bhangra Battle’ took centrestage, with performers trying to outdo each other, yet giving the crowd some great entertainment. The music and the moves were not restricted to the stage alone; everyone in the crowd joined in the celebrations. After all, what is point of life without dance?

The writer was in Mumbai at the invitation of Red Bull

Prince Wizzard

“
I’ve been to Chennai once and this is my second time to India. The love for K-Pop among Indians has increased the popularity of Korea. My favourite dance style is waacking, which involves arm movements, posing and sound visualisation.”Prince Wizzard, South Korea

Ivy Mugler

“This is my first time to Asia. I see myself as an artiste rather than just a dancer. My style in voguing, more specifically, vogue femme dramatic, which involves catwalk, floor work and spins. It originated in New York City and is a style of battle dance, something that conveys: ‘You want to mess with me, I will mess with you.’ Instead of fighting, we dance it out.”Ivy Mugler, US