Breaking Into Dance

It’s summer! And I’d been gearing up to embrace it with reckless abandon. For someone like me who loves to do lots of (crazy) things all together most of the time, summer is the most relaxing part of the year. Or so I thought, not until I joined a dance workshop.

Over the weekend, I signed up for a two-day dance workshop with The Manouvers. Jason Zamora and Jon Supan (of The Manouvers) , together with US-trained professional dancers Chennie and Mabel taught us the foundation of hip-hop or locally known as street dance. Viola, only then I learned that hip-hop is just a hodgepodge of ancient moves like strut, funky and break dance!

“Are you sure you wanna do it?” I told myself. “Why not?” said the half of me. I think I have a fighting spirit that my body doesn’t understand.

I love to dance, no doubt about it. My solo dance performances, apart from the group presentations some of which I choreographed, in every Christmas or induction party I had in my elementary and high school classes can prove it. Looking back now, I wonder aloud how my classmates never launched a protest for seeing me dance in every class party we had; maybe because they saw me as an authoritarian class president. But who cares, I had fun.

But hey, dancing is not just about having fun, I learned from the workshop. It requires discipline and a lot of practice. I realized I don’t have the luxury of both, for now.

Nevertheless, more than anything else, I learned that DANCE means Decision, Action, No Compromise, Commitment and Excellence.

So I tried to strut my funky way until I broke my bones into dance. Literally, that’s hip-hop. My way. Urrghh?*&^%@!!!