Hey Hiveans. I wanted to write a series of posts to share my share my dance journey, the awesome people I encountered and the memorable exchanges.
Discovery
What made me discover dance, breaking/ b-boying in particular was when I was watching TV at home in Tanzania in 2002. It was a Run DMC music video- Its Like That. I was fascinated with the style and athleticism of the dancers and the battle culture associated with Hip Hop. At that time I didn't know what the dance was called. Since I didn't have internet at home my only access to popular media was music videos.
Introduction
The same year I moved to India. I had a friend Anand back in my hometown Dehradun who liked Hip Hop music and had a big collection of MP3s on his computer. We would hang out at his house and listen to his music together. I would bring my CD collection. This experience is something I cherish and the present generation may never experience. As access to music was limited to the to physical form one had to hunt for albums and if you liked one track you had to buy the whole damn CD right! Some artists like Tupac's albums even came in 2 CD's. That was a lot of money back then. This way you ended up listening to a lot more music and discovering more sounds, artists and styles as some albums
Occasionally Anand and I we would hang out at the only cafe in town, Barrista and since we knew the guys who worked there they would let us play our CDs on their system . That cafe played one song day in and day out- Paint My Love - MLTR
One day when we came into the café and I was handing over my CDs to the guys,it caught the attention of a bystander, a guy who was ordering (sort of where the guy is standing in the picture above). He saw me and asked me about my music. When I told him that I listen to Hip Hop, he said he was into Hip Hop as well and asked if he could come sit with us. This guy's name is Heera (Netarpal Singh Bandesha).
Heera
When we got to chatting, to my surprise Heera was a b-boy from NYC who was living in India for a year or so. He got into breaking in the mid nineties in New York where he lived with his family. He used to practice at a center in Forest Hills, where Supreme Beings and Breaks Kru a couple of renowned breaking crews would practice.
He was the person who go me into breaking and we used to hang out and have sessions at his aunt's house where he was staying. At that time he showed me some very basic moves that I kept practicing on my own until we would meet.
Along with showing me a bunch of videos on his computer he gave me a VHS of Kujo, the Flying Water Buffalo. That was a coincidence because he was the first Bboy I saw in the Run DMC Music video back in Africa and then I eventually met Kujo himself in India in 2009 while he was in Mumbai, on a shoot for an advertisement for an Indian detergent.
When I Started to Get Serious
I attended St. Xaviers College- Mumbai University between 2004-2007 which is when my dance journey really took off. I joined a few dance groups, taught at a school, opened my own academy with Heera, did a bunch of ad films travelled to Taiwan to compete at Free Style Session 2010 and even featured in Cheetah Girls a Disney Production.
Here is short reel I made myself that I used for promotional purposes
I'm going to write more posts in the coming weeks so follow me and stay tuned to the Dance and Music channel to read more about my journey.
Next Post: College- the platform that gave a boost to my dance career