Breaking Dance Camp in Creativity Adda by Quest- The Hip Hop Skool

Creativity Adda one of its Kind learning Place in Mukherjee Nagar, Sarvodaya Vidyalaya. Where children can find their own hidden talent and interest in any respective Art, sports, or any creative field they interest in. It’s a Non-governmental organization having 6 Different hubs. More than 400 students have been learning in the center.

1. Dance Room – kids can explore different dance styles from stage to streets.
2. Computer lab – Graphic designing, filming making including photography.
3. Cooking Room – Kids can learn different cuisines including baking.
4. Makersapce – Kids design their own craft carpenting to electronic items
5. Sports hub – Includes Table tennis, skating, badminton. frisbee and chess.
6. Music Room – Kids explore different instruments like guitar, keyboard, drums

B-Boy Show-rez and B-Girl Sumku senior Faculty of Quest-The Hip Hop Skool held Five days Breaking camp with Creativity Adda in Mukherjee Nagar. The main motto of this camp was to introduced Creativity Adda’s Dance Students with a new dance style that they have never learned before and to see their potential and interest in Breaking Dance style.

5 Days Breaking Camp at Creativity Adda

Day 1
Day one started with a small intro with Breaking style, more than 15 students attended the session. Show-rez explained how Breaking Dance style is inspired by many different Art forms. So, on the first day, we covered a practical lesson on Toprocks and Freezes. B-Girl Sumku started the session with breaking groove of Top rock, understanding of music, rhythm and style. Few basic Toprock steps were taught like Indian steps, side steps, salsa steps, cross back side steps, shuffles and apache storm. Toprock sessions were also taken as a warm-up so, we can go for hard movement. After Toprock B-Boy Show-rez gave them some Basic stretch to open up their body. Wrist, head, shoulder, back and leg stretch is needed for the next element Freezes.

We started with a Handstand which needs more focus technique and strength. Handstand alignment, wall supported handstand and positioning for a different handstand variation. Secondly, we worked on headstand another important freeze in Breaking. Most of them know how to do headstand we had to correct their postures and alignment. The third Basic freeze was Baby freeze a symbol of Breaking in Freezes with diff leg variations.

We ended up the session with a small workout like well-supported handstand push-ups and Back arch Push-up to strengthen their shoulder, wrist and core. After the workout, a full-body stretch is really necessary to cool down the body.

After the session, We had lunch together where we talked about a healthy food diet. We suggested to kids that Dance requires a physically fit and healthy lifestyle so, always prefer home-cooked food and avoid outside junk food.

Day2
The second day started with the Toprock session again as a warm-up where kids practiced previous steps. After Toprock a small starching session to start with Powermove. Powermove is something that takes a large amount of time to master but these kids were already Dance practitioners and have developed physical strength over time. So, Show-rez decided to teach them Master swipes. Master swipes are basically a martial art kick and more popular in Brazilian martial art Capoeira. It is very technical and requires more hand and core strength. Few of the kids were know the movements before but they were lacking the right technique and postures.

After the Powermove session, we moved to the last element to cover which is Downrock mainly known as footwork. Footwork has 2 basic positions to start with Zero or neutral and Mountain position. In footwork, we had basic drills in the form of footwork like Hooks, back hooks or knee breaks, kick-outs and Russian kick-outs. These are not steps but forms that create basic footwork. The session ended up with full-body stretching.

Day 3
The third day was more about style flavor and creating their own movement with Toprock style and learning of basic footwork’s like, 1 step, 3 steps, 6 steps and cc’s (crazy commando). Kids knew few steps but did not know about the right technique of doing it. Kids also worked on master swipes and some leg variations in the baby freeze. We also had a question-and-answer session at the end of class regarding their confusion with steps and more details if needed. We also talked about the music genre of Breaking which is known as Breakbeat and how they can develop and improve their musicality.

Day 4
Quest skool is run by Dance Mafia Crew- street professionals which is a breaking Dance crew in Delhi where B-Boy Show-rez and B-Girl Sumku are senior members so, we invited Dance mafia’s few members for a small performance for Creativity Adda people and to inspired Dance kids with the youngest talent, we have B-Boy Deepak who is 13-year-old, dancing for last 4 years and have represented his crew and Indian in Russia. Apart from the performance, we gave them a brief intro to Breaking’s origin, the history, present situation and future opportunities with this dance style and what are career options they will have in the future. We believe if one wants to connect with some particular Art Form then they must connect with this emotionally more than physically. An emotional connection with Art gives you a better vision to explore. we also had a cypher dance session with the Dance Mafia’s member and Dance Students Creativity Adda. We exchange diff dance styles with each other. Cypher sessions are really important in street dance styles where you exchange your style get motivation from others and show-off your skills. We have given them enough techniques, knowledge and moves and we told them to make their own routine with steps they have learned in these classes so, 5th day they will showcase their own choreographed sets. Breaking is not about choreography we don’t teach how to make sets instead we teach moves and from the diff sets of moves they can make their own pieces using their own creative ideas and set of skills.

Day 5

So, the last day of camp was full of excited kids who were so excited to show-off their own pieces they have made. We had a cypher session again as a demo Practice before they perform among others. We did some of the corrections in their sets and gave them some feedback about where they have to work on more. More challenging was that the music will be played randomly they will not know which breakbeat they will get so, according to the beats they adjust their sets. Before lunchtime, we gathered in the hall area with staff members and all of the students of Creativity Adda. 14 students were ready to perform. All 14 students gave their rounds one by one and they performed so well the energy and response they received from the other kids were overwhelming.

It was a real pleasure to share Breaking style with Creativity Adda’s students. Kids were already learning different Dance styles but this was the first time they were learning Breaking even though they knew few steps and have tried them before but they were lacking in the technique and have very little idea about Breaking. What we believe is if one can get connect emotionally with their Art then they can understand more about it so, we tried to share the technical aspect of Breaking and understanding this Art form. We enjoyed ourselves a lot these days and tried our best to give them the right technique and knowledge to be more creative with this Dance style.

@yangyanje

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