13-year-old Ariam, is a year nine student. She got into street dancing through a club that was started up in her school and thought "yeah, blood" and has been street dancing for five years. She has performed with boys and girls who are aged between 13-18 but most of them are aged between 13-16.
When I asked her what she likes about street dance, she replied "I like the way I hip-hop and crunk (joking) I like the beats and everything". I also asked if she likes any of the dance routines she’s learnt, her respond was "Yeah when we’re exercising at the beginning of the lesson, I like the exercise moves".
Ariam also mentioned that she would be able to choreograph her own dance but only up to five moves and after that she would need a choreographer to help her with the rest of the dance moves. For street dance Ariam has performed at the Royal Albert Hall. When I asked her what she would rate herself out of ten she told me “Out of ten I think I’m twelve, I’m excellent, bare mans are on me-just kidding”.
Delina is also a year nine student, aged 14. She started street dancing five years ago; she use to attend a street dancing school with her older sister every Saturday and learnt dance routines there but, she has put it on hold for now as she has her SATs coming up and dedicated her time to revising.
She occasionally street dance’s at school but not out in public such as theatres, events etc. She has performed street dancer routines in school with 13-15 year olds and both genders but mostly females as "some of the songs are related to boys".
What Delina likes about street dancing is the fact that "it’s very good and enjoyable and allows you to be flexible". Out of ten Delina would rate herself an 8 and when I asked her what it was about street dancing that made her want to do it she told me "You get to crunk"!
About this article
This article was written by Sarah Gheotom, a member of Headliners' outreach programme Project Subway.
