“The dance floor is where I found myself,” says a happy 15-year-old D Shreya who won the second place at the Original Street Dance Championship (OSDC) 2.0,( a national level breaking competition) held in Chennai. She participated in the 1 vs 1 breaking competition for seven to 18 year olds.
‘Breaking’ or b-boying as it is also known, is an athletic form of street dance. The artistes prefer the term breaking because it’s gender neutral.
Shreya has been learning break dance from Sohail Gill, the founder of Destiny Breakers Dance School (DBDS), since last four years. “She has put Visakhapatnam’s Breaking community on the map,” says Sohail with considerable pride. Out of 15 participants, only two were girls. ‘Breaking’ is still a male-dominated genre in India, he says but adds “I believe her win will encourage many other girls to commit to the art form.”
The cypher
Shreya discloses how she likes to shake hands before each competition. “Things can get very intense in these battles. But I know we are opponents just for few minutes. After the match, it’s important to learn from each other. As a dancer, the most important lesson I've learnt is to collaborate with others. I don’t hesitate to learn from dancers who are much younger than me.”
Shreya powered through three battles to reach the final. Each battle had two rounds of 40 seconds dance-offs. Music is played by a disk jockey. The dancer with better moves and least mistakes (also know as crashes) wins the battle. The crashes are often received by loud stomping by the audience and the opponent. “In the semi-final, I tapped on my opponent. As soon as I did that, I realised now he’ll be watching my moves closely. Luckily I performed without any crashes,” shares Shreya.
In the final, she was up against a friend who she had met in the first edition of the competition in January. She was nervous, admits Shreya “Because I knew how good my friend was.”
Watch and learn
“The first two years, I learnt by observing my peers and worked on overcoming my shyness. In the third year, I was able to dance freely. I realised that my biggest strength was the element of surprise because most people don’t expect me to pull-off fast moves.” Shreya attributes her success to the discipline she has which in turn was thanks to the training she received at her dance school.