The hiphop and funk dance community in Australia is relatively small, but somewhat significant. It's constantly growing due to the popularity of R&B/Hiphop music videos in this country, as well as the need to impress not just by what you wear, but how you move on the dancefloor.
Kids as young as 12 are getting into the old school funk styles - popping, locking and boogaloo more than in previous years, where bboying/bgirling (breakdancing) was the more popular choice.
Until recently there hasn't been any online communities, forums, sites for hiphop dancers in Australia, with the exception of Ozbboy.com which caters for bboys only. In the past few months, owner of Ozbboy.com launched str33tlevel.com to cater for hiphop dancers; Funkstyler.com was released last month as a Youtube-style site specifically for funk style videos; now comes Ozfunkstylist.com which is a combination of the previous two, as a growing online community for the fans of funk.
I got in touch with the creator of Ozfunkstylist.com, Sheru (aka Morax) who's based in Brisbane and has big plans for his funky project.
1. What is Ozfunkstylist.com? Why did you create it?
Ozfunkstylist.com was created as the central community hub for the Australian street dance scene. Although it is designed around dancers of the funk styles (ie Popping, Locking, House etc), it's open to anybody!
It's a place where dancers can get together and share ideas, thoughts, clips, organise events and meetups, or basically anything that a bunch of dancers from around the country would want to discuss!
On the more personal side, members can create their own profile, write a blog about themselves or their dancing to share with others, find and add friends, send each other private messages, and much much more.
Content on the site is ever expanding, with plans to put in much more readable, viewable and interactive content. There's also many interviews already readable, by some of Australia's and the world's top funk stylists!
Check it out, membership is and always will be free!
2. What's your favourite style? Tell us about your previous dance experience.
My favourite styles are Popping and all its sub styles, but mainly Boogaloo, Botting, Waving, Cobra, Strobing. Also Locking, and whether you want to say it's a standalone style or not, Liquid. Even though those are the styles I like to do the most, I enjoy watching all forms of street dance, and many contemporary styles too.
I started dancing in around April 2005, when our dance studio Industrie One (www.industrieone.com.au) first opened.
For the first few months, I was taught by one of Queensland's top animation style poppers - Chuck, whose botting is the most inhuman thing ever!
After that, in about August of 2005, I was lucky enough to be taught one on one by a Korean dancer for about 6 months. He was taught Popping by Jin (from KOGS), and Locking by Khan (from Originality Lockers).
Now, I teach both Popping and Locking at Industrie One, and have also formed a crew called Shift-1 (website coming soon!).
3. Who inspires you?
A lot of people inspire me. My very first inspiration to start dancing was LPEric, who is famous for his arcade liquid clip circulating around the Internet.
Since then, my inspirations have included Acki for his feeling and clean style, Salah for his creativity and crowd involvement, Aquaboogy for his waves, P-Lock for being able to radiate funk, Khan for his ability to lock to anything, Mike (from France) for his control and intricacy, and many more - the list would be way too long to put here! All good dancers are an inspiration to me.
4. Do you do anything else besides running this site and dancing?
Yes, I normally work full time, although have taken a break recently to get ozfunkstylist.com released. Also I'm working hard with a friend to launch a new business over the next few months!
5. What do you think about Krump and the new style from Harlem, the Chicken Noodle Soup? (By the way, I don't consider CNS as a Hiphop dance style).
I'm a big fan of the newer styles of Hiphop dance, in fact I usually take classes each week! It's interesting to see the differences in the oldschool musicality compared to the newschool, and learning both would certainly make anybody a better dancer!
Krump is certainly an interesting style. From what I've actually seen and experienced of it, it's also very difficult! Will be interesting to see how it progresses over the next few years.
Chicken Noodle Soup.. Now here folks, is the next big thing - the future of not just street dance, but ALL dance! Speaking of which.. It's dinner time..
Peace and Noodles for all!
Sheru
Trina
James 2
Brenton
Arkitekt
Cibbuano
Tania Crivellenti
Book of Chux
Marie-Claire
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Comments (1)
but then again I don't know anyone around who even knows about this event, let alone afford the trip. Maybe in the future... if not, hell I'm moving back to the Philippines!
