The Kund area of City Centre 1 in Salt Lake roared with cheers as street dancers of India participated in the fourth season of the Red Bull Dance Your Style qualifiers for the East Zone. A unique voting system — where the wheel is in the audience’s hands, who must flash either the red or the blue half of their voting cards made the event even more interesting. t2 was there at the event last year and from then to now, it has grown in scale and that’s a thumbs up for the dancing community of India. Four dancers from a list of 16, who came face-to-face in a dance battle to foot-tapping numbers like Popular (by The Weeknd and Madonna), O Humdum (Saathiya) and Beggin’ (Maneskin), among others — got shortlisted and will be heading to the India finals to be hosted in Mumbai at Famous Studios (Upper Worli) from April 5 to 7. Check out the album from the event, where dancers across ages showcased their marvellous feats across fortes like locking, waacking, popping, krumping, tutting and other forms from the hip-hop school. Here is what the qualifiers had to say.
“The Red Bull Dance Your Style was wholesome. It was a platform to be “you”. My preparation for the finals is simple! All I want is to experience the music in front of the crowd and radiate my energy to each and everyone present there,” said Hamar Phukan aka Sammy, whose performance was breathtaking
“I really had a good time and it was my second time in the Red Bull qualifiers. I couldn’t last year, as I was in a different show. I got back to battling after a year and I’ve been doing it for the last 12 years now. It was good to engage in an exchange with the young performers and it was a tough competition as there were so many talented dancers. The music was great and we could explore a lot. You need to dance really differently when the audience is voting. You need to modify it in a way that actually pleases them because the mode of the competition is such. I feel really good that I could make it to the India finals. With only a week or two left, I’ll focus on having fun and feeling people’s vibes,” said Anish Mitra aka Boodie LLB.
