Swagger, Baby

Young Pinoy hip hop dance group A-TEAM debunks the nega notion of hip hop by, with hope, setting the Las Vegas stage, the Olympics of hip hop dance culture on fire, one pop, lock, krump, and break dance at a time.

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
July 7, 2014

Share this:

She doesn’t have it anymore, not a single trace of that distinct ballerina stance—the grace, the poise, the fluidity. She used to dance ballet when she was four and stopped when she reached second year high school, she was 15 then. Now, Marla Angela Teresa Sison Go, 22, moves with swag, with attitude, with power. “I cannot say that I love hip hop more than ballet,” says Marla dressed in rubber shoes, short shorts, and loose t-shirt, the “outfit” of a hip hopper. “But they are two distinct dances, it’s just that I guess I found where I am more comfortable.”

(Images by Noel Pabalate)

Transitioning from ballet to hip hop is not a walk in the park, Marla says, but she’s thankful for the finesse and flair ballet dancing has taught her.  Now, Marla and the rest of the A-TEAM crew, a group of 39 members age 15 to 28, are practicing their four-minute hip hop dance routine in time for their international competition in Las Vegas. The World Hip hop Dance Competition is the Olympics of hip hop dance culture. The annual event is held in Las Vegas, Nevada every August with over 2, 500 dancers participating from more than 40 countries. Although hip hop is a Western influence, A-TEAM president Angela Rayos del Sol says that Pinoy modern hip hop is gaining popularity and acceptance, “because it is very popular, it’s shown on TV and movies, it’s hip and fun.”

#REPRESENT A-TEAM, a group of young hip hop dancers krump, break dance, and pop lock their way to the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in Las Vegas.

Funk style hip hop flava like popping (jerking of the muscles and joints), locking (freezing an upbeat movement then locking it in a position), break dancing, and krumping (exaggerated and sharp moves) among others flourished in the ‘70s in the United States, specifically in New York and California. Its popularity broke loose in the local scene during the early ‘80s. According to the Filipino-American Experience Group 5’s blog, filamexperiencegroup5.wordpress.com, with the popularity of the emerging hip hop, Electric Boogaloo, which involves popping and free styling, the Pinoy music and dance lovers were split between disco dance, thanks to Saturday Night Fever, and hip hop. Other moves like moonwalks, crazy legs, robot, waving, and sideway moonwalks flourished from the streets of New York to our local dance floors. Pinoys are not considered newbies in the hip hop dance scene, the hit MTV show, America’s Best Dance Crew, has produced in 2008 the world-class all male group Jabbawockeez, a partly Fil-Am hip hop group composed of Rynan Shawn Paguio, Phil Tayag, Chris Gatdula, Kevin Brewer, Ben Chung, and  Jeff Nguyen. Jabbawockeez is an iconic group known to hide their identities and expressions behind their signature masks and gloves. In 2012, the group has been conferred the Living Legend of Hip hop Award at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship finals, the same competition the A-TEAM group is joining.  Another world-class performer meanwhile is the Philippine All Stars group who won in the 2006 and 2008 World Hip Hop. These groups have set the standard high, but the A-TEAM is not losing heart. “Seeing our fellow kababayan making it big out there makes us proud. As for the A-TEAM, we’re more inspired than ever to take our talent to a global level and show the world that we, too, can make it. The road will not be easy, but it is a journey we wish to make, not for fame or money, but for the experiences,” Angela says. The three-year-old A-TEAM group is not an amateur though. Among many of its accolades are bagging the championship in the 2014 Hip Hop International Philippines National Championship mega crew and varsity division, and ranking sixth out of 40 Asian dance crew in the Singapore Dance Delight Volume 3. One of the setbacks the group faces is the lack of funds to support their ventures abroad. The group needs to reach four million pesos to go to Las Vegas. Thanks to fundraising concerts and support of private companies, they’re all set for the contest. One may think that dancing is just for the heck of it. But nope. Angela, Marla, and the rest of the gang hail from various schools—St. Paul, Claret School, University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, Ateneo de Manila, and De La Salle University, among others—all with the goal of expressing and sharing their dancing skills.  The group agrees that it’s better to spend their time dancing—they practice every day after school—than engaging in vices and unproductive things. “We don’t want to call it as a downside, but Pinoy dance groups prioritize their studies first, unlike in other countries where they stop going to school and focus on hip hop instead,” Angela, a UP Diliman student says. Besides, these kids have other big dreams. A few of them want to be engineers, artists, accountants, and doctors. In the end, these kids dance for a goal: “What we do is hope for the best, that through our performances, we open closed minds to what hip hop truly is—that its depth goes way beyond  its grimy image smeared with graffiti and crime. We envision that everyone appreciates hip hop as, rightfully on its own, an art just as beautiful as others,” says Angela.