The sport of dancing

Turning tradition on its head, the discipline of dance is breaking into the sports arena with a 360° front-flip towards Olympic recognition.

‘Dance-Sport’ is the fusion of artistic expression with athletic prowess, as dancers battle for a place on a hotly contested podium in front of a panel of judges. The sport mirrors the likes of the Olympic event of figure-skating, whereby entrants earn points for degree of difficulty, technique, timing and a host of other technical skills as they compete for gold.

Ballito resident Mandy Bullock, co-founder of DanceWeb Studios, along with her husband, Craig, has been involved in the world of dance for a lifetime. Born in Johannesburg in 2000, DanceWeb has been at the centre of the sport’s emergence in South Africa for 15 years and witnessed its rapid growth here on the North Coast.

“We have pioneered the sport in South Africa in order to celebrate the youth who are passionate about the craft,” said Bullock, who coached the country’s first national team of 30 dancers in 2003.

“Dancing is now one of the fastest growing sports in South Africa,” said Bullock.

From its humble beginnings in 2003 as one of the world’s smallest and under-resourced dance organisations, South African competitive dance has come leaps and bounds both on the national and international circuits.

In 2006, Lucette August became SA’s first world champion in the 16 years and over category and just four years later in 2010, the South African team achieved a world ranking of first out of the 42 competing nations.

“Our goal is to get more children from KZN to represent South Africa, and I so desperately want to see Ballito children thrive in this exciting sport and be part of the experience of an international competition,” said Bullock.

As part of this goal, Mandy and Craig Bullock organised KZN’s first national street dance competition, which was held at Ashton International College on Saturday, August 8. The event hosted ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ contestant Senzo ‘Verb’ Bhengu as one of the three judges, while SABOD president Beverley Wood and the Bullocks served as additional conveners.

More than 100 dancers from Sugar Dance Ballito, DanceWeb Studios, local schools including Ashton College, Crawford North Coast and Umhlali Preparatory – as well as teams from Johannesburg and Pretoria, took to the stage to showcase some of the best youth dancing talent the country has to offer.

The competition was held as a warm-up event to this year’s World Championships, which will be held in Italy from October 20-25. Defending champion in the hip-hop duo event, Jed Bullock, who won gold at last year’s championships in Germany, will be competing in the hopes of retaining his title.

DanceWeb Studios is also involved in an outreach programme at Siyabambile in Etete, where the Bullocks train children in the discipline of dancing once a week.

“We want to eventually field dancers from low-income areas such as Etete to one day represent South Africa,” said Bullock, who wants to see as many children as possible participating in this global sport.