Local Hip Hop Crew Selected to Represent NZ   29 Jul 2015

Local Hip Hop Crew Selected to Represent NZ

Four crews from Zion Dance Studios competed at the Hip Hop Unite (HHU) competition in Wellington on Saturday, with their senior crew, Polaroids, taking out the top spot and being selected to represent New Zealand at the World Championships in the Caribbean in December this year.

Nearly 40 skilled and passionate crews from around the country competed across three age levels. Along with their senior crew, Zion entered three crews in the fiercely contested Junior section – with one of them making the finals (and finishing 4th) and the other two commendably just missing the cut. This was the first taste of national competition, and even the first trip away from home, for many of these young people so will be a valuable experience as they now gear up to take on the best of NZ and Australia at the Battlegrounds competition in Brisbane in October.

In the words of the head judge at HHU, “We are not compelled to select crews for the World Championship. It is an expensive exercise, a long way to go and requires a lot of hard work. We only select a crew if we truly believe they have a real chance to take it out”.

Zion Studios is a local Papanui dance school whose part-time staff and supporters put in a lot of unpaid hours to keep costs low enough to make dance accessible to as many local youth as possible. They are rightfully very proud of their students, seeing the results in Wellington as affirmation of their belief that you don’t need to be part of a big organisation or have a lot of resources to produce world-class performances.

Zion Studios was born in 2004 out of the desire of three local youth workers who got together with a common desire to invest in the youth of their local Papanui community. Their intention was to provide a safe place for the community's young people, a place where they would feel welcome and be able to express themselves. The founders chose Hip Hop as the basis of the programme because of its ability to be attractive and inclusive to many – it doesn’t matter what, size, shape or background the dancers come from and builds whanau and community between people who may not otherwise ever have personal connections with each other.

Just over a decade and a couple of morphs later, Zion is stronger than ever – now running more than 20 classes over 4 days a week with students from all over the city. While they are now well known in the local community, participating in many local events and competitions, this is the first time they have competed outside the region – so it is immensely exciting and satisfying to have been so successful. Studio Manager Carissa Crow says “Selection for the World Championships was almost an unspoken dream, the biggest ever accolade for Zion. It is the result of an enormous amount of commitment and passion and will be inspirational and aspirational for all of our students.”

Their frustrating reality though, is that neither Zion nor many of their participating students can self-fund the travel costs for these prestigious opportunities, so will need plenty of support from the wider community to get there. Several fundraisers have already been held, with more underway. To help these talented young people take on the world, visit their website www.zionstudios.co.nz to see what they have going on or donate to their travel fund at http://givealittle.co.nz/cause/getustobattlegrounds

ENDS

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