Czech Dance Championships
This week's Talking Point comes from the Moravian capital of Brno, where the Czech Dance Championship - Dancelife 2003 - was the main topic of discussion from May 8-10. Just five years ago, most Czech children involved in dance were taught either classical ballet or modern dance incorporating ballet moves. In the last few years, however, a new trend has been developing, bringing back hip hop that was popular in much of the world in the 1980's but failed to make it through the Iron Curtain to reach Czech teenagers over twenty years ago.
"My name is Radim Samek and I'm the organiser of Dancelife 2003. Dancelife 2003 is being held in Brno for the first time but the festival itself has been going for ten years. We have five dance categories that we compete in - disco dance, disco show, show dance, art dance, and hip hop - all for dancers older than 16 years. Some 80 dance groups, totaling 2500 dancers, from all over the country are taking part in this year's competition."
How are the championships organised?
"The Championships are organised by the Czech and Moravian Dance Organisation, which has been active in the Czech Republic for ten years now. At the time it was founded, it had 1000 members and held only four competitions a year. Throughout the years, the number of members has risen to 10,000 with about 60 competitions a year. The dancers are of all ages, starting from 3 years."
The dance styles you mentioned seem to have become quite popular among the younger generation...
"The biggest advantage is that such activities keep children off the streets and give them something creative to do in their free time. They are taught to work in teams and are motivated by competition victories. Many of the dancers have developed ambitious personalities, know what the term work morale means and are too busy to get caught up in the wrong things. They are being taught a valuable lesson for their future, learn to be responsible and tackle tough requirements. And this form of pass-time even keeps them healthy."
What about the jury. I had the feeling that they sometimes did not agree on the performances of certain groups...
"The jury is chosen from a number of professionals, mainly representatives of dance organisations who either used to be dancers themselves or have choreographed pieces. They are people who travel around the world to take part in competitions. What is important to mention here is that the whole evaluating system is not objective. Every juror votes according to his or her own opinion and is not guided by specific rules. So it's not like in other competitive sports such as gymnastics or figure skating. Here, the voting is subjective."
Martin Fiedler, is the founder and leader of the hip hop dance group Beat Up Brno. Congratulations, you won silver at the hip hop championships. How did it all start. How long has Beat Up Brno been active?
"I started with my friend from high school in 1993 because we listened to rap music. Before that time, it was not possible to listen and dance to music from the USA and other western countries and it was a new chance for us to combine dance with sport. We founded Beat Up Brno with nine members and now we have 200 members."
How did you choreograph your pieces? I imagine it must have been difficult to start from scratch at the time...
"We first saw a music video from MC Hammer, Snap, or other dance floor artists and after 1995 we saw break dance in France and Germany, which influenced us. Now we do break dance, electric boogie and hip hop and have been competing within the European IDO organisation for five or six years. We now won the world championships in the female category - Michaela Pospisilova - and are world champions in the small group category. But it's a big pity that the competitions are only among European groups."
You mean the fact that US dance groups are not asked to take part in competitions in Europe? Why is that a pity?
"The hip hop culture started in the USA and it's a big pity for us because many good dancers are from the USA. Hip hop started in New York and L.A. Some of our idols are from perfect US groups, which started dancing in the 1970s and we only had the opportunity to start dancing in 1990. So, for twenty years we did not know that this kind of dancing existed."
So where would you rank the Czech Republic's hip hop groups?
"In the Czech Republic now, there are thirty groups. I think that ten of them are very good and three or four of them have the opportunity to compete in the European and World Championships. Two weeks ago, we competed in the European Cup in Moscow and it was very interesting for us because we saw hip hop groups from Russia, Ukraine, and other eastern European states for the first time. I think that in Eastern Europe today, the best groups are in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, probably because we have a very good organisation for hip hop formation groups and competition for solos and duos. We also have many competitions during the year, which is very important in order to improve our style and our quality. It's very interesting that every group has its own style now. In 1990, we saw videos and tried to do what we saw but now we try to do our own dance elements and our style and it's very important to have original dances."
"My name is Lenka Calabova and my nickname is chicken and I'm from the hip hop dance group Beat Up Brno."
How did you get into hip hop?
"I started dancing hip hop when I visited the textiles secondary school in Brno. I started in the second year and now I've been dancing for six years. I love dancing, it's my life."
Why did you choose hip hop and not ballet or modern dance?
"Once, I was in summer camp and met the group which won the championships this year, Duck Beat, and they taught us how to dance and I liked it very much."
Were you happy with your performance this year?
"Yes, I'm very glad that we won second place."
What did you think of the other groups? When you compete against other groups in the Czech Republic do you feel a certain rivalry or competition?
"The rivalry was much worse than last year. There were only two groups last year but now there are more and it is much better. You could see that out of six groups, the jury did not know who to give the first place to. But when Duck Beat won, I was very happy because we are friends."
Have you ever had the chance to see groups from other countries?
"Yes. We were in Germany last year to take part in the hip hop world championship and there were groups from Poland, Slovenia, Norway or Italy. The championship is under the organisation of the IDO and I thought that the groups who were dancing here weren't dancing real hip hop as we dance in the Czech Republic because the groups wore tight clothes and they danced disco to hip hop music. We are used to the old-school style and wear baggy clothes."
Would you say that hip hop is popular here in the Czech Republic?
"It is getting much more popular today. Break dance, electric boogie, and Graffiti, which together create a new culture, are all a part of hip hop. Hip hop is a culture."
