The world's biggest street dance competition, Red Bull Dance Your Style, has revealed the top 16 finest street dancers that will go head to head at the national final on October 15 in Pretoria.
The final will be hosted by popular dancer and media personality Bontle Modiselle alongside Elly The Entertainer while DJ Da Cutt, Nasty C, DBN Gogo, Blxkie, 25k, Banques, and Trancemicsou take the stage to deliver performances.
Red Bull Dance Your Style is a global all-styles street dance event series with a unique battle format.
From hip hop to house, to popping and locking – dancers participating in Red Bull Dance Your Style will need to impress the crowd and ultimately win their vote.
This group of enthusiastic dancers will be heading to the national final, which consists of the Red Bull Dance Your Style regional qualifier tour winners from Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein, Polokwane, Gqeberha, Cape Town, Pretoria, online entries, and wildcards.
After an exciting regional qualifying tour around the country in search of the top street dancers in South Africa, the organisers will soon be announcing the winner representing the country at the world final taking place at Montecasino, South Africa, on 10 December.
The top 16 dancers are: Sne Hlope (Johannesburg), Diddy Mayanda (Fada) (Durban), Rambuti ‘Kop Teny’ Marema (Bloemfontein), Tshwenyego Matty Kobola (Limpopo), Cheslyn ‘Chez’ Meyer (Gqeberha), Kamogelo Sneaky Kay (Pretoria), Junior King (Gqeberha), Sphamandla ‘King’ Khumalo (Durban), Nicolas Strauss (Pretoria), Liessel ‘Slim Weng’ Sandram (Johannesburg), Thabo ‘Kingsley’ Treffers (Cape Town), Benny ‘Skinnyboii’ Matlamela (Polokwane), Angel Maputla (Pretoria), Phetolo ‘Phetty’ Kepadisa), (Johannesburg), Thabang ‘Spikiri’ Rackzo, (Sebokeng) and Malondy Ghost (Durban).
The versatile dancers will be showing off their diverse dance styles, such as waacking, afro-pop bone-breaking, pantsula, contemporary, freestyling, sbujwa, and hip hop.
More will be challenged to leave it all on the dance floor by cutting a rug to unpredictable music and winning the crowd’s vote for the ultimate title of being named the winner of Red Bull Dance Your Style in South Africa.
Msanzi’s street dance culture is celebrated throughout this competition by partnering with the best street dancers who explored various forms of movement at workshops that took place at each regional qualifying tour.
These workshops featured some of the country’s most loved dance choreographers, such as Tlhogi M, Tylor Spelman, Eugene Baloyi, Hope Ramafolo, Kamo KM4, Sand1, Limpopo Boy, 250 Machine, Bontle Modiselle, Junior King, Sherwin, Tom London, Kananelo Ngaleka, and Daniel Lenka.
In celebration of the world final coming to South Africa later in the year, international dancers Amelia Miquel, Kieran Lai, and Perla Perlson recently visited the country and hosted dance sessions with the 2021 champion Shanny J, krumping maestro and 2021 Red Bull Dance Your Style Durban regional qualifier Verb, as well as sbujwa extraordinaire SB.
“I’m grateful and excited to see a proudly South African dance style like sbujwa becoming noticed globally through this opportunity with Red Bull Dance Your Style. It was cool to showcase this unique style to international dancers. We had a session where I highlighted the importance of facial expressions and showed them the basic dance moves like twalatsa, and they were very eager to learn.” says SB.