New Dance Studio Will Benefit Eastern Suburbs Community

6 February 2012

New Dance Studio Will Benefit Eastern Suburbs Community

From what started as a dream in a small community hall in Island Bay teaching local youth for $5 per class, Ben Uili’s dream of opening his own dance studio comes true on February 11 2012 eight years on.

This is not just a story about dance or a dance studio; this is a story about determination, perseverance, passion and achieving your dreams by hard work. Ben Uili’s name is synonymous with world hip hop dance. He is the Godfather of Wellington Hip Hop and one of the country’s most respected hip hop dance choreographers.

Over the last eight years Ben has put Wellington hip hop on the International and National stage. In 2006 Ben founded a group called Legacy who were the first dance crew from Wellington to represent New Zealand at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship twice in 2006 and 2008 where they placed 10th and 6th respectively from 33 International crews. In 2010 and 2011 Ben worked with Emerge – the first all female group from Wellington to represent NZ at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship. In addition, Ben took another 20 Dancers to the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in Las Vegas for the inaugural Mega Crew competition in 2011 to represent New Zealand. This experience was life changing for most of these dancers as they had only seen the World Championship on You Tube – now people were watching them on You Tube.

Ben is of Samoan decent. His father (a church elder) did not agree with him dancing and wanted him to play rugby because he thought hip hop dance was linked with being a street kid. Ben has put those concerns to rest now through positive work he has done through these crews, the community, SPARC, Subway, DANZ, Brand Spank to name a few.

Ben Uili co-­founded Springboard Arts Trust and The Company NZ two years ago to strengthen his art form in Wellington and provide an avenue for more youth to grow and keep them off the streets. In fact, some of Ben students have gone on to run their own dance classes around the Wellington region.

Launching The Company NZ and Springboard Arts Trust Dance Studio in the local community of Kilbirnie will help youth access quality tuition easier, increase participation in street dance and open the gateway to the hip hop dance world through this Internationally recognised dance studio.

Someone of Ben’s calibre typically moves to Auckland, Australia or USA to gain more exposure to hip hop dance work. Instead, Ben is working with groups in Australia while still being based in Wellington and he is focusing on growing the next generation of Hip Hop dancers with a goal to turn Wellington into the hip hop dance capital of New Zealand.

Getting to this point in Ben’s career is the stuff dreams and hard work are made of.

Studio Opening information:
11 February 2012
11am
1a-­3a Rongotai Road, Kilbirnie, Wellington
FREE Class Enrolment Week 13-­15 February 2012
www.thecompanynz.co.nz

ENDS

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