On the 6 of February this year, eighteen committed dancers were given the opportunity to attend a hip hop workshop. Lower 5 dancer, Jasper Valpied, writes about his experience...

"On the 6 of February this year, seventeen fellow dance enthusiasts and I were lucky enough to have an opportunity to attend a dance workshop, prioritising the style of hip hop. The day was  run by a member of the prestigious professional hip hop company Boy Blue, led by a teacher who had been part of the company for twelve years.

Myself and all the other pupils were thrilled to be presented with this opportunity and the workshop was a huge success, with great engagement from everyone involved and plenty of new skills learnt.

The thing I particularly enjoyed about the day was how much it challenged me. The choreography was inspiring and extremely difficult, but when I really started to struggle, I persevered and began to pick up and grasp the moves. The host, Yolanda, was brilliant, really finding the middle ground between the humour, and interaction to make the experience enjoyable and the grind, challenge and hard work needed for us to improve and benefit from the workshop.

The dance was a very different dance style to what we were all used to learning and the experience widened our variety of skills, techniques and enjoyment of dance, helping us explore different cultures. The choreography Yolanda gave us to learn included large group sections, calls and responses and even some partner work, but the standout moment in the workshop was when she gave us all independence to create our own phrases. We were able to transfer skills we learnt throughout the day into our own unique and self-made choreography.

Yolanda was very supportive of all four groups who worked together,  each giving their own influence and contributing their own ideas. These phrases were then fitted into the dance, which overall turned out to be a very exciting, upbeat and brilliant dance.

As a result, I discovered a new passion for hip hop and that is why we are so lucky as a school to have such a committed Dance Department, who want us all to have the best experiences possible.

I would like to thank all the effort and put into this experience by the Dance Department, and I am sure this hip-hop dance will be a very successful, unique and standout performance at the senior dance festival."

With thanks to Kaitlin Wolmarans (L6) from Close Up Photography Club for some fabulous pictures which capture the day.