CHENNAI: Rhythmic and tightly synced steps, fast and distinct arm-hand movements, and freezing a fast movement to create a ‘locking’ effect, pretty much describes this dance style which has been gaining momentum in the city over the past few years — locking. Originally found in America by Don Campbell in 1960, the style has spread across several countries, and Chennai has also been bitten by the locking bug. Thanks to Raghavan Pugazh (known as Rockyn among the dancing community in Chennai), founder, United By Dance (UBD) community. The dancer-cum-mentor is currently gearing up for ‘Don’t hate jam’, a locking-based workshop and dance battle, curated by him and talks to City Express about locking in the city.
Raghavan has been training and practicing the dance style for six years and recalls that when he started out, sources to learn were significantly less when compared to today. “When I started out in 2010, I had to learn from the videos online. I’m not the first locker, there were a few dancers who did locking even before I started. It doesn’t matter who did it first but what you did,” says the pioneer of India’s first Locking Jam — India Premier locking (IPL). “IPL was the first ever locking jam in the country and we have already completed two volumes and the third in January 2017.”
Through videos by international dancers, Raghavan trained in popping, breaking and hip hop by 2012 and says that most of what he knows today is through such videos. But, his knowledge in the style took a huge leap when he met Liara Barussi of Jukebox studio, UK, and the rest was history.
“When Liara came to Chennai for a week, I made it a point to learn as much as possible and strengthen my basics and techniques. It is important to learn properly before stepping into anything. That’s what I tell my students too – to learn one thing at a time. What we see on video and what we see when these dancers perform live is totally different. That’s why it’s necessary to learn in person…this will have a huge impact on the learner,” he elucidates.
Having taught over 200 dancers, Raghavan went on to teach and spread the style not only in Chennai, buy also in Salem, Tiruchy, Madurai, Bangalore and Mumbai. “Do you know that dancers around the country say that Chennai is the Locking state in India?” he smiles proudly.
“I have travelled around and seen that the style has more number of takers and dancers in Chennai when compared to other cities. It’s definitely something to be proud of.”
Stating that the style has been an underground movement for more than four years, he opines that the limelight it’s receiving today is because of hard work. Raghavan who recently represented India at ‘Lock is not a joke’, a dance workshop-cum-battle in France shares, “I was selected as one of the top 11 contestants among 46 dancers from all over the world.”
Talking about the ‘Don’t hate jam’ he says that the motive is to bring dancers around under one single roof, promote locking and mainly, bring unity among dancers. “As the name says, it’s ‘don’t hate’. Battles are known to have fights and mockery among dancers…but, we are working towards battles that are healthy and which focus only on dance and bonding,” he explains. “Supahit and Mik-62 from Mumbai and I will be judging the event and we are excited!”
Volume 4 of Don’t Hate Jam will take place today and tomorrow from 10 am onwards. For details, visit their FB page: Unitedbydance Community