CHENNAI: There is a strong similarity between how a dancer and a warrior moves. Probably that’s why Confucius said ‘Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance’. There was a time when the winners were decided on the battlefield based on the number of bodies the warriors slayed. Today, the battlefield stands, not for blood but for moves! CE catches up with 6th Sense Crew, a dance team from SRM University, Vadapalani, who do professional dance battles across the city, other than normal stage shows. They talk about the genre of the dance they perform (Break and old school hip-hop), the story behind their title and the struggles they face to keep the team alive, ahead of the dance battle they are organising on December 24.
“We came up with this name because when we started in 2015, there were six of us. Now, we are a group of 14 but we didn’t want to change,” says Rameez Raja, founder of the group who is currently in his final year BCom. The group came about when the college needed a group of dancers, who are well trained in western dance, for representing them in inter-college festivals. “That time, I had conducted an audition for the entire college and got students from different departments, driven by one single factor, passion. That’s how we all met. Since then, more students started volunteering especially after we started winning stage shows,” adds Rameez.
The group trains every evening at Nagashwara Rao Park, Mylapore, and that has become their hangout spot. Their choreographers are Dinesh and Niranhal from All For One Crew. “Our training sessions are for two to three hours after college. If we have a show, then we train the entire day, if we have a holiday prior to the event. During weekends we train four to five hours,” says Vinayak, a member of the group, a final year mechanical engineering student.
Inspired by the contemporary New York-based hip-hop dance crews, the 6th Sense shares the thrill of battling in dance battles. “The main attraction of dance battles is that the steps should be spontaneous. We can’t rehearse beforehand since the DJ plays some random number on the spot. Intercollege battles are a cakewalk for us but when it comes to other events against professional crews, it gets tougher,” adds Ganesh, another member.
Amid the success and excitement, they have their fair share of struggle as they find it very difficult sometimes to find funds to pay their choreographers and to support their travel. “We have to pay around `70,000 a year, to our choreographers. We collect this amount by doing part-time jobs. Our families don’t support since it is not part of our academics. College helps us if it is for their event. Our choreographers support us throughout,” says Rameez.
Despite being shortlisted for various interstate competitions and reality shows, including Star Plus’ Dance Champions, the team is unable to reach out because of lack of funds. “For the reality show, it will be way out of our limit since we have to stay in New Delhi for a couple of months, and pay rent for costumes and others. So we dropped it,” rues Vinayak.
Talking about the dance trends today, they believe that most of the crews include gymnastics as part of their dance routine. “But we think the overuse of gymnastics in a dance number will kill the rhythm of the choreography. They are basically transitional moves or breaking moves. We use those steps to break into another combination,” explains Rameez.
6th Sense Crew is organising a dance battle competition, Underground Jam Vol 1 on Dec 24 at High On Dance, Eldams Road, from 9 am onwards. For details about the event and to help fund the team, call: 9940261766