The Beat Down Hip-Hop Dance Competition 2013

I am proud to cover this special event for the second year in a row. It’s called the The Beat Down Hip-Hop Dance Competition 2013 that was held on Saturday, August 10 at the Ryerson Theatre. A few months before the actual event, I had interviewed the organizer of this dance competition to help promote the event and the MoVernie videos got great exposure for this event as 200+ Pizza Pizza stores saw these awesome interviews. Based on my observation from Saturday night, the crowd grew larger than last year and I think the organizer may need to consider the possibility of selecting a bigger venue for the future as it was such a successful event.

Nu-Lite Entertainment, the organizer of this event did a superb job throughout the night. This company covers a number of creative areas for its company. They developed their own artists, made their own music videos, hosted events at various clubs and have dance studio for dancers to practice and to compete in competition and much much more. Dennis Troung and On Troung, the founders, started this event 5 years ago. They believe there are lots of talent in Canada and there is a need of a platform that allows talented dancers to participate in competition like this. And I agree with them 100%. We had seen enough of “Do you think you can dance?” or “Dance Crew” reality TV shows, it was time for audience to come out of their sofas and go to a venue to watch these type of shows “live”.

This event was suitable for all ages and demographics. I observed children as young as 6 years old, stood up from their seats and started moving around and enjoying the sick beats! I also observed the teenagers and adults as old as mid-age to come out and have some fun! The venue was hosted at Ryerson Theatre. A number of dance crew competed in this competition, they were mainly from Toronto, but also groups from Montreal and Winnipeg. All-Star judges were on hand to ensure the evaluation and criteria are legit. Judges such as Mike Song, “Hok”, “Lydia Paek, Addy Chan, Mariano & E Knock were on hand to evaluate the dance crews.

The crowd was an energetic bunch. From the get-go of the show, lots of screaming, cheering, shoutouts, it made a cool atmosphere that you don’t get to see often. In addition to the dance crew competition, there was also performances from artists that were developed by the Nu-Lite Entertainment. There was also martial arts performances. I got to complement the quality of the show. The sound production, the visual effects and the quality of the Emcee, it made the event so professional and a high-level to watch, which isn’t always the case in many other events. Kudos to The Beat Down committee for their hard work!

One of my favourite part of the night was seeing the first ever one-on-one free style dance competition. This was the first year where both finalists (they compete the day earlier to get to the final competition). The dancers had to compete in a number segments, featuring various music style. The objective was to showcase their various talent in various music styles that can best showcase their dancing abilities. Pyro Twisted won the battle and the prize was a display of two boxing gloves, it was a creative prize trophy indeed.

Near the end, the all-star judges got to showcase their signature famous dance moves to the rest of the competing dance crew and the audience. They clearly brought the house down. All these dancers worked extremely hard, night-in-and-night-out to compete in the things that they are passionate about, which is dancing.

The winning dance crew of the night went to Sikat! Congratulations!

Overall, it was a great night! I would like to thank Dennis, one of the organizers of The Beat Down for recognizing my hard work and my interviews with them. He thank “MoVernie” a few times on the stage to the crowd and that type of recognition was greatly appreciated!

Until next year, I look forward to the ever improving and bigger Beat Down 2014!