2008 OTS Hip Hop Dance Competition

Wuhan's Special King Crew - Winners of Best Team Routine at Shanghai's OTS

This past weekend we attended the three-day On The Stage (OTS) Hip Hop dance Competition at Dino Beach in Shanghai. OTS was organized by Stanly Wong, the founder and director of Shanghai’s Dragon Dance Studio. Stanly has been dancing for almost twenty years and has been very influential not only in the development of Hip Hop dance, but in the development of Chinese Hip Hop culture in general. To quote Shanghai rapper Tang King of Red Star: “Stanly, he is REAL Hip Hop.” And with students traveling all the way from Xinjiang to study with him (such as Purcat, the leader of Urumqi’s DSP Crew and Ha Shan, the leader of Karamai’s Dancekid Crew), praise for Stanly can still be heard far away from Shanghai.

Which means…when Stanly Wong holds a Hip Hop Dance Competition, Chinese Hip Hop dancers show up. Dancers and dance crews traveled from all over China to compete in OTS’s three main events:

Individual Battle, (click here for Individual Battle video)
Team Battle, (click here for Team Battle video)
and Team Routine Competition. (click here for Team Routine video)

The individual battles were divided into four categories, New Style, Funk Style, Girl’s Freestyle and Breaking, with each winner receiving a prize of 10,000 RMB (approx. $1,500 USD).

New Style: Cheng Jie of Hangzhou
Funk Style: Huang Jingxing of Beijing
Girl’s Freestyle: Zhao Qian of Shanghai
Breaking: Wu Yaofeng of Shanghai

Guangzhou’s Speed Crew won the Team Battle Competition, and Wuhan’s Special King Crew won for best Team Routine; each team received a prize of 15,000 RMB, approx. $2,250.

In addition to bringing out Chinese Hip Hop dancers from all over the country, the OTS Competition was judged by a panel of premier International Hip Hop artists, including Ken Swift of the USA’s Rock Steady Crew, break-dancers O-Hashi and ISOPP of Japan, and New Style dancers Meech and Clara of France.

Check out the highlights from the 2008 OTS Hip Hop Dance Competition by clicking the links above.

-Lila