Firstly, this is a very sentimental and extremely unhappy article.

It's about the undesirable state of the street dance culture in Tainan.

Back in the older days, when our pioneers of Tainan worked hard to promote street dance,

not many were willing to join in and help.

Now that times have changed, with strong influences from TV media and movies,

the street dance scene in Taiwan is way much better than what it used to be 10 years ago.

However, I would like to say, to all the dancers in Tainan,

in a city of poor condition like ours,

with 3 dance studios that took great efforts to run, and also so many professional crews...

Why aren't you cherishing what you have?

(list of the 3 dance studios in Tainan)

1 ID無限舞蹈休閒館

2. 美思表演藝術中心

3. DANCE MOTION舞勢能

these 3 dance studios tried really hard to promote dance,

and pushed tainan's street dance scene to be comparable to Taipei as well as foreign cities'.

but what's exasperating is, the studio owners have many troubles and the dancers faced many problems.

all the efforts that they put in to organise events, hiring dance instructors from all over the country as well as from overseas,

working so hard to provide everyone an easy path to learn dance,

so that everyone wouldn't have to travel far to take dope classes....

and then?

Many people thought that, just because they've danced for many years,

they can afford to stop learning. And that's very undesirable.

Many people does not have the right mindset, attitude,

with no knowledge of the history and origins of the dance,

and just dancing aimlessly. what have you truly learnt? just purely moves!

do you know what move is that? why is it done that way? what is it called?

who invented it? if you don't even know all that, how could u know the way to dance better?

See.

How many people can continue learning dance even after they graduate from their schools? They stop learning to pursue other things, more rational things, like money.

How far can dance take you?

How many people actually succeed in making dance their careers?

Cannot blame people for stopping one!

Because, they took a step back, and they thought of their own futures.

I know history and origin is important for any kind of art form, helps you understand things better, know why you're doing this and how it came to exist.

But ultimately, why do you dance?

Coz your body just moves to the music, simple as that!

It feels good!

Do you even have to have an aim when you dance?

Just enjoy the moment!

to me, not knowing what you are learning and the culture of what you do,

is just the same as MTV dances - copying and imitating continually,

without a story of your own to tell, feelings to really express, and dancing without your own soul...

it's just pure imitation of body movements.

think about it, are you even dancing?

secondly, YOUTUBE is NOT EVERYTHING.

to all of you, Youtube is for you to see the progress of dance nowadays,

and many people have improved because of this.

it's not a main channel for you to learn from,

as Youtube does not teach you what's mindset, attitude, self-confidence, and personal style.

of course, what you see might be routines or sets that have been practised millions of times.

although many people say that copying is the best way to learning, which i slightly agree,

i still feel that many people are not using the videos purely as references.

they just simply "ctrl + c" & "ctrl + v" to duplicate.

isn't that twisting the purpose of watching videos for reference?

some people even think that they don't need to go watch competitions,

and don't have to go for lessons,

because these competitions will always be posted on Youtube for everyone to watch.

To people who think this way, I can only say that you're most stupid and foolish.

This is why you always can't qualify through auditions,

forever not knowing what you missed out from the classes,

not able to attain the knowledge and mindset that you can never get from videos.

Why is it that others are always winning, while you are always losing...

Why don't you just stay through the event to see for yourself what you can learn from the dancers?

point number 3: why do we need to spend money on dance?

many people would ask, why should we spend money to learn how to dance?

it's simple. a dance instructor would have spent years to learn and practise,

accumulating countless experience from competitions.

didn't they spend money on competitions and classes too? of course they did!

since they spent so much time and money to learn what they have learnt,

would they teach everything to you for free???

don't you need to pay to learn for any other arts?

piano, professional dance, drawing, music, do u get to learn all for free???

and why do dancers teach? it's not always because of just money;

many dancers teach for the sake of spreading the knowledge of the dance.

what you pay for the class is merely a token sum for the dancer...

if you don't go for classes, how do you improve and be different from others?

not everyone's a rich ass kid who can spend money any o how on dancing.

as much passion as they have,

if their money limits them.

what can they do?

i'm one of them.

we're poor okay.

we don't have truckloads of money to spend on dance classes.

we even have trouble settling our own meals. how to spend on this kind of unnecessary things?

youtube is a next best alternative for me.

without youtube, i won't be where i am today.

if dancers don't teach for money, who wants to consider it as their career.

point number 4: a deteriorating scene in school clubs.

many schools have dance clubs, which provides a place for students to learn dance conveniently.

however, sad to say, most students do not respect their clubs and take things for granted.

since most students get to learn for free,

they don't train seriously enough and are not putting in effort during classes by instructors.

most students would rather practise on their own, only to seek for help when they couldn't find a breakthrough.

otherwise, they would just simply give up on dance.

it's sad that they are not doing justice to the opportunity given to them.

some people would even ask:"where can i learn dance for free?"

and the reply would be:"oh you can go to this school/place,

ask them to teach you or slowly get to know them, they will teach you"

well i found that funny!

back to the problem about the school clubs.

if the seniors don't lead their juniors well, how can the club have a better future,

and provide a better learning environment for future juniors?

why people want to learn for free?

coz they no money what!

initially, hip hop also started from the streets, you teach me, i teach you.

it's the commercialization of this DANCE that made the money possible.

if ppl don't put in effort during school trainings then this is their own business right.

coz they don't know how to treasure FREE CLASSES LIKE THESE.

too much money.

point number 5: bad behaviour by dancers

most dancers do not clean up the rubbish that they leave behind at events,

or the places that they practised at.

this will often leave a very bad impression of dancers!

how do you expect people to continue to support dancers,

when we do not do our part to be morally responsible?

who will provide us venues if we don't clean up?

how will parents allow their kids to learn dance,

seeing that dancers are irresponsible people?!

i agree with this one lah. and many points above. too lazy to comment. but this one i must say something.

it was extremely disappointing after floor the love this year.

rubbish and bottles everywhere on the floor.

bubble tea spilt nobody bothered to clean.

pearls made the floor sticky.

oh. and drink bottles on top of equipment boxes that are out of sight. =.=

also, many people lack respect and manners nowadays.

if you see fellow dancers at a session, at least say hi or even just nod at them!

don't pretend that you didn't see them.

there are even people who don't greet the senior dancers!

we always preach about respect, but who really respect for real?

last but not least,

I will always believe in my own motto -

"DANCE IS NOT JUST DANCE. ALWAYS CARRY A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO PASS ON THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE AND MENTALITY."

even though i'm not dope, i'm not rich,

i will still be responsible for what i do and who i am.

so since you've made your choice (to dance), you gotta work hard.

otherwise, i advise you to quit, and find something that you really love to do.

don't waste years of time, only to find yourself back at square one.

i hope we can all work hard together and help to change our dance scene to be a better one!

PEACE

TAINAN B-BOY

KENNY

Translation by CeeKay (:

I think.

Richness is a relative concept.

HE says he's not rich.

But he can afford dance classes and stuffs?

Look at who's poor.

Hip Hop dancers were poor.

Look how far they went.

COMMERCIALIZATION of dance made it for the rich.

those points on morality, respect, humility i fully agree with the dude.

but seriously.

youtube and everywhere, i respect and treasure all avenues of learning and do whatever that is within my means to improve.

be it copy paste AND EDIT.

Better than sit there and do nothing.