It is always so inspiring to hear journeys and stories of Asian Australians who are doing awesome things – this is one of them. Street dancing is actually a sport/dance form which Asians in Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and China love and excel in and this love and passion is mirrored in Australia among Asian Australians.
So what is it all about?
Street dance is an umbrella term for a large number of social dance styles such as: breakdancing, popping, locking, house dance, waacking, voguing, etc. Social dance styles have many accompanying steps and foundations, created organically from a culture, a moment in time, a way of life, influenced by natural social interaction.
Breakdancing which is a street dancing style was popularised by the recent 2024 Paris Olympics, and for Aussies it introduced the world to Raygun… yes her.
Anyways, moving away from that, Asian Australian street dancers – Beverley Li and Tiffany Nung and others formed their own dance crew Oh Sheila and will be performing at the upcoming Street Dance Festival Intersections held by FORM Dance Projects.
Before we get into the interview if you are interested, please get your tickets! Oh Sheila will be performing tonight (Friday 29th and tomorrow Saturday 30th) at the Lennox at Riverside Theatres- Parramatta.
Street dancing plays an important part of the lives of Li and Nung. Both have full time 9-5/6 jobs and practice their forms of street dancing as an after work and spare time thing. Their passion and dedication shines through when both spoke about how important street dancing is for them and fulfilling their lives.
For Nung street dancing in the styles of popping, hip hop and others are her specialty. Nung found belonging with street dancing after being told her body type wasn’t suitable for dance forms like ballet – which was what she trained for as a young girl.
“I always felt out of place in in ballet, because of my body type and being told I was not small enough for it etc. One day my mum took me to a hip hop class and I felt this was it- because it didn’t matter what you looked like and it was all about self expression through this dance form. Being a street dancer, I am able to be myself and I enjoy the music that comes with it”.
“There is so much I want to learn from street dancing with all the other styles I haven’t trained for yet, and its so flexible, because if you feel stuck in on style there are many other styles you can try”, Nung passionately expressed in a recent interview with Being Asian Australian.
Li echoed similar reasons to what Nung spoke of when talking about why getting into street dancing was important to them and added that for her it was about the community and creating bonds and friendships with others that drew her to this vocation.
“I am slightly different to Tiffany in that I have no classical dance training background. I started with popping and what drew me was how driven those training in this style were to do their best. I remember when I was younger and seeing other young people practice different styles of street dancing in public and thought this was something I wanted to try”.
“Street dancing is all about community building because as you train in it you start forming relationships with people in the community. It has also allowed me to be more creative which I love”, Li stated.
As stated earlier, both Nung and Li are part of the all Asian Australian and female lead street dance crew Oh Sheila. What a unique name for the crew. Li spoke about how they came together to form an be part of this crew.
“So originally, there was an event (ages ago) and it was a popping battle. Both Tiff, myself and our other crew member Ash were doing popping and meeting each other we thought – wow we are all young women in this scene and doing something together would be so amazing -so we threw the “Oh Sheila” crew together.
“There is a popular popping sing in our community called “Oh Sheila”, and we thought to ourselves – “let’s call our crew “Oh Sheila”, and really that is how it all came about”.
The routines performed by Oh Sheila are inspired by their Asian cultural heritage and upbringing. It was interesting to hear Nung discuss how they intertwine this in their routines.
“It is interesting because pursuing a dance career and one which is called street dancing is such a deviation from the traditional expectation of being part of an Asian family. So pursuing this is our way of exploring who we are as Asian Australians and this i reflected in the story behind our routines”.
“Demonstrating our Asian identity is not just about the physical moves, but its also about our motivations and our usage of time and space to show how our upbringing had bought us together and to love street dancing”.
Finally, the topic of how street dancing as a performance art and as a sport intersects was discussed. Both Li and Nung acknowledged that the both do intersect because it all stems from the training and creativity of the performer.
Li sees this intersection as something which makes street dancing unique. Street dancing, where choreographed is also spontaneous like it is as a sport and relies on the training, fitness and skills of the performer.
“I think it is really just the mindset of how you go into these spaces that matters most. In competition, you are judged against other people, so it is about making yourself stand out. In the performance space, it is more open because you are not being “officially judged” – however in saying that for both it requires self expression, strategies and tactics – so I think this is how the sport and performance space intersects”, Li mentioned.
Nung sees both as using the same skills but it is just the sport and the performance art of street dancing is packaged differently.
“Whether you are doing it competitively or as a performance art, it is all about how you package it to the judges and/or audience. Even those doing street dancing in public spaces add their own strategies and tactics and it is really a very accessible form of dance”.
“One thing I do also want to add is that even though it is such an accessible dance form, when it comes to competitions and performance art, there are barriers to entry. Especially as a sport – because it cost money to go overseas to compete, and in Australia there isn’t a lot of sponsorship for this going around”.
If you are able to attend Intersections, please click here or go to https://riversideparramatta.com.au/whats-on/intersections-street-dance-x-theatre/. You can follow Oh Sheila, and go here for the link: https://www.instagram.com/ohsheila.syd/.
This is an interesting side of being Asian Australian, so we will definitely dig deeper into this space!
Images provided.