Likith Achaiah and Shawn Mendes choreograph their moves before the photo shoot. Then they launch into dance. They jump off the floor, they bend, twist, turn and do hand-stands on the floor and finally jump off pillars on the terrace.
Meet the two boys who will battle it out at the Red Bull BC One National Cypher, which will be held on June 13 in Mumbai. So how did the two of them get hooked on to B-boying also called as breaking or break dancing?
Likith says he was introduced to the form by a classmate while he was in class nine.
“I was into Bollywood dancing and would do many stunts at home – breaking not my bones but stuff at home,” he laughs and adds: “This boy demonstrated this dance and was looking to build a team. I told him I could do head-stands and that’s how I got into it.”
Though Likith was “fascinated” with the form it was only in college that he took to b-boying seriously. “That’s where I met Naser and we started the Black Ice Crew.” Shawn on the other hand is the quieter of the two.
This 19-year-old hails from Goa and came to Bangalore to fulfil his dream of becoming a B-boying dancer.
“I started off with my elder brother. I did not like dancing initially, but later seeing my brother and other groups I learned slowly. I decided to get into b-boying with Black Ice and have been with this crew ever since.”
Likith works in an IT firm through the week and “looks forward to breaking on the weekends. Both lifestyles are so different. But my job supports me to keep my breaking going.”
Shawn on the other hand is not so lucky. The youngster is all by himself, studying, teaching dance and managing to pay his own bills as his parents are not very “supportive”.
Though they practice for hours in every battle they get to dance for a minute at a stretch. “It is very challenging,” says Likith. “It is more like a battle; the venue is not a stage, rather in a public space. “It is not like a stage performance. It is a battle through dance. B-boying is a mix of a lot of things. The form draws its inspiration from styles like karate, aerial moves and so on. You are upside down most of the time and you don’t even know where the centre of gravity is most of the time,” explains Likith, who has even trained Puneet Raj Kumar for his Kannada film Jackie where Likith and Naser can be seen in one particular song, which has b-boying in it. “We trained him for a month.” The boys now look forward to the Red Bull BC contest and if they win, they will go into the international competition.
For more log on to www.redbullbcone.com
