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Freestylers show off their skills in one-on-one faceoffs

2010 alumnus Tom Nguyen performs a “hollow back.” Weekly “Friday Night Fights” take place outside Covel Commons at 10 p.m.

By Vikram Iyer

Nov. 5, 2010 12:23 a.m.

Blaine Ohigashi

Members of the Student Dance Collective compete in a series of dance rounds during weekly “Friday Night Fights” outside Covel Commons.

Blaine Ohigashi

Patrick Chang, second-year science student, lands an “air chair.”

Blaine Ohigashi

Gabe Arom, fourth-year bioengineering student, performs a “freeze.”

The two dancers circle each other slowly. The cheering crowd encircling them seems almost nonexistent. All they can hear is the beat of the music, matched by their racing hearts. Welcome to the “Friday Night Fights.”

“We like to say, the first rule of “˜Friday Night Fights’ is you don’t talk about “˜Friday Night Fights,’ you have to come and experience it,” said Kevin Le, president of Street Dance Collective (SDC) and third-year physiological sciences student.

Organized by SDC, “Friday Night Fights” is a weekly dance battle held at Covel Commons every Friday at 10 p.m. These battles consist of multiple one-on-one “fights.”

“Two people dance and take turns to try and one-up the other person and top the level of skill the other person brings to the table,” said Eric Shyong, second-year civil engineering student.

These “fights” consist of a series of rounds, with the winners of each individual battle moving on. A round usually consists of one song, with the number of songs increasing in the quarterfinals and finals.

“The point is to try and intimidate your opponent, in a sense, battle with dance moves,” said Jesse Hu, a first-year business economics student. “The point of battling is that you don’t need to fight with fists, but with dance.”

SDC hosted an expanded version of “Friday Night Fights” on Oct. 29, which they titled “Ultimate Showdown.”

“”˜Ultimate Showdown’ is a monthly event where we invite all UCLA dancers to join us at “˜Friday Night Fights,'” said fourth-year Design | Media Arts student Wesley Chou, who coined the name “Friday Night Fights” when he transferred from UC Merced last year. Groups like Nikkei Student Union, Association of Chinese Americans and Samahang Modern were invited to this event.

SDC welcomed the addition of other crews, as styles that weren’t normally present at the “Friday Night Fights” were dynamically introduced.

“It’s tough, I’m not going to lie,” said Patrick Chew, a second-year Design | Media Arts student and a representative of Samahang Modern. “SDC is based on freestyling, other teams are based on learning and doing choreography. So it’s not my comfort zone … (But) I really like it and I want to get better at it, especially because I’m on a choreo-based crew.”

One of the judges for the “Ultimate Showdown” was a UCLA alumnus, Aldrich Rivera. While attending UCLA, Rivera was a member of Samahang Modern and the Dance and Spirit Club. Now he has his own crew, Arigatou! Bboys, one of whose members, Perry Guerrero, won this year’s first “Ultimate Showdown” battle.

“I really liked (“˜Ultimate Showdown’). … Before, we used to just practice, and sometimes we wouldn’t progress as well … (but) if you enter a battle you’re forced to put your skills in front of everyone. … You’re forced to think of new things on the spot and try it out, and (in doing so) we learn our styles better and become better dancers,” Rivera said.

Another judge was Tom Nguyen, one of the founding members of SDC and winner of the Oct. 22 “Friday Night Fights.”

“(SDC) started because there was a small group of dancers at UCLA that would come dance and practice, but initially weren’t a really cohesive group. So I started meetings my third year so we could all meet together in one space to have an organized structure,” Nguyen said.

A large focus of SDC is to strengthen the dancing community. For anyone interested in learning how to dance, there are breaking and popping classes in Wooden Recreational Center every Tuesday from 9:15 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Le teaches the popping class, and SDC’s weekly meetings and sessions follow.

“My focus is sharing street dancing to the community and to help dancers express themselves … (SDC) simply seeks to learn and teach, to create a community, to become better dancers, and to spread the love,” Le said.

Anyone can learn how to dance, according to the members of SDC.
“Street dance is an umbrella term for dance styles that weren’t created in a studio … (and thus) most street dancers don’t have formal training,” Chou said.

The fact that street dancers’ “studios” are essentially any locales allows for rapid improvements.

“You just have to go out to the local scene, any open places … it’s always free, unless you need a gym membership or something,” Nguyen said.

According to the members of SDC, “Friday Night Fights” are the weekly highlight for the club, and they urge all students to come out and watch the “Fights.”

“We session through recession, it doesn’t matter what the condition, we’re on a mission, to boogie,” Nguyen said.

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Vikram Iyer
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