In March, hip-hop dance crew 9M5 took to the Hart House Theatre stage in the final freestyle round of U of T’s first Urban Dance Competition. Battling against two remaining crews, 9M5 locked and popped to Justin Bieber’s “No Sense” – and their sharp formation and expressive personalities snagged them the win. “They just killed it in freestyling,” says Kangbin Zhou, president of Urban Dance Revolution (the U of T club that put on the event) and a PhD student in pharmacology.
Five teams made up of U of T students competed in the event. Similar to the TV show So You Think You Can Dance, audience members and a panel of judges were involved in the voting.
Although the crews’ perfected routines may have looked seamless, the training was long and arduous. Getting the formation precise – everyone in perfect sync – in a hip-hop crew is the tricky part, says Zhou: “About one second [of performance] equals one hour of training or more.”
Watch: U of T’s first Urban Dance Competition:
Recent Posts
Hyperloop Explained
A new transportation technology could zip you from Toronto to Montreal in 45 minutes. We took a peek under the hood
To Make Cities Sustainable, We Need to Rethink Almost Everything
For years, we’ve been told to lower the thermostat and drive less. It hasn’t worked
Building Better Cities
How a global hub of urban thinkers could bring tangible improvements to the lives of millions of people
