Top from left:By Nathan Johnston and Sarah Schwager
A YOUNG competition dance crew from Noble Park will represent Melbourne in the National Groove Finals in Sydney in October.
HiVoltage, a product of the City of Greater Dandenong’s youth services initiative Xcape, recently competed in the Melbourne Groove 2005 Urban Dance Battle in Essendon.
HiVoltage was one of 16 dance groups in the competition, and performed exceptionally well to qualify, according to Senior Youth Services worker at the City of Greater Dandenong Nick Karlas.
“They are relatively new to competing, so this is an amazing achievement for the group,” Mr Karlas said.
“They have faced so many odds along the way.”
HiVoltage was choreographed by Xcape teacher and fulltime dance student Sabrina Duchenne, 21.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Sabrina said. “You have to be really dedicated to do this. The girls did a lot of work at home in front of the mirror.”
Sabrina said the girls, all from the Greater Dandenong area, had performed exceptionally in the four and a half minute dance routine.
“They are so excited,” she said. “Some of them had never danced in front of an audience before.”
Mr Karlas said HiVoltage provided young people with a chance to experience the power of dance, build selfesteem and confidence, demonstrate great teamwork, belief and support in each other.
“They looked fantastic on stage. The night was huge, with over 700 spectators, and judges from some of Australia’s elite dance groups,” he said.
The group of nine spent months training for the event organising the electricity theme, music mix, costumes and dance practice.
Sabrina said they would have to raise funds to send the team to Sydney.
“We might perform places to raise money,” she said. “But we are still going no matter what. We hope money is not an issue.”
