Pelican Park resident Nashwin Davids wants to use his experience in dance and the opportunities he has been given through dance, to open doors for others.
Nashwin, who has been dancing for 13 years represented South Africa at the Krump World Championships in Germany in 2012, achieving a spot in the top four.
Now he wants to help send somebody new from the community to “represent the country and to pick up from where I left off and to do even better than what I did”.
According to Wikipedia krump is a street dance style popularised in the United States, characterised by free, expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movement. The youths who started krump saw the dance as a way for them to escape gang life and to release anger, aggression and frustration in a non-violent way.
Krump was created by two dancers: Ceasare “Tight Eyez” Willis and Jo’Artis “Big Mijo” Ratti in South Central, Los Angeles during the early 2000s.
Nashwin said he started dancing while he was a pupil at South Peninsula High School, in Diep River.
He said the opportunity to go overseas came about when Tight Eyez, one of the creators of krump, came to South Africa to scout for talent. “I was one of five dancers from South Africa chosen to enter the competition in Germany and I came third after lots of battles.”
He is currently doing his Master’s in Business at CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology) but “I would like to use my business skills to form a platform for youth who are interested in competing”, he said.
Nashwin also teaches krumping at what he calls Buckology classes, in areas such as Parkwood and Hout Bay.
He said his experience overseas taught him that there is “a lot more out there”.
“I would love to share that experience and give back to the community.”
The competition he is organising, called The Dungeon, will take place at RLabs Cafe in Fifth Avenue, Retreat, Saturday August 25, from 3.30pm to 7pm. The tickets cost R100 each and proceeds will go towards a flight for the winner to go to Germany. For details, call 071 810 7783 or email nashwindavids@gmail.com