Street Dance classes – 5 tips to help you to grow

by

What is Street Dance? For the short answer visit our post here where more than 10 street style dances are listed. In this post we’ll learn more about what street dance classes are actually teaching and 5 ways you can maximise your experience! Before we go on, you can fast forward to booking our classes … Read more

Breaking at the Olympics – New excitement for our scene?

by
Breaking at Paris Olympics 2024 confirmed!

It has just been confirmed on Monday December 7th that in 2024 we will officially see Breaking at the Olympics! For many, this is a reason to celebrate, but what might it mean for the worldwide bboy / bgirl scene at large? How did this happen? After ‘piloting’ Breakin’ at the 2018 Youth Olympics, the … Read more

Manifest Nation at ‘Two Two Steps’

by

Young bloods get busy at Two Two Steps!

Last month our Junior dancers from Manifest Nation performed at The Urban Dance School show, ‘Two Two Steps’! For five of them, it was their first show for MN and they definitely impressed. Company director, Damien, hosted the show, and it was a great occasion to reunited with one of our long-time partner companies. Enjoy these shots from the event!

  • That Wu tang goodness at Two Two steps
  • The cast of Two Two steps
  • The guvnor, Tin, gets down at Two Two steps
  • The joy of waacking at Two Two steps
  • It's a limbo ting at Two Two Steps

An evolution for Manifest Nation

This show was special for our junior dancers as 5 of the 6 of them had never performed for Manifest Nation before. We’d held auditions only 4 weeks prior and the opportunity to perform was a great way to sharpen minds.

The training in the lead up to this event was a bit of a baptism of fire for some of our young artists. Some had never performed before and some had no real knowledge of hiphop form. A couple of our youngsters initially felt that training was like any other dance class, but it was important to straighten that idea quickly, ha.

We used a mix of choreography which included the piece from their audition, a piece from a competition earlier this year and some other new and old material. It was important for us that the youngsters performed pieces with different energetic feelings and moods.

This experience at Two Two steps became a springboard for a summer of events for our young artists. With most going on to secondary school in September, we plan to be a solid part of their evolution. While undergoing a lot of changes, it’s important for us they can take comfort from their experience with MN. Growing up as a teen in this era is harder than ever, so we are fortunate to have dance. Stay tuned to Manifest Nation page here on our website to to stay up to date of where we’re appearing next.

Sarah gets busy at Two Two Steps

‘Inspirational Work in Education’ Award! Nominate us

by
Nominate us for One Dance UK award

After 15 years in education, B-Better has a chance to be recognised officially for our adventures! One Dance UK, the national body for dance, have opened nominations for their 2019 awards across all sectors of the dance industry, and our category is ‘Inspirational Work in Education’. If you’d like to vote for us, please click … Read more

TinMan’s Birthday Battle! Join on May 9th 2019!

by

Join us at Tinman’s Birthday Battle To celebrate the birthday of B-Better director, Damien, we’re throwing our first ever dance battle! Tinman’s Birthday battle is oooon. On the evening of May 9th at the newly refurbished Favela nightclub in Camden, attendees can compete in 1 vs 1 breakin’ and 2 vs 2 All styles, with … Read more

Archie Burnett Old Way Vogue Workshop – In Pictures

by

Archie’s Workshop

Last month we hosted a workshop with Grandfather of The Iconic House of Ninja in Old Way voguing. Here are some pictures from the evening with Archie Burnett! Archie’s workshop was co-curated with Nik from Sports Promotions.

Archie's workshop

Vibes on vibes at Archie's workshop

There are not many pictures or public videos from Archie’s workshop as the man has strict rules. He requires that the artists are present in mind AND body when at his class. This ensures higher engagement with the theories presented and prevents Youtube dancers from thinking they can learn from video. We fully credit Uncle Archie for this stance. *Applauds*

Thank you all for joining us, and stay tuned for our upcoming workshops later this year, where we plan to go bigger!

Thoughts on workshops

Something we have observed from personal experience is losing what is learnt at a workshop. Even with an amazing dancer and teacher like Archie, it’s important to try and retain information learnt in class. Often we can get caught up in the hype of training with iconic teachers, but we must remember what we can gain

A method to address is this is, instead of socialising after the event, video yourself doing all the techniques that you can remember. This way, the things that resonated will show up best on the video.

Another way is to keep a dance book. Any small notepad with some organisation and hand-drawn diagrams will help train more effectively.

We will expand on these theories and more in a special post about effective training, but at least this is food for thought. The benefits of attending Archie’s workshop were that you got to dance with a truly knowledgable artist. Artists like Archie have learned a LOT in their time, and luckily, we don’t have to live all those years to gain the knowledge. In an era such as this where we can actually meet our icons and contact them more easily than before, it pays to have a plan.

Manifest Nation at The National Theatre! (Gallery)

by

The National Theatre call in Manifest Nation!

We are super-proud to announce that our squad, Manifest Nation, were special invited guests to perform at the National Theatre this week in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Pericles. This is an unprecedented honour for our company and it took time to sink in!

Emily Lim, director of the project, came to see us at a training session, and was immediately hooked . Although we have a lot of talent at Manifest Nation, when someone from outside the community appreciates you, it resonates.

Asked to create a waacking-influenced piece, the guys workshopped a number of ideas and created a truly explosive piece. They adopted the role of a race they called ‘Thanetians’, who could be recognised by their gold outfits, regal mannerisms and hand gestures. The phrase ‘Thanetians’ was a take on our group’s training home, The Thanet.

It was an easy call to make!

Damien, with help from Angelika, created some work we had never explored in this way and the characterisation of our artists had to be on point.

Below is a program which Tinman attempted to get signed by several other guest groups including The London Bulgarian Choir, Acension Eagles Cheerleading team and Archetype Dance Company. The bulk of the cast was made up of non-professionals from around London. The heartbeat of this motivation was called Public Acts. Part of the magic of this production was working with such a diverse cast.

Pericles received 4 and 5 star reviews in a number of publications including:

The Times

The Independent

Radio Times

What’s On Stage

The Guardian

MN on stage at National Theatre

We hope you will enjoy these images of the process, backstage and the performance. Look out for more MN projects across the year calendar! 

Solid as gold at the National Theatre

Our signed program from the Pericles cast at National Theatre

From all of us here on planet Thanet, we wish you a golden day! #MNAllday

No Tears Left To Cry – Manifest Nation (video)

by
No tears left to cry shoot day!

Our pro squad, Manifest Nation, just released their summer video entitled, ‘No More Tears’. This piece choreographed to Ariana Grande’s ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ by T Damien Anyasi, features Angelika and Mok as our feature characters. We also introduce new faces Esme, Alexandra, Macaulay and Marcella in their first video with the squad. The … Read more