By: Sandile Zikhali

Dance was the theme as crews battled it out on stage at the Bat Centre for the Red Bull Beat Battle competition.

Music lovers and dancers came flooding to the Bat Centre on Saturday for the 3^rd Annual Red Bull Beat Battle competition.  The event proved to be a success, unlike the previous years where only a few people would attend it.

“This is a one day event, and we are expecting a lot of crews to come through.  So far we have 15 crews who are registered.  This a regional qualifying stage where the qualifying crew will go through to the next stage and represent KwaZulu-Natal for the national finals,” said Chris Goldman who is the event organizer.

Vukile Mbatha and Lindokuhle Pieterson, both 19 years old, who are members of the hip hop group called God’s Very Own (GVO) had an intention of entering for the competition.  “We didn’t know this was a dance competition, we thought this was a singing competition.  Unfortunately we thought wrong. But at least we will get a chance to watch,” Vukile said.

One of the groups stole the hearts of the crowd and had the house in roars and cheers. The Simplex Dancers which is made up of six boys who are between the ages of 10 to 13 years old from KwaMashu left the crowd impressed with their “Bhenga” and Durban dance routine. 

CAME FOR WAR: The Warrior Knights dance crew came out guns blazing with their gravity defying moves and dance routine. Pictures by: Sandile zikhali

“These young boys have been doing this for a year now they have performed in a number of shows around KwaMashu and the feedback we get from the crowd is always positive,” said Ntuthuko Khumalo who is a manager and the choreographer for the young boys.

The judges had a difficult task of determining who would go through to represent the province in the national finals. “The energy was crazy and the only thing that concerns me is the number of the groups, we need more. We are going to look at the scorecards and decide who goes through,” said Sello Modiga who was a judge on that day.