Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Hanmer hip hop

When we stayed in Hanmer Springs the other day (Hanmer, not Hamner, as I've always thought in the past) we came across a French family who are now living in NZ.  The older of their two children, a boy of around eight or nine, is training to do hip hop.  He's not what you might expect a hip hop dancer to be, somehow, but anyway, his ambition is to do well at it and make lots of money.  Of course.

One of the highlights of the TV show New Zealand's Got Talent is/was the Limit Break Dance Crew.  I've just watched their audition (I hadn't seen it the first time around) and it's a delight.  Their humour is one of their strong points, something that a few other hip hop dancers could pick up on.  Hip hop isn't just about muscle strength; it has to be something.  

It's annoying in the audition clip that the camera constantly cuts away from the dancers to the three judges.  Why do we constantly need to see these three smiling, or clapping, or laughing?  Fair enough in moderation, but the cuts continually break up the flow of the dancing and some of the best moments are missed.   You can see some of their dances in full on You Tube...and their progression.  They're vastly better and tighter in the Talent Show than they were earlier, but they've always had plenty of energy, obviously. There are a lot of videos on the Net relating to them, some better than others, and some could definitely do with some DJ lighting.  Nevertheless, this is a group to watch.

Back to Hanmer for a moment: how did it get such a peculiar spelling?  Well, it seems that the spelling isn't all that peculiar.  The site was named after Thomas Hanmer; there were several such gentlemen, Baronets ranging through the 16th to 18th century, so it's obviously a much better-known name that I thought.

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