Tutting - Just Sharing

Hey Guys

Some of you have expressed that I should do a tutting workshop on a Saturday or something, because some of you would be willing to learn the style and come to the class. I considered it as a possibility for the coming semester, but no, I am not going to be doing anything of the sort and this is because 1. I don’t know enough about the style 2. I am not very good at the style 3. I have no teaching experience to address a class 4. I would probably need around 3 to 4 classes to teach you everything I would like to and 5. It would way too much effort (not to teach the class but to plan it) and I’m just too lazy.

So what I’ve decided to do is give you the fundamentals that I learnt from, from when I started out, and I often revisit these foundations. By doing this I am not claiming that I am a good tutter, honestly if you gathered all the tutters in England and put them in line of what we consider good to the worst I would probably be somewhere near the “worst” section of the line if not right at the worst, all I want to do is give you guys that have an interest in the style the foundations that I learnt from. I am doing this because I am aware that at the society we don’t really have a teacher who teaches just Tutting, sure we have teachers who use it in their routines but the history and concepts are never fully expressed and explained, something I would like to have a go at right now....

My knowledge of tutting is this: it came about when people started looking at the hieroglyphics of ancient Egyptian tombs and it is these positions in the hieroglyphics that have been adopted by dancers to build the foundations of the style. It is seen that Tutting is a branch from Popping nowadays and apparently King Tut aka Mark Benson is widely acclaimed for pioneering the style. (Although this could be wrong, and if anyone has other information about the history of tutting, get in touch, it would an interesting to find out more.)//The Best Video’s that I learnt from/am still learning from:

I find these video’s really helpful for learning separate moves and thinking about how each move can be linked together. This way you are able to make up your own sets for your freestyles. 

Things to consider when you have learnt a move and want to make it your own:

·         Change of Levels

·         Changing the speed of a move

·         Doing the move backwards

·         Making the move Dynamically bigger/smaller

·         Moving one arm at a time

·         Moving whilst doing it

·         Making it funny (Facial expressions and Using your head to add a different Dynamic)

·         Adding other concepts to the move like, Dime stops, Popping, Slow Motion and Strobbing 

(These are all the things, that I do when I want to mix up a move and make it my own, I constantly thinking about each move that I learn to try and adapt it and change it in a different way, it’s just a shame that I haven’t nearly enough time to practice. When I say “move” I am not only talking about tutting a lot of these things can be considered within any style and any move.)

Tutting Routines:

These guys are dope and I get a lot of ideas from them so I thought I’ll share. If you’re interested in tutting I would advise you learn as many routines from the internet as possible because there are quite honestly thousands of them. But after you learn a routine, stop, think, “how can I make this better?” “How can I link this to what I’ve already got?” 

Personal Note:

I don’t think there is anything wrong with learning off videos from youtube. It is the largest pool of information we have, so let’s use it. I would also like to thank all the Dancers that taught me this style, given me tips and advice about this style, so Thank You, Angga Kara, Pierre Lafayette-Marsh, Kenny “Fresno” and Vignesh ‘Vigz’ Murali. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

Peace Out, Stay Funky

Timothy Bei 

Secretary  

BeatCity

Hey guys your secretary of 2010/2011 here, sorry that I haven't been blogging since the beginning of the year. But I will be writing more follow up blogs to summarise the events that have taken place, but firstly, an event that certainly deserves a blog of it owns is the Street Dance Competition - BeatCity  host by ourselves that took place at Embrace on the 11/12/2010. If you didn’t attend then, I’m sorry to say but, you’re a square.

On the day we had University of Sheffield, Keele University, Sunderland University, University of West England, University of Hertfordshire and of course ourselves Sheffield Hallam University all involved in the competition. The competition started off with a storm as the Beginners Competition began with a bang from Sunderland, Keele and Hallam taking part. Keele University took the title displaying clear quality in the categories that the judges were looking for. 

Then came our intermission with our Bboy Dance Battle, out of all the Bboys it came to two of our own representatives from Sheffield in the final, Daniel Phung and Hung Van Nguyen which lasted 4 rounds only to have Hung aka Bboy Hero take the prize. Next we had performances from Sheffield Hallam’s Belly Dancing Society, Dames De Serpent Urban Jokers and QMX and the first Half of our Freestyle battle. 

Afterwards came the Advance competition; Sunderland University were the first to perform, who displayed an innovative school theme, that made me think of Save by the bell whilst using tracks that clearly depicted their routine. Hertfordshire took the stage next with their precision and power, nothing was short of impressive. Hallam’s talent was clearly shown from our advanced them, who portrayed a casual club scene that showed all the hard work that they had put into the routine, which provided for an explosive performance. University of West England’s choreography was strongly executed and gave a different dynamic to what we had seen. But last and not least it was University of Sheffield turn to enter the spotlight, they made great use of their arsenal of dancers, including great examples of levels, acrobatics, a solo performance and good team togetherness. All the performances were fantastic but there could only be one winner and that winner was the rivals of the hosts, it was University of Sheffield who took the title this day. 

 The day concluded with the finale of the Freestyle battle, which a member of QMX claimed and a surprise performance from QMX themselves. To summarise the day was DOPE!!! We had supportive posts and great comment over Facebook, people actually came up to me and said £3 entry was too cheap for this kind of event and it just brings a huge smile to my face remembering that day, that all the planning, training and stress was all worth it in the end. What I personally found incredibly amazing from the day from a dance perspective is the diversity and creativity that every university brought, which was then placed under one roof and maybe just maybe we were all given a chance to hang out in a club with the possible future generation of leading dancers here in England.  

Timothy Bei 

Photography by Daniel Levy

more photos can be found at our Facebook book fan page here and if you are interested in getting more information from us please add our group page here.

Soyo and Embrace

This year Sheffield Hallam Street and Break dance Society are in agreement with Superclub Embrace and Bar Soyo. Our whole committee is very excited to be in agreement with both of these great venues.

Soyo will provide us with free YO cards for all members, a number of drink deals throughout the year on set nights our society uses the premises Our society members will also get free Yo bar and booth hire dependent on availability. We will also receive guest list and entry on any night of the week. 

Embrace are allowing us to use their space to train from 10 am – 4 pm during their office hours and for any events we might want to hold throughout the year. Also every member with a valid membership card is entitled to a £2.50 entry before 12.15am on any Monday night and possible drinks discounts.

Timothy Bei

Overview and Last Year's Accomplishments

Sheffield Hallam Street and Break-dance Society 

2009 – 2010 Hallam’s Best Society!

The last academic year was a great year for Sheffield Hallam Street and Break-dance Society. The society won Best Society at Hallam and Best Event for our Live, Laugh, Love, Dance show. Our performance took place at Library Theatre and raised around £900 for the Sheffield Children’s Charity. The event was a collaborative one, which the Salsa Society, Belly Dancing Society, Cheerleading Society and local Demolition Dance Crew (DDC) also took part. The night was a great success and everyone agreed that it was all worth the extra hours of practice we had put in. 

However, this wasn’t the only event we took part in. We volunteered to freestyle at our Universities International Week, performed at the Hubs to show our support for the Volunteers at the university’s Hats off to Volunteers Event and the Society collaborated again with the Cheerleading Society to compete at the annual Sheffield Varsity Competition, which Hallam University ended up winning by two points. We had also represented our university at Loughborough Dance competition for the first time last year.

Our links had also improved over the course of 2009 to 2010, we now have established links with Twisted Elements Entertainment, who are the leading supplier of entertainment and nightlife solutions to the leisure and corporate industries both in the UK and Internationally. We have also enhanced our links locally with three more of our members Benoit Cordier, Martyn Mclaughlin and Kirsty Allen dancing at Players Sports Bar, West Street. We now have a total of five members working at Players, along with the three mentioned we have two teachers working there, Pierre Lafayette-Marsh and Angga Kara.

All of the teachers have a vast amount of experience but Pierre Lafayette-Marsh and Sinead Burke are two of the teachers that you will most likely have heard of. Pierre (our Creative Hip Hop/ Freestyle teacher) and his dance partner together known as the Urban Jokers were Semi – finalists on Move like Michael Jackson BBC 3. Sinead, who teaches Lyrical Hip Hop, got all the way through to the finals of Nike Danceclash and she was in the top 100 dancers and made it down to the final 48 in the dance competition So You Think You Can Dance on BBC 1. Nathan Geering, the society’s Breaking teacher, was an original cast member for Jonzi D's hiphop theatre show "TAG: Me vs the City.” Last but by no means least is Angga our Old School teacher, has taken part in a numerous festivals including the Edingborough Festival and the Liverpoool Brouhaha Festival. Also he has performed for the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and received two thumbs up from Paul McCartney.

This society provides an excellent opportunity to fulfil your dancing potential and make new friends in the process. We welcome all experience levels of dancers to those of you who want to try something new and start up a new hobby, to those of you who have been dancing for a long time. We have the best teachers who specialise in and deliver great classes for Creative Hip Hop, Breaking, Popping, Locking, House and Lyrical Hip Hop. Our experienced teachers are extremely good at breaking down each routine for each individual so you never feel out of your depth. 

Those already at the society as well as the Committee members all vary in ability and style, so we help each other out in class and make each session easy going and most of all fun! We hold classes on Mondays, Breaking is at 6pm – 7pm, Creative Hip Hop/ Freestyle class 7pm – 8pm and on Thursday 6pm – 7pm we have Old School, then the Lyrical Hip Hop class is straight after, 7pm – 8pm. If you would like more information add us on facebook or contact us on hallam_breakers@hotmail.co.uk. We hope to see you there.

Timothy Bei

Illustration by George Law