NZ Team Off To Serbia For World Hip Hop Champs

Tuesday 22nd May 2007

Mt Albert born triplets Jo, Danica and Kelly Aitken have been hip hop dancing together for only two months and have already qualified for a world championship.

The 25-year-olds, who have competed in aerobics for 13 years at international level, made the switch to hip hop when they joined forces with four members of the Otara based, World Silver Medallist hip hop crew Dziah about six weeks ago.

The group qualified for the World Championships at the New Zealand nationals held in Hamilton last weekend, which will be held in Serbia in October.

Jo Aitken, who works as an architect, said it was a rush putting a routine together in only six weeks.

“We knew it was really tight to get ready for nationals,” Ms Aitken said.

“But we got great feedback from the judges afterwards and now we can go away and have more time to prepare for Serbia.”

The group, which does not yet have an official name, will adopt a new routine for the world championship.

“There’s no reason why we can’t potentially win in October,” Ms Aitken said.

Although the triplets who are also known as JDK, are fairly new to street hip hop, their experience in gymnastics, aerobics and other forms of dance have helped them considerably. For the last 10 years, JDK have danced at a professional level under choreographers from around the world. Kelly also spent eight months of 2005/2006 living in France where she danced with a top, professional French Hip Hop Dance Company. JDK have also been asked to dance in an Urban Dance Show on Broadway in New York which begins in 2008.

JDK have also been representing New Zealand in Sports Aerobics internationally since 1996. They are World medalists, and have 10 National titles to their name.

“Hip hop is a very physical form of dance so our background in aerobics and acrobatics helps,” she said.

“But it’s also different because we can be a lot freer with our bodies, so it takes a while to get used to that. Plus there are heaps of tricks we’re still learning.”

The sisters became interested in hip hop in 2005 after they saw an international event held in LA straight after the aerobics world championships. They have always loved dancing and see it as a way to create positive change.

“Hip hop is becoming increasingly popular and it has so many dimensions to it, so much potential,” said Ms Aitken. “It can become a strong vehicle for communication, inspiration and education.”

There is however more to life for JDK than just hip hop, outside of dance and sport the three all live incredibly busy lives, having all previously received double university degrees, Danica with a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce, Kelly with a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Science and Joanna with 2 degrees in Architecture.

Danica works as the New Zealand Marketing Manager for Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices, Jo as an Architect for Jasmax Architecture and Kelly runs her own training academy, Achieve Academy of Sport and Fitness, which specialises in elite sport training and corporate training programs. Inspired by the huge popularity of hip hop dance, Kelly's company has just expanded into the hip hop domain through Achieve Hip Hop, an up and coming hip hop dance school based in Central Auckland.

The three hope to use their diverse background and impressive skill set as vehicles for inspiring and motivating New Zealanders to go out there and achieve their own dreams.

Danica says “Our underlying premise is simple, we genuinely believe if you can dream it, you can achieve it. You just need to work out where you would like to go, what you would like to achieve and understand how you can empower yourselves to get there. As cliché as it may sound, the sky really is the limit.”

The team who are currently lucky enough to be supported by the very cool Xbox 360™, Nike and train at the Health and Sports gym in Kingsland, Auckland, are looking for funding/sponsorship and support to get their team to Serbia for the World Championships in October and the Australasian Championships in Melbourne, Australia in September. They will need to find around $40,000 to get the team to Europe and around $8,000 to get to team to Australia to make any of this possible.

The World Hip Hop Championships are being held in conjunction with the World Sports Aerobics and Fitness Teams Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, October 2007.

The city of Belgrade and FISAF are very proud and excited to host an international FISAF event for the first time in history. Local Organizing Committee is focused to exceed all expectations of the World Championships in 2007 which will be held from 15. to 21. October in the EXPO XXI International expocentre, Belgrade.

http://www.fisaf-wcs-belgrade2007.com/home.php

To arrange for interviews, photos, routine footage, live media performance:

Please contact: Danica Aitken NZ Hip Hop Team i-daaitk@microsoft.com

ENDS

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