Monsters of Hip Hop

Constantly searching for interesting urban life in the suburban limbo that the DMV seems to be at first glance, I have been trying to keep up on hip hop dance workshops and shows in the area. Of course, Monsters of Hip Hop is well-known in most of the dance community of the US (even internationally, which I learned). However, I did not realize that Monster's DC tour takes place in Northern Virginia!

Every February, Monsters sets up camp at the Hilton in Reston Town Center, right off the Dulles Toll Road. For a full weekend, registered dancers take class after class after class with fantastic choreographers. Not having attended any conference like this before, I couldn't believe how many awesome instructors they were able to pack into one weekend! DC's got quite the dancer community, with people from all walks of life attending this two-day weekend. Many people that I've seen and met around town dancing were present. I even met a girl who flew to DC all the way from Dublin, Ireland in order to come to Monsters!

On Saturday afternoon, after (an extremely sweaty) six hours inside one of the Hilton's ballrooms (each one was set up for a different level of dance: Juniors, Intermediate, and Advaned-- no levels for Faint of Heart), Club Stylz puts together a fantastic performance environment for all the choreographers and even some students!

Sunday gave us more classes (a four hour day of classes, only nominally less sweat), and then the final performance. All the choreographers performed their own choreography. For those of us lucky enough to tough it through the Advanced classes, we got to see the choreo taught to us performed by the instructors.

Monsters is more than just a dance convention though. The organization Monsters of Hip Hop strives to give aspiring performers the chance to keep dancing with Monsters conventions and train with world-class dancers. To this end, at each Monsters weekend, the group gives out scholarships for dancers to attend more Monsters weekends. Additionally, there are auditions for the Monsters show in LA at the end of the tour season. I did not even audition, but someone made the cut! Guess who...? Miss Ireland. I'm still trying to figure out if I can fly out to LA to see her dance..... Pretty impressive.

If Monsters heads to your town, you should definitely check it out. Non-dancers and parents can buy Observer passes to watch all of the classes and attend several lectures throughout the weekend. Being around so many dancers with such high goals is really inspiring!