J: Tell me a little bit about the Red Bull Dance Your Style Competition.
Sheik Winn: The Red Bull Dance Your Style competition has been done internationally (I’ve seen one recently in Taipei, Taiwan), and they bring the region’s most talented dancers – a lot of people of diverse styles. They come in and they have a really big event. This one is based on crowd judgment, which is different than our usual type of events. Usually, we have judges of that expertise and style, so this one is really interesting, it’s got a big twist on it.
J: I know there are different styles of street dance. Do you have a particular style that you try to stick to?
S: Yes. My expertise is in Waacking – Waaking and Punking. Not a lot of people know what Punking is, but you can’t Waack without Punking, that’s like the essence underneath it. Waacking is more like technicality and Punking. I also do house dance as well, but that is something that I just recently started doing. I am a Waaker.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B04iPqih-Jm/
J: How long have you been involved in the street dance scene?
S: I started trying to do casual battles and things in New Orleans in 2011, I believe. I think I started waacking 2012 or 2013.
J: What do you want Big Easy Magazine to know about street dance in New Orleans?
S: I’d like people to be more aware that in New Orleans, we actually have a smaller scene than in other cities that I’ve traveled to, which is crazy to me, because it’s New Orleans, you know? We have second-line dancing, we have all this, we have jazz, we have so much culture to offer. I hope that if you’re out on the street and you see people dancing, you don’t feel intimidated. Feel more excited to participate in anything like that because that’s how our culture grows. We take people that want to dance with us and we’re so friendly and welcoming to them. I hope that our community can grow bigger just like other communities that have street dance competitions and things like that. We seldomly have them here in New Orleans, but I wish that people were more aware and more willing to participate so that we can help the community grow.
