Interview: Hip Hop Scribe Mark Yiga Joyed by DanceSport Recognition

Up and coming Hip-hop scribe Mark Yiga who turns out for Spartans Dance Crew, has come out to share his thoughts on Uganda’s new sport, DanceSport.

In an exclusive interview with ChimpReports, Yiga opened up about his personal inspiration, challenges as a dancer and thoughts on the trend of the sport in the country.

“Since I was young, I used to watch Chris Brown’s moves and songs. So I started practicing his moves because dancing was my hobby. When I joined High School at St Johns Nandere – Bombo, I met other students with the same love and passion. We started dancing and we got the popularity at school so I greatly enjoyed it,”

“After high school, I returned to my home town in Kawempe from where I met my friend Stuart. He took me to Pista Art Center and it’s where I started other styles of dancing such as Break Dancing, Hip Hop and also developed my own styles,” Yiga narrated.

The 20-year old part-time video vixen chipped in some of the challenges encountered by dancers, crying foul of being exploited by the musicians who pay less for their services and earn more in return.

“The musicians we work for earn a lot of money from those videos but the dancers who make the video attractive and nice get less. Also the grounds we train from are poor and the societies receive us in the perspective of being idles amidst living in settlements of primitive and barbaric scribes,” he lamented.

At Pista Art Center, over one hundred dancers gather to practice popping, Hip Hop, Break Dancing among others and the Spartans Crew dancer believes it’s the time to reap from the sport with the emergency of the Uganda DanceSport Federation.

The B-Boy who is poised to attain free education at the tertiary level courtesy of sponsorship from UDSF and NCS at Kampala International University expects the federation to promote unity amongst the different crews and dancers.

“Previously, we used to hold competitions amongst the different crews in the Kampala suburbs just for fun but with the interception of the mother body, we expect to reap big. And as a dancer, I expect to get an international exposure that will help me start-up an established studio for the dancers to hold their practices,” he said.

The progress of DanceSport

DanceSport is a competitive ballroom dancing with events regulated by different organizations at national and international level such as the African DanceSport Association and the World DanceSport Federation whose head offices are in Lausanne city, Switzerland.

In Uganda, the sport is a new kid on the block operating under the National Council of Sports and the Uganda Olympic Committee. It has several dance forms including Samba (Latin), Chacha – Rhumba & mambo, Paso Doble, Jive, Quick step, Foxtrots and Viennes waltz, Tango, among others.

Since the sport’s induction in July 2018, Uganda DanceSport Federation (UDSF) executive led by General secretary Barnabas Sebuyungo embarked on creating awareness seminars on regional and district levels having youths as the main target audience.

Recently, the federation conducted a successful awareness workshop in the central region in the areas of Kawempe and over ten associations with close to 200 dance crews embraced the sport.