Hip-hop dancers need more room to move

As hip-hop dancers take over Dunedin schools, the list of venues to host city-wide competitions becomes smaller and smaller.

On Saturday, the New Zealand Competitive Aerobics Federation (NZCAF) held its 2025 Otago and Southland Hip-hop Unite NZ Schools Regional Competition at the Regent Theatre, the first year it has been held at the venue.

Competing were a range of teams from Otago and Southland intermediate, secondary and dance schools.

To accommodate the huge numbers of hip-hop dancers, their families and supporters, the NZCAF has found itself limited in Dunedin to two venues.

Competition venue manager Charlotte Hayward said the only places big enough were the Dunedin Town Hall and the Regent Theatre due to the boom across the city in hip-hop dancing.

“Last year we had to go to Southland … because we were too big — this event is almost too big to be held.”

She said the audience the competition attracted year in and year out was huge.

“Schools like Rasa, Black and White Dance Studios and all the others have now been around so long that their kids have all been doing it since they were young …

“Now they’re in high school and at a point where they’re ready to coach their peers.

“There’s heaps and heaps of student coaches here today and in all the schools.”

This year was the first time the Bayfield High School and Logan Park High School teams had participated, she said.

The event included 72 hip-hop teams from 11 Otago and Southland intermediate and secondary schools, and from five dance schools across the region.

About a third of the teams in each of the 12 categories would make it to nationals which would be held in Christchurch on September 6.

laine.priestley@odt.co.nz