Kimberly Wallace, HER Magazine
WHEN Venita Sonny is not teaching her students the waltz or salsa, she’s practising her popping and locking moves as a breakdancer or ‘B-girl’.
Although breakdancing, which originated in the hiphop culture, is mostly associated with guys, female breakdancers including Venita are not fazed by this high-energy genre of dance that involves acrobatic moves. Venita and her fellow B-girls have proven that they are more than up to the challenge.
This dance choreographer from Central Trinidad is a chameleon on the dance floor. Venita dan ces Afro-house, hip-hop, pop, dancehall, as well as salsa, waltz and bachata, which are among her favourites.
‘I’ve been dancing since I was around two or three,’ Venita tells HER. ‘When my neighbours had parties, I used to bounce to the music.’
Growing up, Venita kept her love for dance mostly to herself. She would go through dance routines in her head and wait for her family to leave the house before cranking up the volume on the radio and turning the living room into her temporary dance studio. Then one day while channel surfing, she came across Dance 360 and saw someone breakdancing. The energy the dancer exuded was contagious – Venita was captivated. She tried a few moves on her own but kept falling down.
“I was like “Ok!” I need to find a dance school,” she says. When she eventually let the cat out of the bag and expressed a desire to do dance classes, her mother was surprised, but Venita was determined she wanted to learn to dance like a professional.
For Venita, dance was and still is a necessity. Her encounter with breakdancing coincided with one of the most difficult chapters in her life, the loss of her father. ‘To be honest, I would say that dance saved me,’ she says. ‘I was going through a hard time after my father passed away, I used to drink and party a lot, but then I realised that I was wasting my life on negative things. I decided to stick with dancing.’
Dance gave Venita purpose and a routine. She not only learned how to dance, she also became a teacher and a choreographer.
‘If it weren’t for dancing, I probably would have been still out there liming and drinking instead of entering competitions, teaching at dance schools and inspiring kids,’ she says.
When it comes to dance, Venita, who has a fulltime job, doesn’t do it for the money. Her joy comes from transmitting her love for dancing to others; some of them have even gone on to choreograph their own dance moves.
“Pursuing dance in Trinidad is difficult, it’s not recognised as a career option, but it makes me happy when past students come up and thank me for pushing and helping them,’ she says.
As a B-girl, Venita is in a league of her own.
Although she has the support of her boyfriend and other friends who are also breakdancers, there isn’t a community or club of B-girls in the country.
There’s so much potential out there, but female breakdancers in T& T are a rarity.
If you think breakdancing is only for guys, you’re missing half the action; B-girls are already shaking up the world of dance. Two of the world’s best B-girls are from Japan, one of Venita’s favourites is B-girl Bonita, who has performed with Jason Derulo, Fergie and P Diddy.
Breakdancing is physically demanding but Venita loves it.
‘I love breakdancing because it’s high risk and challenging. I have to train constantly to get all the moves right and that takes time. While training, I have discovered muscles I never knew I had,’ she says with a laugh.
Dancing is not just about having fun, it’s a stress reliever and should have a place in the school curriculum, she adds.
‘Dancing is my therapy. When I feel sad, I channel my emotions into dancing and I just go with the flow,” says Venita. “It makes me feel free; when I’m dancing, I’m not thinking about anything else, it’s just me and my music.’
Through dance classes and online workshops, Ve- nita hopes to raise the profile of female breakdanc ers and show other girls what they’re capable of.
‘I want to be a role model for all the girls who thought breakdancing was only for boys. I want to show them that if I can do it, they can as well,’ says Venita.
Dance teacher and choreographer Venita Sonny.
Photos: Frankie Britton
