Last week I took my youngest son and two teenage daughters to a high school dance competition in Pickering. We learned about this competition through a Filipino friend. Apparently his son was into dance and they called themselves the Hi-Heyters. I was planning to make a promotional video for their crew, so I wanted to make sure I prepared all the right video and audio equipment to bring along. I checked YouTube and true enough, I saw a few videos of their past dance performances. I asked my daughters if they knew about the crew, and surprisingly enough they had heard of Hi-Heyters. In fact they had a close friend who was also part of another dance crew. I learned later on that the Hi-Heyters have been dancing together for three years now. Three of the members are Filipino while the other two are "half" Filipino.
What actually impressed me more than just the dancing is the inspiration behind this event. As I did some research, I learned that an enterprising young Filipino by the name of Carlos Taguba started this competition movement called Toronto's Best High School Dance Crew. This competition is now three years running. This movement came out of Carlos' determination to move away from gangs and drugs that were commonplace in his high school. Back in 2002, he put together a dance crew called Ill Skillz, and he grew this to what is now a movement for motivating and inspiring youth.
Here's the video I put together, and I hope you enjoy watching this.
