HaviKoro: The street beat manifesto in Ahmedabad

Dance group Havikoro was recently in the city to perform at a college cultural fest. Consisting of street dancers, the group performs beat boxing, break dancing (B-boing) and hip-hop in their internationally acclaimed routines. Mario Jaramillo is the group's leader which has Marlon Efren Perla Lizama, Nathan Rene Cano, Chris Thomas, Joe Manuel Belamarez (DJ/ rapper) and Steven Cantor (human beat box) as its members.

These 'acrobat-meets-dancers' are the poster boys of the modern American hip hop culture. They have shared the stage with artists like Destiny's Child, Limp Bizkit, Coolio, Black Eyed Peas, POD and Planet Funk.

They have performed across the globe -- Helsinki, Moscow, Paris, Frankfurt, Hannover, Tokyo, Seoul, New Zealand, London, Zurich, Baku, and major US cities and the list gets bigger with every passing year.

With the addition of Ahmedabad to that list, the group took time off to perform for school students at the Gajjar Hall on Monday morning. The event was organised by Pratham Gujarat Education Initiative and the American Center as a part of their Micro Access scholarship for underprivileged children aged between 14 and 18.

Their three-hour long stint left the kids spellbound and speechless.

"It is Magic!" exclaimed one of them. "The members danced in two different styles - one in which the dancer moved as if he had had no bones in his body and in the second they danced as if they had had too many!," said Varghese, one of the students at the event.

Besides performing street routine, the dance crew also entertained questions from the audience and spoke to the young kids about making the right choices in life. They urged them to live a clean life without any drug addiction and also to stay away from illegal activities and negativity.

"Follow your passions and work hard and all your dreams will come true. Do not give in to smoking and other bad habits. You get only one life and it is up to you to make the most out of it", said Jaramillo.  The kids, flabbergasted by the supreme display of dancing skills, also got a chance to learn basic steps from the dancers.

"We want to be dancers just like them," exclaimed a bunch of kids after completion of the dance workshop where HaviKoro taught the basics of house, break dance, hip-hop and other simple steps to the kids. Having already performed in Chandigarh and now Ahmedabad, they continue their five-city tour as they make more stops at Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkota before returning home.