Just the beginning

One can never tell when life is about to take a ‘U’ turn. But when it does, one just needs to take it as an opportunity to go with the flow. ‘

Black Ice Crew’ (BIC), a dance crew started in the year 2008, was the result of a self-given challenge when a high school girlfriend of one of the founders, Naser Al Azzeh, told him that he couldn’t dance. Naser wanted to prove himself, so he started from level zero.

It was started by two friends, Naser and Likith, who practiced moves by watching dance videos on YouTube. Naser remembers that it was hard to copy the moves in the beginning, but eventually they successfully pulled it off.

Till 2009, there were only two members in the crew but after that, the crew won a dance competition, where the MC gave them their famous name ‘Black Ice Crew’. That competition changed their lives and they decided to make their own dance group and recruit more dancers.

Now, the crew has approximately 16 members and they are each other’s strength, Naser says, “We are mostly inspired by each other. Even though we are a crew, we strive hard to be better individually as well. Also, we all share a common love for hip-hop.”

Just like anyone else, BIC also faces hurdles which affect the woking of the crew, but their sincerity for their passion never lets them down in the field. Despite all the odds, they keep functioning well.

According to Naser, the biggest hurdle in their path is time right now. Due to other commitments, they are not able to devote as much time to practice as they used to, but they take out time for practice somehow.

“As we all have grown up now, time is the biggest challenge. Some of us work, some are studying and some have other commitments. But we still do our best to put in as much time as possible to practice with each other,” he adds.

The crew has performed quite a number of times in India, including college events, corporate events and at malls. They have also won many awards individually and as a team, like Turtle Jam (three-time champion), Challenge Cup (2014), Challenge Cup (2015 — second place).

Inspired by B-Boys like Storm (Germany), Born (Korea), Thesis (USA) and Flexum (USA), Naser says dance is where he can truly be himself and that it is his “everything” because that’s when he is happy the most.

He sees BIC going miles and also hopes for the crew to continue dancing till they can. “We just want to do this (dance) for as long as possible and also hand down the crew to coming generations. I have a feeling that Black Ice will be around for a long time.”