Interview with Salah

I met RED BULL BC ONE judge SALAH at the Battle of the Year in Brunswick last weekend and he found the time to answer a couple of questions. For more information and SALAH's comments on how he judges a battle, check out his profile!

SALAH Benlemqawanssa seems to be from another world! He’s an incredible entertainer who makes an impact with each performance. With his amazing flexibility, unbelievable moves, musicality and humor, he's always a crowd pleaser, not only at Hip Hop events. He's widely respected for his popping and locking expertise kill as well as his B-Boying skills.

Asked how he would describe his style, SALAH says, “First, I am just myself, giving my love, second, I’m a dancer, third, an entertainer.” He calls his form of dance “polyvalent dance.” He didn’t only study Hip Hop dance styles, but pretty much everything he came across. He tried to open his mind by learning African dance, salsa, rock’n roll, tap dance, contemporary dance, and even elements of belly dancing. He studied everything and combined it into something new. But he also studies people in everyday life and integrates those moves, gestures, and facial expressions into his performances.

Some people think SALAH only dances funk styles because they never had the chance to see him B-Boying, but he has that down too. "Anyone who doubts that I'm a B-Boy, meet me in the circles! I never stopped breaking!"

SALAH always tries to invent and create new moves and styles. People give him credit for starting things that are now fully adopted by the B-Boy scene. He is very flexible and so always incorporates flexible moves into his dance and some say that he revived the flexible style. A typical SALAH move is what he calls “La Tour de Pise” - Leaning Tower of Pisa, when he bends over backwards—literally—gets on his hands and freezes with his legs up in the air in a gravity defying angle. Another one of his signature moves is the spider, where he is on his hands and feet, but backwards and then he moves around like a spider. He invented that move, which is why some people call him Spider SALAH.

The first time SALAH saw popping was at the Trocadero in Paris in 1996. O Posse, a pioneering Paris Hip Hop dance crew (Baris, David, Wallid, Angel, Scorpion, Mohammed from Vagabond crew), was practicing for Jacques Martin's TV show in front of the Theatre National De Chaillot, so they could see their reflections in the windows of the theatre. They didn’t have a room to practice at the time.

SALAH recalls, “I saw them practice there and tried to imitate their movements. I didn’t know then that you’re not supposed to copy other peoples’ moves – which is considered stealing and called biting in Hip Hop, but Baris was cool, he came over and explained, ‘That’s not how you do popping. This is the way!’ and he showed me.”

“The reason I wanted to start dancing was to impress the girls,” SALAH says, smiling. “When I was young I was very shy and it was a good opportunity to communicate. I would dance and look at them, and then they would come over to talk to me. But unexpectedly, I fell in love with the dance and the dance itself became more important to me than impressing the girls.”

When we asked SALAH what performing meant to him, he straightened up and said, “The stage is my medicine. Life challenged me in many ways. What keeps me sane, what keeps me grounded, are my beliefs, my family and my dance. My family does everything for me, and I do everything for my family. When I am on stage, I take them with me. I dance for them and they dance with me. My life is dance and dance is my life. I sacrifice a lot for the dance. I am always practicing or performing. There is not much time for a personal life, but I love what I do! It takes a lot of inspiration, time and dedication to become a good dancer. Believe in yourself! Never give up and you will get what you want. If you give up once, then you’ll always give up!”

SALAH performed a show between the battles at the RED BULL BC ONE in South Africa in 2007 and is happy to come back to the RED BULL BC ONE as a judge this year. “When I saw the DVD of the first RED BULL BC ONE, I was stunned. It was beautiful! Thanks to Red Bull for showing the world that we are not acrobats, but dancers with high level energy performances. Red Bull gives B-Boys a platform to show what breaking is about—that B-Boying is an art form. I hope that in the future they will organize an event like this for Popping and also for Locking. Red Bull can help to foster the new generation of dancers."