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Phoenix Hosts Hip Hop Dance Competition Starting This Weekend

Bonita Saldaña
(Photo by Bret Jaspers - KJZZ)
Bonita Saldaña is the owner of The Studance Lab dance studio in Avondale. She's directing a team of hip hop dancers competing this Saturday at the USA Hip Hop Dance Championships.

Phoenix will welcome hip hop dancers from around the world as part of the USA and World Hip Hop Dance Championships put on by Hip Hop International. Over a dozen teams from the Valley will compete in four categories.

Bonita Saldaña, owner of The Studance Lab dance studio in Avondale, is directing a team in the Varsity Division, which is for dancers age 13 to 17.

If the dancers place high enough, they’ll move onto the world competition, held at the same spot next week.

“They get to experience and meet dancers that do what they do but don’t speak the same language as them,” Saldana said of the event, held at the Arizona Grand Resort. “It’s awesome.”

Sixteen-year-old Audrey Gonzalez said she was there last year and loved the vibe. “There’s people just busting out dancing in the middle of nowhere like in the lobbies and everywhere. There’s dancers everywhere,” she said on a break from rehearsal.

As for their routine, well, the dancers will have two minutes on stage Saturday to prove to the judges that they should move on to Sunday’s U.S. final.

Bret Jaspers was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2017 to 2020.