DEVANTÉ

BACKGROUND
Devante is 28 years old , has roots in Surinam and has a strong connection with the African Caribbean culture , artforms and history..He started with Hiphop but soon he shifted  into the dancehall. He has been dancing Dancehall for 10 years and invested quite some time, energy, money because it is so dear to him. He also traveled a couple of times to Jamaica to truly feel and indulge into the culture.  It is a culture that he felt  attracted to because of the person that he is. There are so many different layers in Dancehall and it is a style that is built up out of real life events, the artist creates tunes about things they really went through and the dancers create a dance/step to it, and it also works the other way around.

This realness and connection to the real world makes Dancehall raw and pure. a reason why he is so drawn to this scene.

STYLES
Dancehall is a world wide thing and it needs to be recognized world wide. Without Dancehall we would not have Hiphop, Jamaican dance is done by so many people, you can see in different video clips and tiktok. It is very popular and it get's all the people to dance. 

COMMUNITY
Dancehall is really a community thing, built up out of the ghetto’s of the intercities. The dancehall is the place where people could still come together and find strength in each other through music and dance. Unfortunately the dancehall community in the Netherlands is not so big even though there are enough dance schools that offer Dancehall. There are also not a lot of men who dance the style, so for a long time Devante was the only male who practiced the style. Today this has changed and more men are doing the dance. People think it's a female thing Which is interesting because in Jamaica Dancehall is really a male dominated style and a lot of men dance it.Devante invested time and energy by organizing events to educate people about dancehall culture, dance, music and History. He truly hopes the community will keep growing because there is so much potential. For a while he was a bit out of the scene to focus on himself but he is energized to pick up where he left off and teach his students all he knows so that the generation that is coming als knows what Dancehall is really about. 

CLASSES
If you want to come and Follow this class  expect alot of high energy, going through the dancehall era’s and getting knowledge on this style .Lets keep dancehall alive.