I t was kinda like a movie,” says Wan Squad co-founder, coach and manager Pyan Ng, describing how he and David Chee cruised Port Moresby nightclubs in 2018 searching for the kind of raw dance talent needed for PNG’s first professional hip hop crew. The final two dancers recruited into the squad’s initial six-man lineup – Max Raoma, now 32, and Lloyd Nadile, 31 – were both approached in clubs after the pair watched them perform. “David was like, ‘How do we find who’s good – who’s got good attitude, who’s going to work hard, adapt to what we want to do?’,” recalls Pyan. “And then he said, ‘There’s this guy called Max’ so we went all the way to The Cosmopolitan (club) to watch him dance a solo, and then we’re like, ‘Ok you’re in’. “We found Lloyd at Lamana (club) – not drinking, dancing in a competition. We’re like, ‘Well, we need a tall guy’.” [Laughs] Growing to eight members at its peak, the group that David and Pyan founded six years ago has become PNG’s number one dance act and the country’s first to compete internationally, including wins for the last three years in a row at the annual Brisbane (Australia) hip hop dance competition ‘House of Champions’, as well as wins at the
“
Hip Hop International – South Pacific Islands qualifying competition in Auckland, New Zealand. But the real career pinnacle to date was last August when they placed fourth at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship – referred to as ‘the Olympics of Hip Hop’ – out of 67 top-tier dance crews in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). They will return from August 3-10 this year to try to better that result. Reflecting on the achievement on ABC’s That Pacific Sports Show earlier this
year, Pyan described it as “the best moment”. “It gave us so much strength and hope that we can do it. We’re gunning for that gold medal, that’s the prize our eyes are on.” The squad has built a massive online fan base in recent years, including over 150,000 followers on TikTok and 50,000+ on Facebook, with their videos attracting a minimum of 100,000 views each. One posted in 2020 has been watched an incredible 1.7 million times.
“We worked with the people who had the same goal and mindset we had – to travel overseas and compete internationally, to be professional, take dance seriously and treat it like a sport”
Wan Squad performs in Auckland in 2019 at the Hip Hop International South Pacific qualifying competition
VOLUME 38 2024
9
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog