DESPITE the damp and rainy evening over the weekend, action among the 16 finalists in the Red Bull Dance Your Style national breakdance finals was hot and sizzling inside a huge tent at the 5th Avenue Highstreet in Taguig, City.
After two hours of fiery yet friendly competition, Lourize Bernardino, popularly known by his moniker “JYXB,” emerged as the champion after a tense and thrilling duel in the last round against Juan “BLVCKZIK” Carlo De Leon.
In a battle of two known “krumping” specialists, Bernardino, known for his cool and slick moves, won the nod of the 3,500 animated fans, who voted for the winners of each round using their Red Bull battery-operated ballers with flashing red and blue lights to decide which dancer advanced.
Fans were asked to base their judgment on rhythm, moves, creativity and charisma.
The newly-crowned Red Bull Dance Your Style champ dethroned reigning titlist “Mickey” Paolo Yatar in the semifinals of the meet also backed by Vans and Philips sound equipment.
“In a normal battle, you only have to please three judges but in Red Bull Dance Your Style you have hundreds, even thousands of people to please,” noted Bernardino, who will represent the country in the Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final on Nov. 4 in Frankfurt, Germany.
“So, what I do is just try to show my skills and at the same time enjoy it, and hope that I get to reach the crowd with that and they see my soul with my performance,” he added.
Making the competition conditions even more difficult, the dancers only learned of their rivals on the spot via a computer-generated randomizer to compete against each other in two one-minute segments played to whatever music was chosen by the DJ.
The other finalists were Luigi Flares (Luigi), Henry II Senados (Darktruth), Jeffrey Toledo (JPY), Arnold Diwatin (Taw), Oriel Gneedheart Aclo (O-Shady), Sophie Echauz (Q), John Vincent Mitchell (J-Hop), Samantha Frances Rivera (Nemesis), Ryan Rojas (Scepter), Shihan Maui Ricablanca (Baby Titan), Deirdre Kyranmir Palaruan (Heidra), Christian Paul (Pavlos) and Christy Kim Velez (Keycee).
