Laie residents displayed their modern culture with their parents’ traditions in the 2nd annual hip hop fireknife Street Battle on New Year’s Eve. The creators of the event said they are the first to display the fusion of the two styles.“It all started with our parents, who passed down the tradition of Samoan fireknife dancing,” said David Galeai, the “Puppet Master” of the event.“We started to think about how life is right now. Hip hop is a big culture,” said Galeai. “One day we were just talking about it: ‘Hey, we should mix hip hop with fireknife--we’ll put it together.’ And that’s exactly what we did.”Jason Ava, or “MC PeekABoo,” was a big supporter of Galeai’s event, and Ava said the event gave families an opportunity to come together to be entertained and feel good about what they were watching.“A lot of us grew up with the traditional fireknife dancing,” said Ava, “and a lot of our children, and this generation, do a lot contemporary style dancing, or hip hop dancing. They like to mesh both worlds. We’re just giving them a platform to come and do it here in Laie.”Jackson Tilo, “Mr. Slidez,” who choreographed some of the performance, said the fusion of the two styles was to “collaborate to give people the next level of fireknife.”Ava said they have a huge cast of dancers, from hip hop to fireknife. He explained the dancers allow “these two different styles to be fused together into a more contemporary style.”Out of 13 competitors, last year’s reigning champion, “The Prophecy,” put up a strong fight and won this year’s competition.Christian Tekurio, a BYU-Hawaii student in business management from California, had a front row seat, as he helped the competitors with the fires after their performances. Tekurio was impressed with the competitors, saying, “They’re all so good--when you start juggling more than two of [the fireknives], it gets pretty crazy. It’s so hard.”Coming in at 3rd place, competitor, Jeralee Galeai, or “Poison Ivy,” gave some advice about competing.“Always try your best--you never know when you can get successful,” said Jeralee.Uploaded January 12, 2015
Writer: Rebecca Sabalones ~ Multimedia Journalist
