Dance champions Devolution celebrated their 25th anniversary on Heritage Day.
Shamieg George (33), who leads the Tafelsig dance group, says he hopes the group’s successes will inspire people to change their “poverty mindset”.
“If your life view is ‘I’m in poverty’, then you will stay in poverty,” George said.
Instead, George hopes to broaden the crew’s horizons by exposing them to the new experiences and by exposing their talent through competitions and gigs.
“We are just a voice for the youth,” George said. “Whether to inspire or by influencing change by pushing talent — getting the talent out there.”
He uses his own example as a model. George grew up in Tafelsig and has been dancing since he was a young child. He has gone on to travel widely through his dancing and has also featured in international artists’ music videos.
George is the second generation of this family to manage the dance group. Devolution was first started by his mother and brother in the year 2000. At the time, he was only eight years old but he was active in the group and part of the practises, so much so that he started choreographing the group from the age of 13.
By that time Devolution started building a local fan base and were regularly invited to perform at events.
“Wherever we could get experience, we went,” said George, explaining that at the time no birthday party was too small for them to perform.
It was also around that time that the crew started taking part in competitions. They didn’t have any big wins at first but the competitions helped them to get exposure which led to taking part at bigger events around the city.
The crew’s “big break”, said George, came in 2015 when they took part in a national competition at Artscape. They competed again in subsequent years and won gold in 2015 and 2016. It was also around this time that their popularity grew and Devolution started attracting dancers from other crews.
One such dancer is Ghalika Isaacs of Lavender Hill. Isaacs said she has been dancing since she was 12 and had seen Devolution at competitions. She had seen George choreographing the group and admired his leadership.
“He was always inspiring,” Isaacs said. “I wanted to join them but I was very young and couldn’t make my own decisions.”
Isaacs, who is now 22, eventually joined a few years later.
“Here you can just be yourself,” Isaacs said. “It’s a family here. This is home. We are street dancers and we don’t have a studio but the respect is there.”
Devolution has also helped some dancers to succeed as individuals, George said. Many of the members leave the crew as they get older but George said all of them go on to do well in their personal spheres, even if they don’t carry on dancing.
One of the group’s biggest successes though is Aimsley Fortuin. The 22-year-old Tafelsig resident started dancing with Devolution when he was 13. Fortuin is currently abroad and representing South Africa in the Red Bull Dance Your Style competition in Los Angeles.
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