School of Hip Hop

Background
Funded by the Education and Manpower Bureau (now Education Bureau), Youth Outreach (YO) established "School of Hip Hop" in 2004. By introducing and sharing hip hop dancing culture, YO's School of Hip Hop helps youth build positive personalities and enhance their self-esteem, as well as building social networks, so as to promote the spirit of "dancing to healthy life". Not only focusing at the dancing talent of youth, School of Hip Hop also emphasizes holistic personal development with professional counselling services. We are fortunate to retain experienced tutors-cum-youth-workers who have won awards in international dancing competitions. In organizing large scale YO Dancical at the Shatin Town Hall, YO offers a stage for at-risk youth to showcase their dancing talents, learn sound and light installation skills and create theatrical designs. These opportunities are valuable for youth to build up confidence and embark on a positive life.

In recent years, the School of Hip Hop founded a number of dance competitions and developed a platform for the youth to showcase their talent.

Red Hot
"Red Hot" is one of the dance competition brands founded by YO's School of Hip Hop in 2008. The brand denotes "Fiery Fire". The aim is to establish a platform to encourage youth to set goals and build self-confidence through competitions. Besides, it gives a chance for the youth to create their dreams through competitions and for the public to understand the positive culture of hip-hop, accept and support it, so as to give young people opportunities. In order to further promote Hong Kong's dance culture, the winners of the competition represented Hong Kong in Taiwan to compete with dancers from Asia, and had exchanges with them.

"Red Hot" breakdance competition included "The King" (men's team), "The Queen" (women's team) and "The Prince" (rookies' team). YO emphasized fairness and transparency through different competitions to encourage participation.

High Schooler Hip Hop Championship
"High Schoolers Hip Hop Championship" is the largest scale Hip Hop Championship for secondary school students in Hong Kong, which lets them unleash their full potential. In 2009, there were only local secondary school participants. In 2012, for the first time the Championship was open to participants from Mainland China and Macau. In 2013, it was expanded to the international level, welcoming participants from other places in Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. Through this competition platform, we hope to promote dance and cultural exchanges among youth from different places to broaden their horizons and encourage them to set long-term goals.

YO Dancical
Starting from 2014, YO stages the "YO Dancical" in April every year. Formerly known as "YO! Dance it UP!", it seeks to provides a stage for youth to showcase their talents and raise funds for YO services. So far, more than 700 youth have participated in the production and performance, allowing them to develop their different talents, such as dancing, choreography, directing, song arrangement, costume and prop styling, stage sound, etc., and attracted more than 8,000 audience to attend and support.

In 2018, we put more focus on mental health of the youth and created the "Save The Moment" series. We aim to educate young people with positive thinking through street dance and give them hope and faith in embracing a better life. Amidst the pandemic since 2020, we have staged YO Dancical online, in the hope of sustaining this cultural platform for at-risk youth and in recognition of alternative youth achievements.

WE@ONe
"WE@ONe" promotes "Dancing to Healthy Life". Through hip hop dancing, it encourages youth to develop healthy life and "navigate Covid-19", and at the same time, raises fund for YO's services. Due to the pandemic, the School of Hip Hop held online competition "WE@ONe" through live broadcast in 2020, for dance groups (Students and Open) as well as the 3 on 3 B-boys and B-girls Battles.