By Carolyn Webb
As a child in Iran, Maya Hajizadeh watched music videos in her room – but she was forbidden from dancing in public under the country’s strict religious regime.
She loved pop superstar Rihanna and longed to one day be on the stage.
But being a professional dancer was not feasible for a girl.
“It was just a dream,” Hajizadeh said of those days in her home city of Ahvaz.
Fifteen years on, Hajizadeh – now a young woman living in Melbourne – is a professional hip-hop dancer full of energy and confidence.
She has performed at Melbourne’s White Night festival, danced at Moomba and is a dance teacher.
Maya Hajizadeh (right) with fellow L2R dancer Ligi Htoo (back) and learners (from left) Hunter, 7, Goldie, 6, and Curtis, 7.Credit: Joe Armao
What opened the door for her was L2R, a free, not-for-profit hip-hop dance organisation in Melbourne’s west. Short for Limbs 2 Riddims – the latter word a slang term for ‘rhythm’ – the crew this year marks a decade of operation.
Hajizadeh said she joined L2R – which was founded by community dance artist Jacinda Richards at Western English Language School in Braybrook, and initially run on Saturdays – several months after migrating alone to Australia in 2015.
Hajizadeh said she knew no English and had no sense of rhythm, but she loved it.
“I felt so good, every time I took her classes,” she said.
Your turn: Hunter takes the lead at RecWest in Braybrook.Credit: Joe Armao
Dancing, she said, “makes me feel more myself, and more free”.
Within a year, Hajizadeh was among the L2R dancers who performed to the Mark Ronson-Bruno Mars song Uptown Funk at White Night in a Melbourne laneway, all lit up at night and before a big crowd.
Hajizadeh said the performance was scary, but one of her happiest experiences, adding that her L2R friends were like family.
Ligi Htoo, another early L2R member who is now a professional dancer and teacher, had also never danced when he joined the crew at age 10.
L2R founder Jacinda Richards (back left) and a 2014 group called Young Masters. Ligi Htoo is front row at left.
Originally from Myanmar, Htoo arrived in Australia after nine years in a Thai refugee camp.
The 24-year-old can now do flips, somersaults and airflares.
He said that for refugee kids, free hip-hop classes could provide a positive way of expressing themselves and their experiences, instead of turning to negative pursuits or even drugs or gangs.
“It was challenging, but it was fun. You were learning with your friends,” he said.
“We would practise every day, at home and outside the library and cinemas. We started busking in the city. We’d put on a speaker and dance.”
Richards, L2R’s chief executive and artistic director, is proud the group has championed diverse artists. It has 140 students aged from six to 25, with some dancers paid to teach and perform.
Richards’ dream is to find a permanent studio in the Sunshine area.
L2R is funded by philanthropy and governments and by dance crews performing paid gigs under its social enterprise arm. It will celebrate its 10th birthday on July 31 by screening a short documentary, and with storytelling, a community gathering and a DJ at the Bowery Theatre in St Albans.
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