Dance group hopes they have blueprint for success

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Choreographer and owner of 8 Count Dance Centre, Steve Bolton, hopes his hip-hop dance troupe will have the blueprint for success at the Sounds of Blackness Awards (SOBA) for a second time this year.

The five-member female group – aptly named Blueprint – has been training out of 8 Count in Pierrefonds since 2003 and has seen its fair share of achievements ever since, including working with popular Quebec artists like Karl Wolf, Zaho, and Corneille on music videos and shows, and winning Best Performance at the Monsters of Hip Hop showcase in Orlando, Florida this past summer. A win in the best dance artist or group category at the first edition of the SOBA gala last year also added to that list.

“Being nominated again this year is very flattering,” Bolton said. “It’s a huge compliment.”

Bolton started Blueprint five years ago as an experiment, but soon began to realize the group’s potential.

“It was just for fun, but then it got more and more serious as time went on and we realized what we’re capable of,” Bolton said.

West Island resident Thien-Linh Truong, who has been with Blueprint since the beginning, said being nominated for a SOBA two years in a row came as a surprise.

“It’s amazing. We weren’t expecting it at all,” she said. Truong, who also teaches dance at 8 Count, said she believes the years of hard work with the group are paying off.

“It takes a lot of hard work. It takes passion, determination. You always need to believe in what you do,” she said. “It’s a big challenge for me. I learn something new every year. Steve’s always brining something new to us, pushing us and teaching us. We’re always trying to go to another level and try new things.”

And, according to Bolton, that’s exactly what gets Blueprint noticed.

“No matter what kind of feedback we get – positive or negative – we keep pushing. Even if it’s positive, we don’t sit on our butts. We work,” he said. “We try to get internally inspired. We don’t watch what other people do. That’s what defines our group the most, because we really do have our own style.”

The group was able to garner plenty of international exposure in 2007 as well, with performances and workshops taking them from British Columbia to California, and Ireland to Norway. “It was a pretty busy year,” Truong remembered.

Bolton said 2008 should be exciting too, as Blueprint is scheduled to head to Los Angeles again this summer. Plans are also in the works to have the group perform with Karl Wolf in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates later this year.

With Blueprint up against names like Raw, 2 Marvelous, Solid State, and Rubberbandance Group for the SOBAs, Bolton said he is looking forward to the second edition of the event that celebrates black culture.

“I know it sounds cliché to say, but the groups who were nominated last year were all amazing,” he said. “It’s a very supportive event.”

The Second edition of the SOBA gala will take place on March 2 at the Theatre Outremont in Montreal.