The Holy Dance Crew started in 2013 in Kampala, Uganda. Esai Pilipili founded a dance crew to keep him and his friends busy while promoting their dancing skills. “In Kampala, while many kids were joining the gangs in the street, I decided to make friends and do break dance.” Esai said. It was an epidemic that every boy in Kampala belonged to a gang crew. In the same case, Esai was also being recruited after all of his friends, but he denied the offer. This made Esai Pilipili an enemy to the rest, and he had nobody on his side. The rest was fighting and brutal bullying every day during and after school. Esai said in an interview, “One day, they surrounded me, and I got punched in my left eye and another punched back on my head, and I couldn’t see correctly. Esai told us that he started fighting back and carrying a pocket knife to school just in case anybody could try to hurt him.
Esai never wanted to live the same life or join any gang crew to get revenge. He instead started a dance crew at school. He said that dancing was his way to fight back. He started dancing at Old Kampala school shows—everyone found out he wasn’t interested in fighting. Esai wasn’t dancing alone. He used to dance with his friend Pascal Mudawa, Kakule Alseme, and his young Brother Jonas Pilipili.
Later on, Esai recruited other dancers outside the school and formed the Holy Dance Crew. The crew was designed so they could gain more breakdancing skills and start going to shows and competitions. It didn’t take too long until Holy Dance was known all over Africa and the world wild. They went above and beyond not to leave crime life and do hip hop hop/ break dance instead.
Holy Dance Crew means to dance in holy. The reason for that name is that through dance, you can find peace and love and caring or get life orientation. The Holy Dance Crew Has helped many refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo to integrate into Uganda and make connections simply. Ever since this crew was created, there has been a lot of good collaboration between artists from Congo and Uganda, and all of East Africa.
The Holy Dance made a lot of progress. The dance crew got featured on many Tv shows in Africa and in some magazines in the USA. To list some Global Village Cleveland, Urban TV, NTV, City Zen TV, Channel 44, UBC, and many more. Also, some essential shows to remember like East Africa Got Talent, Yollesa Ekitone in Uganda, and Nairobi Kenya. Additionally, when Esai Pilipili moved to the USA, he continued Holy Dance. They started performing at Universities and high schools, at organizations like Global Village in Cleveland, Ohio, and many more.
Holy Dance members are, Esai Pilipili, Cris Yc, Pascal Lwanzo (AKA J), Dalva Beat, Walker Hip, Pascal Mudawa, Jonas Pilipili, Joffre Balume.
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