Chopskick, a teen senior dance team from Modi’in’s Nirit Dance Studio, won a gold medal in the Hip-hop Commercial Mega Crew category of the Dance World Cup (DWC) in San Sebastian, Spain, last week.
DWC hosts the annual competition in Europe, bringing 120,000 competitors from 62 countries together for the event. Chopskick Senior won for their hip hop performance Zombieland. Before going to the finals, each group must qualify for the national competition. They must receive a certain number of points or place between first and third to receive a spot in the DWC.
The 23-member Chopskick team made their way to San Sebastian with three choreographers – Tal Asraf, Dor Papirov and Ofek Shoval – as well as studio staff and parent chaperones. One of the dancers, Modi’in high-school student Tzofi Rubenstein, 15, said she and her teammates trained for 5 hours a week to prepare for competitions, this year.
Ziva Rubenstein, Tzofi’s mother, has been passionate about dance for most of her life, and encouraged Tzofi and her sister to pursue dancing.
“Dance is very connected to Israeli culture. Innovation and creativity in Israeli modern dance have made it a respected leader worldwide and now, with Chopskick’s win, Israeli hip hop is on the global map,” she said.
Other senior and junior Israeli teams at the DWC also won medals, 18 in all between the groups.