After soaring to fame on MTV's Randy Jackson Presents Best American Dance Crew (in which they should have placed at leeeast
second, c'mon, America), Orange County's Kaba Modern has finally
achieved the recognition they deserved–though their history has always
been rich with honors, awards and recognitions.
Kaba, which consists of
three separate sub-teams (Kreative Moment for members 18 and under;
Kaba Modern for UC Irvine students; Kaba Modern Legacy, an exhibition
team for alumni and guests), is currently preparing for VIBE XV, a
major hip-hop dance competition to take place on Jan. 31 at the Bren
Events Center.
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The crew started off as an offshoot of UC Irvine's Filipino culural club, Kababayan (which translates to “countrymen” in Tagalog), and was founded in 1992 by Arnel Calvario. After six members of Kaba–Yuri Tag, Tony Tran, Mike Song, Lawrence Kao, Cindy Minowa, Jia Huang–appeared on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew, Kaba received national, if not worldwide, attention. The show itself, however, brought an otherwise underground hip-hop dance crew movement, to mainstream consciousness.
Check out the video clip below of Kaba Modern's performance at VIBE XIII–which has an astounding 406,952 views. Also be sure to take a look through these photos taken by Keith May of one of Kaba Legacy's many weekly rehearsals–maybe you'll even recognize a few (adorable) faces from television.
For more info, visit KabaModern.com and VibeDanceCompetition.com.
