Passing it on. – DSDA Inc

After more than a fourteen years of his contributions towards the Breaking and Street Dance Community, and seven years since the founding of DSDA and serving as Chairman/President, Jo Hyeon Yoon will be stepping down from his role in the association, and continuing into the next stage of his life. We at DSDA are forever indebted to him and vision to create a more sustainable platform for the Sydney Street Dance Community, and sharing his skills, knowledge and experience with everyone to help elevate the level of which the community currently operates at. We are so grateful to have had Jo as our leader, and hope to continue the growth of DSDA and the Street Dance Community in a positive direction as he has.

Thank you for everything Jo!

Jo’s Farewell Letter

As my presidency & chairman role with DSDA comes to an end, I want to take a moment to reflect and say farewell.

It’s been some 4738 days or 12 years 11 months and 20 days since the very first Destructive Steps held July 11^th, 2009 at Manning Bar USYD, and less time since November 2015 when DSDA officially became registered as a non-profit charity.

In that time a great amount of change and transformation has taken place even before the pandemic, from a small five-hour event to a four-day street dance festival with ten battle categories this year at Destructive Steps XIV (14). During these years the growth of the event, organisation, and our Sydney street dance community can be measured not just in numbers but also in attitude, age, demographics, and diversity.

Whilst nothing is perfect in this world, there are many positives to look upon and be proud of as a Sydney street dancer and many areas to improve. There will always be these areas to improve, that’s part of the ongoing journey and story of every generation, the pursuit of a better tomorrow not to sit on our comforts and past accomplishments too long, but to change, adapt and evolve.

I’m very proud of the work DSDA has done over the years, the events and partnerships forged together with councils, corporations, and other arts groups across the city, perhaps one of the most important aspects has been the support we’ve been able to give the university societies in Sydney over the years before the pandemic. Those societies I’ve said before are a very important cornerstone of our community; the structure and support role they play in maintaining a sustainable community is paramount. Certainly, in my dance lifetime, their role has grown and become increasingly more significant.

I am of course very proud to have seen the adaptability & evolution of DSDA and Destructive Steps through the toughest times in our Sydney street dance history in decades. Under Alice’s leadership, both the organisation and the event have had to change, adapt & evolve, which has been great to witness firsthand. As we come out of the pandemic and return slowly to a pre-covid event landscape I’m very confident that the future burns bright with the passion of youth and wisdom of those veterans still around the community.

With so many potential opportunities rising up in the world of street dance; from Breaking into the Olympics to council grants to theatre productions to international borders opening back up for event travel, it’s important to remember the past and not forget the lessons from history. We all have the power to choose a different path, not one that leads to where we’ve been but where we’re going.

As for my personal life, I will always be breaking; that’s who I am not what I do. However, I look forward to not running DSDA – in the past few years I have enjoyed not planning large-scale events year-round, coordinating between travel schedules, talent, vendors, councils, etc.

I look forward to a quieter time in my life, given some twenty years since I attended Battle of the Year Australia in 2002, my life has been in large part dedicated to the community, not just the culture. I tend to look at my life now as something Hip Hop helped show and give me an identity. These past fourteen years I hope I’ve been able to give back something constructive to the community for which I owe so much.