Dance
Get to know Jiggy Jaya, winner of Red Bull Dance Your Style Australia 2023
The Sydney-based talent has been training in Popping since he just a kid. Now, he's headed to the Red Bull Dance Your Style finals in Frankfurt.
Jiggy Jaya was eight years old when he first fell in love with dance. His sister was friends with the legendary Australian Popping figure Poppin Jack, and took him to Jack’s 21st birthday party.
“It was at this club and there was a cypher going on, and she made me dance in the circle in front of Jack and all of his friends,” Jaya recalls. “I was just a little kid, but I think that was a moment when I was like, this is what I want to do [in life].”
Poppin Jack, impressed by what he saw, then asked Jaya’s parents if he could start training the primary schooler. They said yes, and Jaya started learning the art of Popping from that homegrown hero.
13 years later, Jaya is now an integral part of Poppin Jack’s crew, Stale Biskitz, and one of Australia’s most gifted dancers in his own right. And he’s just kicked his biggest goal yet – winning the 2023 Australian final of Red Bull Dance Your Style, a victory that will see him head off to Frankfurt in November to compete in the world final. Things are, he says with a chuckle, “really popping off”. So how does it feel?
“I'm still processing it,” Jaya laughs. “But I'm super excited to go back to Europe and rep hard.”
Every year, Red Bull Dance Your Style sets out to find the globe’s best freestyle dancer. It’s a competition that's all about improvisation: no one knows until the moment a track starts playing what they’re going to be dancing to. Each dancer has to go with their instinct and the beat to burn up the floor in a way that feels right. It’s a challenge, but one designed to elevate dance's true talents.
For Jaya, freestyling is “just another creative outlet” – something that comes pretty naturally to him.
“One of the ways I approach it is just to really not think too hard and let the music do the work for you,” he says. “It's almost therapeutic, in a sense.”
And after this long in the game, Jaya has put in enough work to be able to nail it every time.
“I've trained in the style of Popping for thirteen years now. So it's really just within me, and I can trust myself enough to execute everything that I want in the moment.”
Jiggy Jaya on the floor at Red Bull Dance Your Style 2023.
© Ken Leanfore / Red Bull Content Pool
While he once did a year of contemporary dance, and has taken the occasional class in other styles here and there, throughout his career Jaya has mostly remained faithful to Popping – the style characterised by abrupt muscle contractions that create the effect of a ‘hit’ or ‘pop’ to the beats of the music. It felt significant, then, that the Top 16 round of the Red Bull Dance Your Style Australian finals saw him face off against another Popping dancer, Jason, who Jaya says is “an amazing dancer”
“He's been repping really hard with his group. He's been in the scene for a long time as well.”
And the Sydney Popping scene is something that’s getting bigger and better.
“Before you could fit everyone into one studio – but nowadays, the scene here is certainly growing, and it’s definitely world level.”
Something else that’s made his Red Bull Dance Your Style win feel even sweeter is who he’s inherited the title from. Last year’s winner was Koh – one of the five current members in Stale Biskitz. It feels nice to be keeping it in the family, Jaya says.
“It's crazy – he's won about two times, and I think he was in the finals for the second edition as well. So he's been repping really hard. I'm happy to have been passed the torch by him.”
But Jaya doesn’t see their back-to-back wins as proof of Popping’s dominance; rather, their range as individual dancers.
“I think it’s more a celebration of how open we are as dancers, not Poppers – we can adapt well,” he says.
For the remainder of 2023, Jaya plans to train hard for the Red Bull Dance Your Style world finals, which take place in Frankfurt, Germany, on November 4. He wants to get on the world stage more, face off in more battles and potentially start teaching classes of his own to share what he’s learned with the community. But no matter how big things get, Jaya won’t forget what really matters.
“For me the biggest goal is to continue dancing and continue loving it.”
