Dancing Their Way to Vegas for Hip Hop for Hope

The following is a guest article by Patrick Hindle: 

Most kids start out loving to dance at a very young age but many grow out of it eventually.  However, Brooke Hindle, 16, a sophomore at Burlington High School and Nathan Patz, 12, a 5th grader at Memorial Elementary School are still dancing everyday to the tune of Hip Hop for Hope.  Brooke and Nathan dance for the world renowned dance studio Phunk Phenomenon whose mission is to raise awareness about Sanfilippo Syndrome.

Phunk Phenomenon is owned by Reia Briggs Connor a former New England Patriots cheerleader, and her husband Rick Connor.  Reia and Rick’s son, Jared is diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrome. Children with Sanfilippo are missing an essential enzyme that breaks down a complex body sugar called heparin sulfate.  These sugars slowly build up in the brain, stopping normal development and causing hyperactivity, sleep disorders, loss of speech, dementia and typically death before adulthood.  They hope to use hip hop dancing as a platform to shine as much light as possible to find a cure for Jared and others who are inflicted with Sanfilippo.

Brooke and Nathan hope to do just that in Vegas!  Nathan and Brooke have qualified for teams that will compete this summer in Las Vegas at the Hip Hop International Dance Competition.  Nathan is on a junior team (under 14) and Brooke is on a varsity team (14-18) each of which can have up to 8 dancers. The teams will first compete in the USA Hip Hop Competition and the top 3 teams in the country for each category will go onto the Hip Hop World Championships later in the week against other countries from around the globe. This competition is considered the Olympics of Hip Hop. 

Nathan has been dancing since he was six years old doing all styles of dance including Salsa, Tap, Hip Hop, break dancing and intense choreo.  He has won regional and national titles at dance competitions across the state and is currently on Lil Phunk, the official junior dance team for the Boston Celtics.

Brooke started dancing at Phunk Phenomenon when she was 7 and also spent two years on Lil Phunk both of them performing during dozens of Celtics games each year and dozens of exhibitions and charity fundraisers.  Brooke has many years of various dance styles under her belt including, Tap, Salsa, Contemporary, Jazz, and Hip Hop.  She is now on several company teams including Teen Phunk, Phunk Allstars and Future Phunk where she co-captains with 3 others.   Brooke is also in this years musical at Burlington High School - Hairspray. 

Brooke and Nathan are excited to participate in the competition in Vegas and can’t think of a better place to shed some light and bring hope to their mission Hip Hop for Hope and Jaredsfight.org.