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Dancing Toronto-style

By Brett Popplewell
TheStar.com

Would-be contestants for CTV's forthcoming reality show So You Think Can Dance Canada reveal a style unique to the city

Call it the Toronto style, if you like.

A culturally eclectic mix of reggae, salsa and hip-hop inspired by music videos and practiced to perfection in living rooms across the city.

It's a style of dance with no definitive name and, though not easily recognizable on the dance floor, is unique to Toronto, according to judges with So You Think You Can Dance Canada.

Travelling the country in search of talented young dancers, Tré Armstrong, a judge on the forthcoming CTV reality show, says she has seen audition dancers try their hands and feet at just about any style.

But with more than a thousand wannabe professional terpsichoreans flocking this week to the show's Toronto auditions, Armstrong says city dancers cut loose with a style wholly unique from the rest of Canada and most of the world.

"I call it our northern Hollywood-style," says Armstrong, a dancer from Mississauga who has worked with the likes of Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jennifer Lopez.

"You have a cultural eclectic style here that comes together. We're seeing a lot of ethnic styles like reggae dance, you're bringing the salsa, adding the Cuban component to that, and then you're also getting more traditional hip hop and contemporary abstract free-stylers," she says, trying to pinpoint what is unique about the Toronto style.

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