Dance4Life History 101

Mj Pineda
#BuhayKolehiyo
Published in
3 min readMar 6, 2015

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Season 2’s Champion: CAST (The official Street Dance Company of Adamson University)[/caption]

From a broken heart, sprout a ministry that can’t be shaken.

This year’s 3rd season of Dance4Life will be, once again, buzzing in social media showcasing pure talent and elegance in the art of hiphop dancing.

Year 2010, 2 years after she graduated from college, when the most brilliant idea came to Miss Abby Borja, founder of Dance4Life, which is to start something big and finance the medication of cancer patients with her God-given gifts: leadership and dancing. Add a cup of leadership and a cup of talent in dancing, one can materialize the only-just-a-dream interschool annual dance competition: Dance4Life.

Miss Abby was never a fan of hiphop dancing. She was born a cheerdancer; creating pyramids with jumps and tosses in the air. But then the Skechers 1 came and so did her co-cheerdancers. “You can’t build a pyramid with only one person!”

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The Dance4Life Family[/caption]

Everyone is subject to heartbreak, even Miss Abby. And her heart break did not just come from any man on Earth, but from a hiphop dancer — the very competition of her passion. For three months, she had been suicidal. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. And I’m the breadwinner of my family! Pano na sila?” said Miss Abby. Realizing that sulking is not worth the time and effort, she got up and trained with every dance crew within her area: All Stars, Groove Central etc. “Eventually, I fell in love with the community. It’s really good, I could taste it,” pertaining to the hiphop dancing community’s familiarity and brotherhood.

She was only a high school student when her eyes opened to the National Children’s Hospital. She would volunteer for her church and see so many children with cancer. Until… “They stopped and I longed.” Then year 2013, the first season of Dance4Life started and NCH being their beneficiary, though with minimal funding, still pushed through the second season on 2014 with 13 crews that competed for the first prize and benefiting the World Vision.

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A patient at National Children’s Hospital[/caption]

Now on its 3rd season, Dance4Life organized by Abby&Company, people should expect more crews and schools have joined the list of competitors and 80% of the contest will be aired on national television. Dance4Life aims awareness for the organization and its purpose: benefiting cancer patients who are in need of medication. “It’s not just a dance competition; these are group of people who would be part of the organization to help us. This is not just to help but make people realize that they (cancer patients) are not fighting alone, we are here for you.”

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Miss Abby Borja and a beneficiary[/caption]

Funds collected from the tickets and entries to the competition are generously shared to the beneficiaries from National Children’s Hospital for year 1 and World Vision for year 2.

Abby&Company plans to expand the Dance4Life to the Visayas and Mindanao provinces: Cebu and Davao. So it won’t be just the NCR and Luzon provinces on the fourth season, but including crews from the Visayan and Mindanao Region, as well.

This is the journey of Dance4Life and of Miss Abby Borja from a heartbreak for a heartbeat; a dance step for a cause.

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