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Founded by Joel Tan, an accreditated dance teacher with a registered certificate from the United Kingdom Alliance(UKA) in the area of Hip Hop and Street Styles, Urban Groove Dance Network(UGDN) is a locally based network of academies focused on providing professional classes for Urban and Street Dance Styles since 2004. With classes and workshops offering Hip Hop, New Styles, Breaking, Locking, Poppin, House, and Krump lessons, Urban Groove Dance Network has established itself as the leading street and urban dance styles school in Malaysia since 2004 as an official dance studio. Joel Tan is the pioneer of the original street and urban dance styles in Malaysia and is the first to receive the street dance teaching certificate.

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The first time i knew about this dance group was a few years back. I was pretty impressed when i know about its history and such and how they managed to get to the top in the HipHop scene in Malaysia.

With a founder who was the first to get a professional dance certificate all the way from United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing and Kindred Arts.

With 10 branches and more than 20 instructors conducting hundreds of sessions per month teaching hundreds of students.

With records of various competitions and even breaking into the clubbing scene getting all the attentions and such.

Being judges themselves in later stages judging different dance competitions.

It seems that they are not stopping right there and then pushing their limits creating a much bigger buzz in the Malaysian Hip Hop Scene. I wasn’t really interested in learning the dance steps and such but i was interested in following their news then.

As i understand thus far, back to the old days, Joel Tan started this whole dance school with 2 of his buddies, Nick a.k.a Fai and Fellest and it was during their college days in TARC they knew each other. With a passion in dancing, they started their first dance studio in Bandar Sunway and it became big where they expanded their dance studios and classes to Cheras and Klang.

The whole business went big and within a short span of time, they opened up more branches and it broke out of the state and went to as far as Penang and Johor. Everything looks good and promising to them with more students and of course more money coming in.

and everything right seems wrong where everything good became bad from there…

According to a private source of mine, there were mamak sessions having discussions and talks among the top instructors of UGDN planning a leaving from the dance group where they dislike Joel Tan and they wanted to boycott and leave him and UGDN once and for all.

and the whole split drama happened at the end of 2007 if i’m not mistaken. Yes 2 years ago.

and compiling the information from a few different source these are the reasons :

From the instructors point of view :
- Joel Tan was too self-centered and all the attention goes to him alone and not as a whole group of dancers.
- Money conflicts where the instructors think that they are underpaid and such
- Opinions and thoughts that clashes

From Joel Tan’s point of view :
- He said that the instructors betrayed him and left him
- He voiced out a few things in the group and wanted to change certain things but the others dislike what he want to do which includes conducting classes at a cheaper rate for Christians as he is a Christian and he wanted Christians to shine for God through Hip Hop dance and of course the other instructors do not want to reduce their rates on teaching.

There’s no exact prove on who says the truth and such but whether who is right and who is wrong, the main reason being was pretty serious i guessed that the relationship that they had for years, the friendship and such that made them the top of the world in Malaysia turned out into betrayal and backstabbing leaving each other at different sides with no more relations.

I won’t say anything on that as i wasn’t there in between the whole drama when it happen.
I have no rights to judge any of them as well.
I just felt sad for them, a happening group that’s promising becoming into broken pieces

Now, 4 of the ex-top dance Instructors of UGDN under Joel Tan back in the years have each established their own dance studios in different areas. Fellest Yan, Nick Fai, Raymond and Bobby.

Fellest Yan’s Royal Phantom Dance Studio
31-2 & 31-M, The Strand Damansara,
Jalan PJU 5/20, Kota Damansara,
Selangor, Malaysia, 47810
Tel : +6012-8333755

Nick Fai’s Rhythmusic Dance Studio
32A (1st Floor), Jalan Midah 1,
Taman Midah
56100 Cheras
Nick Fai 016-2336002
Geraldine 012-9074312

Bobby Tan’s Street Nation Dance Studio
Puchong branch:
No 50-3, Jalan Puteri 2/4,
Bandar Puteri,
47100 Puchong, Selangor.
Tel: 012 681 2757 | 012 553 1130
Email: info@streetnation.com.my

Sunway branch:
3-2, Jalan PJS 11/28B,
Bandar Sunway,
46150 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Tel: 016 553 5306
Email: eric_5507@hotmail.com

Raymond’s Raydio Dance Academy
Klang, Malaysia
Joanne, 012-9304618
Raymond, 016-6997889
Email : raydioacademy@gmail.com

Media Coverage of UGDN in the past.

Urban Groove Dance Network
Sunway : 45-3 Jln PJS 11/28B Bandar Sunway 46150 Petaling Jaya
Subang : No 7 2nd Floor USJ10/16 47620 Subang Jaya
Kepong : No 31-1 Jln Prima 7 Pusat Niaga Metro Prima Kepong 52100 Kuala Lumpur
Joel : 012- 3896568
Alyssa: 016-5684466

and there goes UGDN, once a group of talented and passionate Hip Hop dancers that gathered together rocking the Malaysian scene, now having their own dreams and directions going their own ways managing their dance studios. Its a different world altogether already.
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