About

LeadHers is an educational and artistic program that promotes Krump throughout Montreal, Quebec, and Canada. It has the mission to use Krump as a tool to explore and develop girls and women’s mental and physical strength through different activities such as workshops, mentorship, creation, cultural mediation and conferences.

The Krump movement is still male-dominated: LeadHers’ activities and interventions has the goal to make the dance accessible, give recognition to girls and women, and essentially FOR the girls and women. LeadHers’ approach is also about promoting the physical, psychological and social benefits of the dance: it can be adapted to different environments where girls and women evolve, offering useful tools that lead them to excel and create positive impacts in their personal and professional lives through the experience of Krump.

LeadHers’ approach bases its values and principles on encouraging development and expression of the full potential, success and well-being. Values and principles such as discipline, perseverance, courage, self-surpassing, autonomy, respect, team work, and personal expression.

Valerie “Taminator” Chartier is a pioneer of Krump, one of the first female Krumpers in Canada.

She has more than 30 years of dance experience and 4 years in fitness. Taminator had been observing, throughout her journey, that there was a minority of female practicing this style. She began to analyze the possible reasons behind this reality, and realized that fear, prejudice, and false self-perception were some of the reasons that held back girls and women from investing in this dance and/or to grow, besides the false perceptions on the dance itself.

In 2011, she created the first all-female Krump crew in Canada: BuckSwans, which had the mission to lead by example and push Krump for girls and women through performances, competitions and mentorship. She then decided to develop a teaching approach dedicated to the ladies, targeting physical and mental issues that women can experience during the learning process, while promoting self-confidence and learn to apply a professional ethic to the dance.

Finally, through her experience, meetings, etc., she realized how much this dance had therapeutic and possibly could have a beneficial influence to a clientele outside of the dance.

LeadHers History

Krump - origins and history

Krump is a dance style created in the beginning of 2000, mainly in South Central areas, Los Angeles. Both creators, Ceasare “Tight Eyez” Willis and Jo’Artis “Mijo” Ratti, were first part a of a movement called “Clowning”, founded in 1992 by Thomas Johnson aka “Tommy The Clown”.

This movement had the goal to entertain the youth in kid’s parties, neighborhood gatherings and community centers. The dancers were using energetic and humoristic movements. But at a certain point, this dance became limited for what some dancers wanted and needed to express. Tight Eyez and Mijo decided to create their own language, more powerful and aggressive, basing its essence on the pure and authentic expression of emotions through technical basic movements. Other dancers that were around at that time, contributed to the development of the dance: Miss Prissy, Lil C, Slayer, JSmoove, Daisy, etc. At this time, the first Krump crew was created: Cartoonz. The emergence of the style is narrated in the documentary Rize, directed by David Lachapelle.
Krump is a high intensity freestyle dance that requires strength, power, control and full commitment to an authentic expression of pure emotions. From a big and solid technical movements repertoire, the dancers use those movements through a character. At first sight, we might think that those kind of movements and facial expressions are the expression of aggressivity, anger even rage. But we quickly discover that passion and a full, physical and mental commitment, are the main source of the form. More than just a dance style, Krump is a culture in itself: music, dress code, etc. Even more, there are important elements that compose this culture: the “sessions”, the “battles”, the “labs” (practices), are important pillars of this style, it is born from these. At its beginning, Krump had more of a spiritual connotation, reason why it has this acronym: K.R.U.M.P: Kingdom, Radically, Mighty, Praise. Krump stayed underground for a long period of time: people only got access to the information through a series of instructional DVD’s done by the creators and the
veterans.

From its creation, Krump didn’t have a lot of women. Some of them really marked the history, the movement, influencing and inspiring those who push the culture now: Daisy, Miss Prissy, Queen B, Storm, ChooChoo – were some of the very first generation of female Krumpers that influenced the movement and the female movement.