We were lucky to catch up with Le’Don Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.
Le’Don, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
After cancelling the 2020 event due to Covid Restrictions, TRiBAL Grounds was finally able come back in 2022.
TRiBAL GROUNDS Hip Hop Dance Festival is a 5 day event in which we bring Hip Hop Culture to Houston by way of Dance, Music, and Art. During this event, we hosts multiple dance competitions, exchanges of wisdom, live-Graffiti paintings, and, most-importantly, the parties.
This event brought in over 200 competitors, 300+ dancers, 600+ spectators, and over 10,000 online viewers. Our event goers came from 16 states, and 7 countries. This event has been talked about in extremely high regard all over the world by newer generation dancers, current dancers, and our elders who are all patiently awaiting the announcement for our next event.
Being the only Hip Hop dance festival in the USA of this caliber, we have quickly become a staple in the Hip Hop dance community and look forward to continuing this journey.
The idea of this event came from our Company, iLL TRiBE, taking note of what was missing in the USA Dance Community. As we pondered on this, we put together our resources to create what has become one of the most widely known Hip Hop events in Street Dance Culture, TRiBAL GROUNDS.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I have a very extensive history in Dance, starting with my mother. My mother owned her own dance company, in which I was a part of from the time I learned to walk. My mother would make sure her very-active child always had a role in her showcases, which got me comfortable with movement and being on stage from a young age.
From there, my love for movement continued to grow. After studying under teachers such as Sweft Washington, Pat Garrett, Tesia Truitt, and Liz Ann, I grew into wanting to start a company of my own.
From here, my friends and I created iLL TRiBE Dance Crew. We rose in notoriety fairly quickly due to us being noticed by Red Bull at a very early stage. This provided us with opportunities to do much more for our community and culture.
What sets us apart from others is how much we put the community before ourselves. The large majority of our time and money goes directly back into the community by way of: events, project resource funds, scholarships, and more. We do our best to give back to the community that has saved us and given us all some of the most memorable times of our lives. It’s not an easy task to do, but it is extremely fulfilling. Seeing our friends, local or not, having the opportunity to join together for dance is one of the best feelings that we can have.
Creating our TRiBAL GROUNDS Hip Hop Dance festival, building our community, preserving our culture, and creating opportunities for our peers is our main goal. So far, we have done a great job with this, and excited to continue progressing in these ways.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
COVID lockdowns dealt a very harsh blow to us, at that time. Our First TRiBAL GROUNDS Festival was scheduled to happen on April 2nd-5th of 2020, which was right after the lockdowns took major affect in Houston. After raising funds, scheduling flights and hotels, and making sure all events were logistically set, we had to cancel our first major event with no guidance or chance for rescheduling in sight.
After working so hard on this event, we were extremely pained but we did not let that stop us. We were fortunate enough to co-host the first dance event in Houston following the lockdown as we celebrated Juneteenth with an outdoor cookout. Everyone from all over the city had not seen each other in such a long time. This event reminded us all of how vast our community is, and how many peers we have to lean on in dark times.
Eventually, we were able to bring back TRiBAL GROUNDS in 2022, and it turned out to be bigger than we imagined. With support from all over the world – online and in person, we were fortunate enough to create one of the Largest Foundational Hip Hop Dance Festivals in America. We continued this success in 2023, and look to continue doing so in many more years to come.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We interact with our community on a face to face, and very genuine level. We do our best to always stay true to the essence of what Hip Hop dance culture is meant too be and will continue to be throughout our time here. Many people resonate with this approach and want to follow the journey.
Peace, Love and Unity is what we promote. We strive to always create a positive environment for any and everyone to be themselves how they see fit, and join in with others that enjoy expressing themselves in the same way.
Contact Info:
- Website: tribalgroundshtx.com
- Instagram: @tribalgroundshtx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tribal.grounds.HTX
Image Credits
Teneysha -ten10images.com -@d_tenacious TheCSVisuals -TheCSvisuals.com -@thecsvisuals Legend ODA [email protected] -@Densetsu_htx