For this dance-and-art showcase at Aliwal Arts Centre, there is no stage — at least not in the way most audiences expect. Instead, there are moving bodies, shifting light, a custom-built life-sized house animated by projection, and somewhere in between, the audience itself.
This is D-SIDE: Building Blocks, an experimental hip hop showcase conceived by NUS alumni Ms Sarah Faizah Bte Reduan (Arts & Social Sciences ’18) and Mr Nurman Zahin Jupri (Engineering ’20), along with three other NUS alumni, Genevieve Ho (Arts & Social Sciences ’20), Shawn Chang (Design & Environment ’19) and Natalie Sim (Arts & Social Sciences ‘19). Here, the audience drifts in and out of the space at their leisure, at times interacting with the dancers, or casting shadows that become part of the work.
“You’re not just watching,” Ms Sarah says. “You’re part of the performance.”
The production is a passion project for the husband-and-wife team — not only an expression of their love for hip hop, but also a way to reconnect with fellow alumni from the NUS D’Hoppers Dance Crew (DDC) across eight generations, while promoting street dance to a wider community.
BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE FORMER DANCE CAPTAINS
That DDC played a significant role in Ms Sarah and Mr Nurman’s lives is clear: it was where they first met and developed as dancers and leaders. She joined the dance crew in 2014 in her first year, hoping to train formally in hip hop. He joined two years later, already drawn to dance since primary school. Both would go on to become captains, shaping the culture and artistic growth of a crew of 70 to 100 members.
“DDC accepted dancers with zero experience,” Ms Sarah recounts her time as a dance captain. “So we started from basic moves like bounce and rocking.” She shared how DDC typically drilled simple grooves and learnt about rhythm and body control. From there, instructors layered on “hip hop vocabulary”, foundational moves that can be applied to choreography or freestyle.
“This was our approach because we had wanted to nurture new dancers,” she says, recalling that sessions ran twice a week for the dance crew in school, but the structure extended beyond practice. Guest instructors introduced different styles, while internal sharings allowed members to teach and experiment. Competitions and performances provided real-world testing grounds for generations of DDC members.
“It was really fun,” Sarah says, “because for many of us, it was our first time doing large-scale competitions.”
THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF COMMUNITY
What stayed with them, however, was not just the performances.
DDC dancers regularly compete in events such as Super 24, where performers face all four sides of the audience, as well as in freestyle battles that demand improvisation under pressure. But for Ms Sarah, the defining moments often happened offstage.
She remembered a senior alumnus approaching their crew and praising the number of members who had shown up simply to support. “He said it was very nice to see everyone come together,” she recalls, “even those not dancing.”
That moment stayed with her. Years after graduation, that same spirit continues to draw them back — as mentors, as audience members, and occasionally as performers.
PARTNERING NEW DISCIPLINES
D-SIDE grew from that instinct to return, but also to evolve.
The idea emerged in 2024 after Ascen(dance!), DDC’s biennial showcase. Rather than recreate a conventional stage production, the alumni set out to rethink how hip hop could be experienced, and how the connection to dance had matured through exposure to other art forms, life experiences and new sources of inspiration.
The result is an exhibition-style format that is fluid and immersive, comprised of alumni from DDC. “We could have done a normal production,” Mr Nurman says. “But we wanted to challenge ourselves.”
Across two hours, six performance pieces unfold in cycles. Audiences encounter different moments depending on when they arrive and where they move. Each piece is developed in collaboration with artists.
One segment, choreographed by Mr Nurman, centres on a life-sized house used for projection mapping. The team also worked with Singaporean artists Megan Tan and Tan Shao Xuan, having been inspired by their interactive installation at i Light Singapore where a meadow of fiberglass flowers reacts to movement and sound. DJ Chops provides a live soundscape throughout.
“There’s a lot of give and take,” Ms Sarah says. “But in the end, it’s about creating something both our alumni performers and external collaborators are proud of.”
MANY SIDES, ONE STORY
At its core, D-SIDE is about identity. The title is a play on the “B-side” of a record, the lesser-known track, and points to the different sides of oneself. “In university, we held on to the identity of students and dancers,” Ms Sarah says. “Now we have careers, new families, different experiences.”
The production’s theme, Building Blocks, reflects this evolution. Each piece asks its creators to return to their foundations — to consider what shaped them, and what remains. It is both reflective and forward-looking, an alumni story grounded in shared beginnings, but open to what comes next.
Today, the power couple are navigating new rhythms. They are no longer students, but professionals — Ms Sarah in marketing and Mr Nurman in engineering — and parents balancing work, family and creative pursuits.
“We don’t want to give up on the things we love just because we started a family,” Ms Sarah shared. “I want dance to always be part of my life.”
That participation now takes different forms. For Ms Sarah, it may mean stepping back from performing and trying her hand at creative direction. For Mr Nurman, it is about making time where possible, supported by family. Their infant daughter, meanwhile, has already begun responding to music. “She’s already bouncing,” Ms Sarah says with a laugh, to a K-pop tune, no less.
WHAT CONTINUES
If D-SIDE feels like a culmination, it is also a beginning. The pair hope it will become a platform others can build on — an evolving space for alumni to create, collaborate and return to. “We hope it continues,” Ms Sarah says. “Not necessarily by us, but by others.”
In that sense, D-SIDE reflects the ethos of DDC itself: a space where individuals arrive with varying degrees of experience, and leave having contributed to something larger than themselves.
D-SIDE: Building Blocks runs at Aliwal Arts Centre from 17 to 19 April 2026.
