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Angyil<br />
“I have this belief that when<br />
you are passionate about<br />
something, it doesn’t matter what<br />
time you start, because your<br />
passion will help you catch up”<br />
I<br />
n the lobby of Kansas City’s Paseo Academy of Fine and<br />
Performing Arts on a cold Monday afternoon, the smell<br />
of used textbooks and cafeteria lunches delivers a rush<br />
of high-school nostalgia as the sound of a band rehearsal<br />
rattles off nearby. Lining the walls are photos of the mostly<br />
black alumni: musicians, painters, thespians. Further along a<br />
winding corridor and through the double doors that lead into<br />
the auditorium, world-renowned street dancer Angela ‘Angyil’<br />
McNeal, Paseo Class of 2010, is in her element. Behind the<br />
show curtain, she slinks through nimble moves as she performs.<br />
It’s instantly clear why she flourishes as a battle dancer around<br />
the globe. Full of warm energy, she flows through each flash<br />
like an exotic bird. Her arms are contorted behind her back like<br />
wings, and within seconds she’s in an upside-down backbend<br />
with the crown of her head on the ground. It’s mesmerising.<br />
Angyil’s precision is a result of the ballet classes she began at<br />
the age of 10. Her years of discipline are apparent in the poise<br />
and posture she weaves into her hip-hop technique. “I started<br />
dancing with ballet, modern and jazz when I was selected to be<br />
in an Alvin Ailey dance camp [a workshop based on the methods<br />
60 THE RED BULLETIN
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