Kiara Clements and her sister Taleah, from West Beach, are excelling in their respective fields and mom, Deidre couldn’t be any happier.
Fourteen-year-old Kiara is a dancing wonder kid. Two weeks ago she took part in the national leg of the Hip Hop International Championships in Johannesburg. She won the under-15 gold medal, making her the number one ranked dancer in South Africa in her category.
She has also qualified to receive her South African colours in June this year. Kiara and her team, B2Dominate, will be representing South Africa at the Hip Hop International World Championships which will be held in Arizona in America in August.
Her older sisters, Saskia and Taleah, are dancers themselves and received their Western Province colours.
Kiara, however, is supposedly the one who was born to dance. Getting her talent from her father Gerhard, a former breakdancer, Kiara has taken the dancing craze in her family to new heights. “I started dancing at the age of 5 at B2D Studios. I was influenced by the likes of Michael Jackson and I guess that is why my preferred dance style is popping and locking,” she said.
One of her fellow dancers is Paris Goebel, who does a lot of dance hall moves and Kiara is always trying to mimic that. This is where she gets her inspiration from.
Last year, she took part in a dance competition in Sun City where they mistakenly put her in a higher category with older girls. She ended up winning the competition and that is where they realised that she can actually compete with the best and win.
Kiara said she feels great about all she has achieved. “Most importantly, I feel grateful. The support of family, friends and my faith has taken me this far and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them,” she said.
Seventeen-year-old Taleah Meshaè Clements is quite the dancer herself but she has shifted her focus to fashion. Last year, she launched her first fashion editorial magazine, Born, saying she wanted to showcase the birth of her brand. “I collaborated with some elite South African brands in the editorial. And I did the styling, the make-up, everything,” she said.
Taleah received the Women In Entrepreneurship Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy Development (WEISED) Award in November at a ceremony held at the University of Cape Town. The award was for recognition of tenacity and invaluable contribution to the advancement of women and Africa’s socio-economic growth.
Taleah said she was honoured to be recognised at the event and is striving to empower the youth. On Saturday April 21, she will be hosting a workshop where she will be “calling the next generation to fuel up their dreams and widen their visions”.
The aim of the workshop is to build confidence in every individual and to draw out their true potential.
The workshop will help empower the youth, help create masterpieces and influence each other by inspiring one another.
The two Clements sisters will be representing South Africa at the Dance Star World finals in Croatia in May. They have been selected to dance as a duo at the competition.
Mom is very happy, to say the least.
“The important thing that we tried to focus on is that we didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on the children.
“We try to identify their strengths and give a little nudge in that direction. But we are very strict when we say school comes first, and the girls know and understand that,” said Ms Clements.
