A Tauranga dance group is about to showcase their fresh moves to the world at the Hip-Hop International World Championships in Arizona this August.

The hip-hop dance crew – named Outkast – is from Tauranga's Space Studios and is made up of nine talented teens aged from 14 to 17 years old.

The crew formed in early-January and have been showing off their killer moves ever since.

In late-May, the team made the top five in the Hip Hop International New Zealand competition out of 25 teams, securing their spot in the world championships, which will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, from August 6-13.

The team had some late-night excitement when they found out the news that they'd made it to worlds.

'They release the results close to midnight so we were all at home and then we jumped on a call and we were all just losing it because we were pretty happy,” says Outkast member Connor Settle-Smith, aged 17. 'We've been waiting for a moment like this for a long time.”

The crew has been diligently dancing in preparation for the championships, training at Space Studios two to four times a week. 'We work hard, we do it till we get it right – and we all just love dancing so we just go to train and do the very best we can.”

Connor, who has been a dancer since he was five years old, says making it to the world championships is 'something a lot of dancers in New Zealand hope to get to do at some point in their dancing journey”.

For him, dancing is a 'nice outlet for everything”. 'It's a place where you can just go and dance whatever's happening away…and just being around people that are like-minded and enjoy the same stuff as me is real fun,” says Connor.

The dance that the crew will be performing on the world stage has been co-choreographed by Maddy Barnett, Gabe Sutton and Space Studios' Cameron Smith.

Asked what's going to make Outkast's dance stand out among the other dance crews from across the world, Connor says: 'We're just different – I feel like a lot of dance people say that but I just feel that we've got something else to bring to the table that maybe other people haven't seen”.

The crew fly out on August 4 and have their priorities set when it comes to competition time. 'Getting in the finals, that's our main goal for the competition – just get as far along as we can get and do our very best,” says Connor.

To support the crew with their fundraising efforts to get to the US, email: nzjayne@gmail.com