SOUTH Africa has a new and exciting dance champion, Lulu Mlangeni, who was crowned on Saturday.

SOUTH Africa has a new and exciting dance champion, Lulu Mlangeni, who was crowned on Saturday.

Mlangeni says she wants to use her prize money to buy her mother a house, invest in her education and look forward to a better life .

The 23-year-old contemporary dancer and choreographer walked away with a statuette of the popular SABC1 talent search So You Think You Can Dance and R250000.

But who is Lulu Mlangeni and what is her dance history?

It was at the Dance Umbrella in 2009 and the audience appeared to be in a comatose state, as they stared at the stage with gaping mouths and wide eyes ready to savour the impending action on the floor.

There was total silence in the auditorium, and you could have heard a pin drop.

Something good, inspiring and touching was about to happen in the auditorium. The audience was ready for action on the floor and the energy that permeated the dance space could be clearly felt.

A tall, sexy figure of a bald-headed girl, barely 22 then, slithered on to the dance floor at the University of Johanneburg's arts centre.

With this majestic and grand entrance Mlangeni announced her arrival on the centre stage and the tone was set for the rest of the evening of last year's Dance Umbrella .

Mlangeni won the Most Promising Female Dancer Award in the contemporary dance category that evening and proved ready to mesmerise the industry.

She danced to the piece In Rhythm Colour and Landscape of Pain.

Watching Mlangeni move her body ever so graciously to the beat was amazing, and those educated enough in dance aesthetics were able to follow the story line.

The rest of us, with no clue, were just happy to be there and watch Mlangeni do her thing.

This background perhaps explains why and how Lulu forged ahead of the three other contestants during the highly contested So You Think You Can Dance final last Saturday.

Judging by the entire competition, it is clear that the face of dance is changing rapidly in the townships.

Previously frowned on as an elitist art that had no future in the townships, dance is now being embraced by township folks and those who have taken it with more than a fleeting interest, such as Mlangeni, are excelling in it including on TV.

One need not look further than the classic and contemporary dance scene.

The increasing number of TV contests dedicated to dance also bear testimony to the growing popularity of this form of art .

Shows such as SA's Got Talent, which is currently running on SABC1 and So You Think You Can Dance , where Mlangeni announced her arrival to a bigger audience, have unleashed this relentless wave of talent into living rooms across the width and breath of South Africa .

Though relatively unknown, Mlangeni is not new to the industry. She has long been one of the most revered dancers in contemporary dance circles in the country.

Those dance moves that saw her steal the hearts of judges and the public on Saturday, were long rehearsed by many years of pounding some of the country's most competitive dance floors, notably the Dance Umbrella.