Breakin’ Convention 2024 Programme
ARTISTS
Boy Blue (UK) - Archives Volume 1
Performing Sunday 5 May
Expect an explosive and tightly in-sync mass performance from east London’s leading dance crew.
Cie Kilaï (FRANCE) - Raw
Performing Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May in the Lilian Baylis Studio
Performers: Ashley Biscette, Dafne Bianchi, Sandrine Lescourant, Sonia Ivashchenko
Hip hop is a culture that can't be reduced to a simple culture of images. It's a raw, positive, unfiltered way of revealing what needs to be transformed, transcended.
"Raw" is about brutality and gentleness at the same time, the gentleness of the present moment, vivacious. It's hip hop, yes it's raw, it comes out as it comes out. Right here, right now.
Raw is an interactive one-on-one show with the audience, a portrait of four dancers recounting their world, the game, its violence and ironic beauty, devoid of utopia but charged with hope.
Cie Kilaï was created in 2014 by Sandrine Lescourant - also known as Mufasa - whose desire was to come together around a "WE".
It was during a trip to the Philippines, in the heart of Manila's slums, that Sandrine Lescourant was inspired by a word thrown out by a local who was staring at her: Kilay. In Tagalog (the name given to the national language of the Philippines in 1937 - now known as Philipino), Kilay means eyebrows. Eyebrows are the seat of instinct, character, and expression.
For Sandrine, the name sounded like an obvious choice: "Eyebrows, those expressive hyphens that dance and translate our emotions."
The company’s artistic project, rooted in hip hop values, aims to weave links over the long term, question the individual in his or her relationship to the world, and create bridges between the company's artists and the public. The social and therapeutic aspects of dance are of great importance in the research processes implemented for each project, and the creations are the starting point for a sincere questioning of the individual in his or her relationship with others.
Company DHW (UK) - p = F/A
Performing Sunday 5 May
Performers: Abe Taylor, Asa Mohammed, Bismark Anobah, Cache Thake, Elijah Smith, Emily Jordan, Kelly Costa, Marta Tenório, Oliver Stewart, Oliver Stewart, Sofia Tomic
p = F/A (Pressure), a thought-provoking dance piece that combines choreography, storytelling, and thematic exploration to examine the human condition and society's impact on individual identity and self-worth.
Dani Harris-Walters is a dynamic and multifaceted entertainer with a rich background as a dance artist, choreographer, presenter, writer, and DJ. Dani has immersed himself in the vibrant realms of hip hop culture and theatre. His infectious charm, reflected in his ever-present smiley face, sets him apart as a beloved figure in the industry.
Graduating from the University of East London with a degree in Dance: Urban Practice, he continues to extend his influence by working with community groups and mentoring young creatives across the UK.
Dani’s versatility is further demonstrated through his debut full-length work Happy Father’s Day, a fusion of movement, rap, animation, and spoken word that engages audiences in a fresh exploration of tabooed topics like puberty and sexual health. This will tour nationally in spring 2024.
His presence is not just about entertainment—rather creating a unique and relatable experience encouraging audiences to broaden their journey and finding new ways to make art interesting and accessible. Dani aims to represent the unrepresented, particularly focusing on the youth, the global majority, and those who do not traditionally engage with the arts, embodying inclusivity and diversity.
Some of his credits include: Avant Garde Dance, Jeanefer Jean-Charles, SAULT, Lil’ Simz, Far From The Norm, Boy Blue, and Joseph Toonga.
CREATE4 (NETHERLANDS ) - THE HEREDITARY
Performing Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May
Performers: Ibrah Silas Jackson Kakande, Angel Ali Felix Gonzalez
Two young black men from different sides of the world explore the long- ingrained, toxic masculinity that is passed on generation to generation, sometimes actively by a father who is present, and the other times through the absence of a father figure. In a physical conversation blend with hip hop dance, they share and learned from their differences and similarities.
CREATE4 is collective of four new generation creative men based in Rotterdam. The foundation their art lies within the hip hop culture and our work is based on storytelling.
Ekleido (UK ) - Splice
Performing Saturday 4 May
Performers: Faye Stoeser & Hannah Ekholm
Splice is an exploration of connection and architecture between two bodies as they configure themselves between restriction and possibility, solving a physical puzzle. Like tangled ropes or headphones that splice themselves like magic without you watching, Ekleido explore how that mystery occurs as well as how different textures and elasticities of the ropes/wires would act whilst intertwined and how that translates to human limbs.
EKLEIDO is a choreographic duo made up of Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser choreographing for live performance and film. They have both individually had extensive dance careers within the contemporary dance world, commercial industry and underground club/street dance scenes, often crossing paths with each other on projects including Rambert, Years & Years and within The Ballroom (Vogue) Scene.
They are interested in developing an innovative movement language combining contemporary dance with underground club/battle styles as well as multidisciplinary collaborations, currently working with musicians at the forefront of the electronic music scene.
Their choreographic work has been performed in venues including: Sadler’s Wells, The Place, Fairfield Halls, Arts Depot, The Dance House (Cardiff), ExCeL Exhibition Centre; and commercial choreographic credits including: Marc Jacobs, Maison Margiela, NIKE, Joy Crookes, RAYE, Floating Points, British Vogue, Daniel Avery, Grey Goose, La Roux.
Femme Fatale (USA) - Unbounded
Performing Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May
Performers: Marie Poppins, Dassy Lee, Lily Frias
The story of three women of different cultural backgrounds moving to America to pursue their dreams. They share their experience in the street dance scene, touching on subjects such as gender inequality, self-discovery as women and the ongoing challenges of being an artist.
Femme Fatale is a group of 3 female international dancers: Marie Poppins, Lily Frias and Dassy Lee. They are based in Los Angeles, and are originally from different countries: France, Mexico and South Korea. They moved to the United States to pursue their dreams as professional dancers and choreographers.
They are mostly known for their strong abilities in Popping, Animation, Whacking and a high level of musicality with a feminine touch. Their mix of cultural background and unique individual styles is what makes Femme Fatale an original and powerful collective. They use their femininity as a strength, their technique as a weapon, and their passion as a power.
Femme Fatale performed for Vogue Magazine, Cirque du Soleil, Red Bull, YSL Beauty, Marc Jacobs, Formula One, the Black Eyed Peas and more. They have starred in major dance TV shows including So You Think You Can Dance and America's Got Talent.
GSB (UK ) - Title: GSB
Performing Saturday 4 May
Performers: Alicia Cox ,Antonio Adu-Asante, Cache Thake, Chaquille Forrester-Osborne, Darrell Brade, Gary Clarke, Kyron Jake Anthony, Laqwarn Robinson, Leo Clarke, Lisandro Pinto, Luca Murray, Malachi Lewis, Masaiya Thomas, Max Chesire, Nathan Sinclair-Marsh, Taylor-Kae Knott, Yazmin Howlett
“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” Founded in 2017, GSB, also known as Gully South Block, are a South London based Krump collective, whose aim is to give an intimate insight into their individual lifestyles and environments.
With Krump being such an expressive and personal style, GSB draw inspiration from their communities and peers with the hope of stimulating the minds of today by continuing to inspire and encourage us all to have a voice.
Jamal Sterrett (UK) - High Spectra
Performing Saturday 4 May
Surreal realities exist when your inner world contains Aspergers. Spectra, is short for spectrum, an ideology that all life exists, on frequencies personalised to you. Whether a frequency is higher or lower, depends on the Individual. Dance exists within spectra. It can be used to decipher movement that resonates most with your inner being.
High Spectra is a site-specific response, that personifies my inner world. Influenced by a still yet alive feeling of eternal presence, meditation and otherworldly beings. Taking on a performance art mentality, it’s a complete paradigm construction. Using mental language and physical space. While deconstructing the imagery of ballet, placed over freeform Bruk up. Spectra personifies inner feelings and exemplifies the world I experience the minds lens. Spectra tunes you into what you feel is your highest spectra.
Born and based in St Ann’s Nottinghamshire. Jamal Sterrett is a self-taught performance artist using his Asperger’s, with Freeform bruk up, and ballet dance. To create improvised movement in response to the felt, sensory and aesthetic state of an environment. Jamal's work is concerned with the relationship and state between body and space. Moving to transform personal and collectively shared paradigms, through channelling the state of an environment by transmuting it into movement as a method to expose and transform how we relate and interact with these spaces. Redefining our existence within these environments that hold our personal and mental states.
Jinjo Crew (SOUTH KOREA)
Performing Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May
Old and new members of the grand slam winners Jinjo Crew re-interpret some of the performances that cemented them as world champions.
Jinjo Crew, which achieved the world's first Grand Slam, was founded in 2011. We have made efforts to operate breaking-related competitions, plan and produce videos, and promote popular culture and arts such as broadcasting, modelling, and advertising, and have made inroads into overseas markets as well as domestic ones.
Sasha Mahfouz Shadid (UK)
Performing Sunday 5 May
A love letter to the values inspired by his Palestinian father, full of harsh realities through a British Palestinian lens, performed by one body personifying an interpretation of characters from The Wizard of Oz to reflect the inner unity and outer isolation.
Sasha Shadid is a prolific movement artist and actor with a long spanning career from the stage to film, commercials, and direction of his own work. He has trained fundamentally in street styles, in particular hip hop, house dance, Krump and contemporary.
With over 10 years of experience, he has worked in such shows as HEX at The National Theatre, Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells, and Summertime Ball at Wembley Stadium. He has also been featured in music videos with such artists as Clean Bandit, GreenTea Peng, Craig David, and many more.
Sasha is experienced in many realms of the art space, from ensemble to solo work, singing and acting to dancing, and assisting choreography to being dance captain
A proud Palestinian and Brit.
ShaolinOrShao (UK) MP3+Movement Init
Performing Saturday 4 May
Performers: Marta Da Silva Tenorio, Sofia Tomic, Micheal Hooke-Tappin, Lennon Dalton, Kai Daniel-Augustin, Dylan Mazey, Sophie Erika St. Cyr
“£2 Chicken and chips and BBQ dip from Morley’s… Bad boy meal
This piece is about grime culture, safe”
Sami is a freelance choreographer born and raised in south London who’s just graduated from UEL and is currently working and creating with current and ex students from UEL. His main focus as an artist right now is London culture and how beautiful it can be, with dancers who he’s working with at the moment from all over England and Europe.
Sons of Wind (FRANCE) - Bounce
Performing Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May
Performers: Amiel Mampouya, Anaël "Lypso" Regent, Dereck Prudent, Joackim "Twizzy" Chardonnens, Junior Cadet, Kristina "Krissy" Kunn, Mickael "Kara" Saint Felix, Nathan "Nathy" Kinsiona
With Bounce, Sons of Wind affirm their strong connection to hip hop freestyle and reflect on how the bounce inspires and nourishes the body.
The Sons Of Wind (SOW) embody a lifestyle. Since their creation in 2013, they have been exploring the world of hip hop freestyle, in movement as well as in music, to best defend a common cultural heritage that spans from past to future.
Sons of Wind has been supported and accompanied by the FAIR-E / CCN collective of Rennes and Brittany since 2021, and by the Théâtre Louis Aragon in Tremblay-En-France.
TRAPLORD (UK)
Performing Saturday 4 May
From Ivan Michael Blackstock, a new chapter of the TRAPLORD universe premieres at Breakin’ Convention.
When Time Was New (UK) - Psyche
Performing Sunday 5 May
Psyche is a hip hop dance theatre show that uses dance as a tool to spread an important message about male mental health with an all-star line-up of UK dancers.