Breakin’ Convention bringing international hip hop crews to Blackpool!

Live at the Grand Theatre Blackpool
Saturday 27 May

Sadler’s Wells’ critically acclaimed international festival of hip hop dance theatre, Breakin’ Convention, is back, with performances from UK and international companies and crews. Now in its 14th year, this hugely popular Sadler’s Wells Production is once again hosted and curated by Associate Artist Jonzi D.

Having established itself as one of the major highlights on the British dance calendar and one of the world’s greatest celebrations of hip hop culture, Breakin’ Convention will return to Blackpool by popular demand for a second consecutive year.

The UK tour will see talented local dance companies perform alongside International acts which this year include: Soweto Skeleton Movers, Tentacle Tribe and Just Dance.  
 
Soweto Skeleton Movers, who performed as part of the 2016 Breakin’ Convention Festival in London, mix comedic contortionism with the Pantsula dance style native to the townships of South Africa and performing to Kwaito music, a form of Afro house and the soundtrack of the liberation struggle, the group returns by popular demand to present Children at Playground.  
Joining them on tour is Canadian group Tentacle Tribe. Founded in 2012, the Montreal based dance company creates uncommon dance works with a contemporary twist using conceptual hip hop and influences from all types of earthly creatures. The duo’s work experiments with intricate partnering, refined musicality and physical choreography. Tentacle Tribe recently performed at Breakin’ Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. 
Completing the international line up are Just Dance from South Korea. Under the artistic direction of B-boy Ducky of the Drifterz Crew, Just Dance presents an updated vision of Korean shamanistic mask performance. Live Korean drumming accompanies a crew of poppers and B-boys, with many with world titles to their name. Earlier in 2016 the group performed at Breakin’ Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. The London dates mark their Breakin’ Convention UK premiere. 
The local line-up includes: Freefly Crew, Generation Movement, Urban Dance Project (UDP) and FY Wingz.
Freefly Crew is a Blackpool based dance crew who specialise in breakin’, also known as b-boying. The crew is built up of 4 lifetime friends of different ages who have been together for over 8 years competing in b-boy battles, competitions and performing over 300 shows together both in the UK and Internationally. Freefly Crew have also performed for several TV shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show in Los Angeles, Tu Si Que Vales in Italy, The Voice UK, Britain’s Got Talent and Breakin’ Convention 2016.
Generation Movement is a company of two male young dancers, Ryan Fenton and Sam Wise who is just 15 years old. Both train in broad styles from Hip Hop, Commercial, Krump, Contemporary and Popping. Having formed a strong friendship over their love of dance, Ryan and Sam decided to create a dance company and have travelled together to dance classes, workshops and conventions ever since. They both choreograph pieces and concepts they explore and are looking forward to performing in Breakin’ Convention together for the first time this year.
Urban Dance Project (UDP) was established in 2012, providing street dance, breakdance and contemporary classes to the local community. The Urban Dodgers (under 10s) are current World Streetdance champions. Mimi Ramsey the founder of UDP began breakdancing in the early 90’s whilst training and dancing in Germany, she was lucky to have trained with some of the best b-boys and b-girls in the world. UDP have performed in previous years’ Breakin’ Convention shows and are excited to return to the Grand stage for the 2017 show.
FY Wingz is an Urban collective formed in 2013 following the former success of dance troupe FY Westcoast which was established in Blackpool in 2006. The crew train in all styles of Hip Hop but specialise in Breakin', Poppin, Lockin', House, Krump and Lyrical. FY Wingz will be performing 'The Blackpool Get Down' at the Breakin Convention, a piece that explores the discovery and development of Hip Hop in the 1970's.
The show itself will be on Saturday 27 May but the festival will also have events running on Saturday 20 May at The Grand Theatre, Blackpool as part of build-up for the show. For more information on any of these events or how you and your family can get involved visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk.