Navigate: Home | Features | Beatboxing | Funkstyles | Hip Hop Theatre | Waacking | Calendar | About | Contact
Love street dance?
Please click the ‘like’ button to add us on Facebook
We’ll keep you up to date with the latest news and features
Visit the new TooMuchFlavour site site for the latest features -
B.Supreme 2009
10th, 11th, 12th April
Southbank Centre, London
Words: David Barros
Their moves were strong, the choreography was tight. And the entire ensemble was female.
B.Supreme took over the entire weekend at London's Southbank Centre once again to establish it as the festival for women in hip hop.
This year the three days of the festival each had a different themes. With UK and international acts lined up to compete and perform, men allowed to participate for the first time in the festival's history and for fans turning up to see battles, Friday became "UK Night," Saturday "Bonnie and Clyde Day," and Sunday "Battle Day."
The venue was full of excited fans of dance coming to see their favourite acts perform. Along with the shows and battles, workshops and free events from the choreographers were all part of B.Supreme's appeal for not only dancers, but those who wanted to find out more about hip hop culture.
In preparation for the main show, the audience in the Front Room crowded around to watch youth groups from around London perform their pieces on the stage, while DJs spun records to set the mood.
The acts lined up were both a combination of dance groups and dance theatre companies, so no two acts were the same, with the show opening to a video of B.Supreme 2008.
Keeping in touch with their star players, all the groups' costumes were fresh to impress!
Above: Myself Dance Company perform
Despite the adverse stereotype of women in hip hop: guns and bling, or easy money and booty shaking, the festival promoted that hip hop doesn't mean the aforementioned, but a way of uniting, where women are equal, and that they have the same place in hip hop as men.
Last year's Dare2Dance competition winners, Stylinquents, opened the show.
The most notable acts on this day included Impact Dance, who danced a theatrical piece to a rocky song while Unity managed to blow the roof off with the audience screaming for them.
Performing for the first time were Ruthless Girls, the all-
Bonnie and Clyde Day's main events included the breaking battle, where men and women join forces to prove who was the greatest team.
The show in the evening continued with the Bonnie and Clyde theme, with a night of duet. If Friday night raised people's awareness of female dance, Saturday night raised the bar even higher.
People may have an idea of street dance as it is today, but few know of the Lindy Hop, the classical street style from the 1930s. Sunanda Biswas and Temujin Gill opened the night with a partner piece to the original music and lots of risky lifts.
The narrative of the second act, a contemporary piece by Jason and Cynthia, was of
two lovers arguing with each other to an R'n'B track. Popping duets included Stylefest
winner Cathy Nguyen and Deydey Nguyen, Prototype Dance were robots programmed to
dance, not to love, and Kenrick Sandy and Vickey Mantey performed an oriental-
House dance was also given recognition too, with Rebekah Roberts and Gene Takoori and Nicola McCarthy and Rokas Saltenis both did duet routines to the emerging dance style.
Sunday then became the battle day, when the Clore Ballroom in the Royal Festival
Hall was packed with people trying to get a view of the battles taking place, with
b-
Battle Highlights:
Friday Performance Line Up:
Stylinquents
Cynazure
Illusion
SIN Cru
Definitives
Impact Dance
Aphrodite
Ruthless Girls
Unity
Flowzaic
Avant Garde Youth
Saturday Performance Line Up
Sunanda Biswas & Temujin Gill
Jason ‘FM’ Hull & Cynthia Eviro
Kloe Dean & Naziri Muwanga
Cathy & Deydey Nguyen
Prototype Dance -
Rebekah Roberts & Gene Takooree
Alice Rhodes & Natalie James
Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy & Vickey ‘Skytilz’ Mantey
Decadancetheatre -