Breakin’ Convention 2008 review

Ask a person who has never seen a hip hop theatre show what they thought of their first Breakin’ Convention experience, and it’s sure to go a little like this…

Words: Archie

What an amazing weekend I have had!

I honestly have no idea where to start, so I shall start from the beginning since I believe that would be the most sensible option, however, if you wish for me to begin at the end, I suggest you read it backwards. I digress….

It is Saturday 3rd May, it is a beautiful day and I am excited because I am going to Breakin’ Convention 2008.

We made our way to Sadler’s Wells Theatre and the performers took to the stage.

I don’t really remember too much about the performances from Saturday night, not because it was boring, but because it was amazingly brilliant and ended far too quickly.

There were so many amazing performances that night though, my favourites being Urban Strides, Plague and Tony GoGo and the GoGo Brothers. They were just WOW and I really don’t know any way to tell you just how much I enjoyed their performances. It was just amazing.

However, after about an hour and 10 minute break, I sat down to watch a Brazilian group named Membros. Billed as being “a powerful physical narrative portraying the damage from the brutal social apartheid and corruption within inner-city Brazil” I was looking forward to an exciting fast paced political piece of dance. I really didn’t enjoy this piece at all, and I imagine that by the amount of people that left throughout this performance, not many other people did either. I heard lots of comments saying that people did not understand it. It was not set to any music, it was over an hour long and my arse got extremely sore from it. The performance included nudity, for which I could not see any point to, it appeared that they were just naked for the sake of being naked and not to make any particular point at all.

Sunday, it was incredible! Like, totally OMG!!! I actually have no words to say how much I enjoyed Sunday night, typical me really!

I had really high expectations for that night as well since I have heard a lot about the groups and individuals that were performing that night, and what I witnessed surpassed my expectations, it really was incredible! *looks at Breakin’ Convention website to refresh my memory*

Ok, Strike II – OMG!!! I’ve heard loads about the boys from Urdang because of … and they were amazing, and Flawless as well.

Bad Taste Cru were there – those guys are pretty cool. I saw them at the Battle of the Year.

Kenrick “H20” Sandy – so entertaining… incredible… AMAZING!!! Very funny stuff.

Saw the GoGo Brothers again as well as Plague – so happy about that, they are all just WOW!

Obviously I’m not giving much away here, but I really don’t have a lot to say about it, I had a really great time and I don’t feel as if I can criticise anyone because I don’t dance myself, so I’m not going to, but from a non-dancing-audience point of view, Breakin’ convention is so much fun and highly entertaining!

I particularly enjoyed the last section of Sunday night, and not because I got to see Plague again! It was because of the Koreans! MyoSung performed a political piece about Korea (maybe that was obvious?) However, unlike Brazil’s political dance interpretation, MyoSung’s performance was very entertaining and it was funny too! It was a piece that I really enjoyed and they weren’t all down and depressed like the Brazilians…

WOW!!!!

Plus it was Breakin’ Convention’s 5th birthday *five years of flavour* and they had these little 5 year old kids up on stage dancing their little hearts out! So cuuuuuute! And rather impressive too!

All you really need to know is that I had a really great weekend and I’m really happy that I went!