DANCE UMBRELLA AND SOMERSET HOUSE ANNOUNCE THE FULL SCHEDULE FOR LONDON BATTLE, SATURDAY 7 OCTOBER

Photo Cred­it : Cam­illa Green­well

Dance Umbrella and Somer­set House are excited to announce more details for Lon­don Battle which takes place at Dance Umbrella’s home, Somer­set House, on the open­ing week­end of the fest­iv­al, Sat­urday 7 Octo­ber.

Lon­don Battle will take in the icon­ic open-air court­yard for a day packed with show­cases, work­shops, cyphers, live DJs and a big out­door party. In cel­eb­ra­tion of the 50^th anniversary of hip hop cul­ture and with Break­ing set to be the high­light of the 2024 Par­is Olympics, Dance Umbrella and Somer­set House are bring­ing togeth­er some of the most excit­ing tal­ent from the four corners of Lon­don to go head-to-head across a diverse range of styles.

Cur­ated by cho­reo­graph­er Jade Hack­ett, the audi­ence will play their part in judging and decid­ing which part of our glob­al city brings the best dance fla­vour – north, south, east or west.

Jade Hack­ett said: ‘Lon­don Battle is an explos­ive new fest­iv­al fes­tur­ing some of London’s finest with­in the hiphop and street dance com­munit­ies. With dan­cers rep­res­ent­ing all the four corners of this city, it will be brim­ming with power­ful and grav­ity-defy­ing move­ment from its bat­tle­rs and is cer­tainly not a show to be missed.

Spec­tat­ors can also par­ti­cip­ate in fam­ily fun classes and be enter­tained with incred­ible per­form­ances, includ­ing new work by award win­ning dance com­pany, Boy Blue Ent. Fin­ish­ing off with THE party of all parties as our Dj’s help us to skank the even­ing away.

Come and enjoy an amaz­ing day with us at ‘Lon­don Battle’ and truly cel­eb­rate our won­der­ful city, in style.’

Start­ing at 1pm this com­pletely free event offers audi­ences plenty of oppor­tun­it­ies to get involved begin­ning with a stel­lar line-up of work­shops to get every­one mov­ing with Turbo teach­ing house style, Olu on Afrobeats, Kloe Dean doing Hip Hop and Tiago will be Waack­ing. All abil­it­ies wel­come!

Between 3.30 and 4.30pm there will be a series of show­case per­form­ances from some of London’s most excit­ing tal­ent includ­ing krump col­lect­ive Gully South Block (GSB); the UK’s most cel­eb­rated hip-hop dance theatre com­pany Boy Blue, street dance expert Lauren Scott and Britain’s Got Tal­ent 2023 con­test­ants The Queens.

DJs fea­tured across the day include: Mid­night Train Col­lect­ive and Josh Con­stanzo, and our MC for the day is act­or and presenter Ash­ley J.

The Lon­don Battle finale com­mences at around 4.30pm with four teams hail­ing from the four corners of Lon­don, North, South, East and West meet­ing in the middle to slog it out for the Lon­don crown. Who will be the best? You decide!

Lead­ing the team from the north is Troy Ban­ton aka Dat Boi Troy from the Inda­house fam­ily. A house dance spe­cial­ist, Troy also trained in clas­sic­al bal­let with the Rus­si­an bal­let school, and in Afric­an Carib­bean dance forms with Irie Dance Com­pany. He’ll be joined by 19 year-old Rory Clarke, an excit­ing new­comer who reg­u­larly per­forms with ZooN­a­tion and Far From the Norm along­side the tal­en­ted Anna Pono­mar­en­ko aka b‑girl Stefani who this year took the sil­ver medal at the European Break­ing Cham­pi­on­ships.

The team from the south will be led by Nich­olas Mar­vel (aka Mar­vel) who is a rep­res­ent­at­ive of Mon­sterz Crew UK. He is known for his sig­na­ture animat­ron­ic pop­ping style and invent­ive isol­a­tions. He’ll be accom­pan­ied by Team GB mem­ber and Red Bull BC One cham­pi­on Rox­anne Mil­liner (b‑girl Roxy), as well as Chal­don Wil­li­ams (aka Sev Raven), a cho­reo­graph­er, artist ment­or and cre­at­or of the Tribe Wayz col­lect­ive.

Rep­res­ent­ing east Lon­don is Jordan ‘JFunk’ Frank­lin, who has been per­form­ing as a mem­ber of one of the UK’s most cel­eb­rated hip hop dance theatre com­pan­ies, Boy Blue, for over 10 years. He’ll be joined by dynam­ic dance artist and inter­na­tion­al cham­pi­on Evi­on Hack­ett and cre­at­ive per­former Toby “Shush” Jack­man.

Bat­tling for the title from west Lon­don is break­ing expert Lee Crow­ley, also known as Reck­less-Lee, who is a mem­ber of the award-win­ning BirdGang Dance Com­pany. He’ll be joined by fel­low BirdGang crew mem­ber and multi-skilled per­former, dan­cer and teach­er Elise Ant­o­nia, and Ben­jamin Ban­ishahi aka Shahi.

Once the win­ners are crowned there will be a cel­eb­ra­tion of Hip Hop bring­ing all the ele­ments of the day togeth­er in one big party.

Dance Umbrella & Somer­set House present

LON­DON BATTLE

Cur­ated by Jade Hack­ett

Sat­urday 7 Octo­ber 1 — 6.30pm

Somer­set House’s Edmond J. Safra Foun­tain Court

Timetable

1 — 3.30 — Work­shops

3.30 — 4.30 — Show­cases

4.30 — 5.30 — Battle

5.30 — 6.30 — Party

Dance Umbrella Fest­iv­al 2023 takes place 6–31 Octo­ber, across Lon­don and online.

Danceumbrella.co.uk

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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