EVENT | BREAKIN’ CONVENTION PRESENTS & BREAKOUT CONVENTION

Photo Cred­it : Gemma Hoddy pho­to­graphed by IDA Pho­to­graphy

Breakin’ Con­ven­tion Presents & Break­out Con­ven­tion

Sadler’s Wells, EC1R 4TN

3rd & 4th July 2021
Tick­ets: £15 — £45

Per­form­ances at 6pm and 8pm

Tick­ets: www.sadlerswells.com

Sadler’s Wells Breakin’ Con­ven­tion, the influ­en­tial fest­iv­al of hip hop dance theatre returns for its 18th year and announces its eclect­ic line-up for this year’s socially dis­tanced pro­gramme, cur­ated by hip hop theatre pion­eer and Sadler’s Wells Asso­ci­ate Artist Jonzi D.

On Sat­urday 3 & Sunday 4 July, Break­out Con­ven­tion fea­tures per­form­ances from dif­fer­ent excep­tion­al hip hop com­pan­ies. This year’s event fol­lows Breakin’ Convention’s mini fest­iv­al Social Dis­Dan­cing in Decem­ber 2020. Present­ing its first live event since lock­down, the line-up includes per­form­ances from:

Ant­o­nio Bukhar Sse­buuma (UK)
Box tick­ing, code switch­ing or forge a way through the back door, Sse­buuma exam­ines the sac­ri­fices made to meet insti­tu­tion­al accept­ance. Sse­buuma is co-founder of Ugandan hip hop dance crew Tabu Flo and course lead­er for the CertHE Cul­tur­al Dance Forms course at North­ern School of Con­tem­por­ary Dance.

AWA (UK)
Made up of young dan­cers with dif­fer­ent spe­cial needs and dis­ab­il­it­ies is AWA (Atyp­ic­al with Atti­tude), mak­ing its Breakin’ Con­ven­tion debut with a piece acknow­ledging the power of unity. Blind­folded dan­cers express feel­ings of loss and isol­a­tion whilst find­ing com­pan­ion­ship and com­mon­al­ity through their hip hop dance vocab­u­lary. The com­pany fea­tured as part of BBC tal­ent show The Greatest Dan­cer in 2019.

Bagsy (UK)
Waack­ing artist Bagsy asks what it means to be a man, in new work Sur­render. Tak­ing inspir­a­tion from his own iden­tity, examin­ing mas­culin­ity, expect­a­tions and Yoruba’s god of thun­der Shango, Bagsy cre­ates an intim­ate explor­a­tion of his jour­ney through the form of waack­ing. The work was developed as part of Breakin’ Convention’s artist­ic devel­op­ment pro­gramme Back to the Lab (2021).

Gemma Hoddy UK)
Vet­er­an of the award-win­ning Boy Blue, Gemma Hoddy presents Betty’s Blues. A quar­tet of women per­form a sassy blend of icon­ic jazz dance shapes, punc­tu­ated by a furi­ous pop­ping tech­nique. Pay­ing homage to the clas­sic gen­er­a­tion of music­al theatre, jazz samples and thump­ing hip hop beats are brought by pro­du­cer and co-founder of Boy Blue, Mikey J Asante.

Patience J (UK)
Last seen at Breakin’ Con­ven­tion in 2015 with Girlz On Point (GOP), Patience J brings energy and atti­tude with Col­ours, a cel­eb­rat­ory work explor­ing mod­ern Afro dance forms from the Afric­an dia­spora includ­ing n’dombolo and azonto. An estab­lished per­former and cho­reo­graph­er, Patience J has col­lab­or­ated with an assort­ment of world-fam­ous brands and vocal artists.

Spin and S.I Stature (UK)
Mak­ing their Breakin’ Con­ven­tion debut is Colom­bi­an b‑boy Spin and rap artist S.I Stature who present a power struggle between two armies. Developed as part of Breakin’ Convention’s recent Open Art Sur­gery, they use com­bat­ive break­ing and spoken word to shine light on the crisis in Colom­bia.

Spoken Move­ment (UK)
Return­ing to Sadler’s Wells with Fam­ily Hon­our is Spoken Move­ment led by artist­ic dir­ect­or Kwame Asafo-Adjei. The work uses pop­ping and tut­ting to illus­trate a psy­cho­lo­gic­ally potent duet between Asafo-Adjei him­self and dan­cer Catrina Nis­bett which explores the reli­gious and cul­tur­al taboos in a Ghanai­an fam­ily. It has won mul­tiple awards world­wide includ­ing Par­is’ Danse Élar­gie in 2018.

W.A.R (UK)
W.A.R (We Ain’t Reg­u­lar) brings the raw to the Sadler’s Wells stage with a world première per­form­ance. The com­pany appeared along­side rap artist Stormzy for his per­form­ance of Shut Up at Gla­ston­bury 2020.

As well as world-class dance crews and soloists, the 2021 pro­gramme fea­tures films from Breakin’ Convention’s latest ini­ti­at­ives Power to the Pixel and Next Day Deliv­ery — a col­lab­or­a­tion between cho­reo­graph­ers and writers. Next Day Deliv­ery films come from win­ners Sun Kim and Sur­id — (Gas) Light­ing; Anthony and Kel Mat­sena — Too Much, Too Little; Ken Mas­ters and Rob Ander­son; and Berkavitch and Si Rawl­in­son — Eat The Rich.

2021 marks Breakin’ Convention’s 18th anniversary. Best known for its flag­ship annu­al fest­iv­al, its year-round pro­gramme aims to grow the UK’s devel­op­ment of hip hop theatre. It encom­passes pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment ini­ti­at­ives such as Back to the Lab, a two-week train­ing and ment­or­ship ini­ti­at­ive lead­ing to per­form­ance; a broad edu­ca­tion pro­gramme; and altern­at­ive per­form­ance plat­forms such as Breakin’ Con­ven­tion Presents.

Jonzi D is a Sadler’s Wells Asso­ci­ate Artist 

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Rishma Dhaliwal

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.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
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.