Tommy Franzen is a good guy, and he's also going to be one of the contestants (competitors?) on BBC's So You Think You Can Dance.
Image: BBC Press Office
I won't pretend to know Tommy Franzen personally, but I did meet him briefly at the Breakin' Convention Pioneers workshops in October and had a chat. Which incidentally was the same day a representative of the BBC was walking around and handing out audition flyers to people at Sadler's Wells. I was there when the decision was made!
Tommy is appearing in 'Blaze' at the Peacock Theatre in March - click here to buy tickets now!
The first time I knew about Tommy Franzen, by name at least, was from last year's Breakin' Convention. B-Boy Lil Tim and I were riding the train up to Sadler's Wells and I was trying to extract information about the piece that he, Tommy and Kay were doing for Avant Garde. Obviously Lil Tim couldn't say anything, but below is a video of how the piece turned out:
A Classical Break at Breakin' Convention
Going back to my chat with Franzen, though, I told him I thought the Avant Garde piece was dope, and asked him how he understood the music in order to stick with musicality. He said he was a contemporary dancer. You never fancy b-boys as anything else that isn't related to breaking sometimes...
Originally from Sweden, Franzen learnt hip hop from David Johnson in his home country with his sister. A lot of people will know Franzen because of his breaking, but fewer know that he has a National Diploma in Performing Arts, or that he's a qualified massage therapist. He studied at the Urdang Academy where he gained his experience in contemporary dance which later saw him turn down the opportunity to be in Cirque du Soleil.
Since then he's gone on to have a really successful career, in a certain advert you might remember from a few years ago for Pepsi Max...
Pepsi Can-Fu Ad
If you want to see more videos of Tommy Franzen, check out his YouTube channel.
Franzen's CV also boasts car adverts for commercial work, appearance's in music videos, dancing at the Beijing Olympic ceremony plus film appearances, appearing in Mama Mia The Movie and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He also took part in a quirky internet viral too:
Stop Motion Breaking
So You Think You Can Dance on is on BBC1 tonight at 6pm. To watch his audition video and see him talk about the show, you can visit his profile on the BBC website.
You can visit Tommy Franzen's website at tommyfranzen.com which is currently under construction.
His YouTube channel is live though, where you can watch more videos of his commercial appearances or check out the music video he shot for a friend's birthday.
You can also 'fan' Tommy on Facebook to show your support, if you're that way inclined!
As a street dancer, we'd like to wish Tommy Franzen the best of luck in So You Think You Can Dance.
Update: Tommy Franzen will be performing as part of the cast of Blaze at Sadler's Wells from 11-28 March, click here for more information.
Note: We know Tommy Franzén has an accent over the e, but if we put it in, people wont find this page when they Google us!
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Wonderful clips - thank you, and good luck !
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