Wax Tailor + DJ Vadim + Bonobo + Homecut + Andreya Triana + Cheeba When: Saturday 16th January 2010 Where: 1A Camden high Street, , London and South East NW1 7JE (map) Time: 9pm til 3am Cost: £15 adv from Ticketweb
Award winning, chart topping French trip-hop/hip hop producer Wax Tailor will be bringing his extraordinary show to London with a full live band, headlining KOKO alongside an exclusive full live set from the ever fantastic DJ Vadim. Support from Homecut, Bonobo and Andreya Triana make this the first of many unmissable gigs from Soundcrash in 2010!
Last November Red Bull BC One took place back in the home of hip hop, New York City. I remember that night well. I was up until the early hours following the results to write this news report.
Prior to the battle, Red Bull ran a Red Bull Reporter competition for one lucky writer to go to New York and report on the event. That lucky writer wasn't me...
Phil Waddell, international relations student by day and b-boy by night won the competition, and got to see B-Boy Lilou battle B-Boy Cloud in the final for the former to take the title for the second time.
A few weeks later we tracked down Phil on Twitter where he actually linked us to his report. It's taken this long and a reminder from Red Bull to get round to posting it, so thanks to Holler for the prompt.
Stepping out of a yellow taxi in New York City, outside the Hammerstein Ballroom, the location of the 2009 Red Bull BC One, the first thing I hear is the music coming from inside the venue; it’s Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind”. Add this to the fact that I’m here in the USA for the first time, and about to take my seat ringside at one of the most prestigious B-boy competitions in the world and you can see why I suddenly get butterflies in my stomach.
I make it inside and take my seat just in time to see the competitors take to the circle for the introduction, sixteen of the world’s best, picked for their uniqueness and dedication to B-boying, and definitely deserving of the deafening applause from the crowd. It’s certainly emotional for everyone here. The sixteen competitors form a ring running around the circle; standing in the middle is our MC for the evening, a certain KRS-One. It’s a powerful scene. KRS-One, the man who is hip hop, surrounded by the latest and greatest ambassadors of B-boying, united where it all began. Our DJ for the evening is DP One, a New York resident and B-boy. If anyone knows the beats to spin this evening, it’s him.
B-Boys to the circle. The battles commence.
Read the rest of the report at the Red Bull Reporter website here.
Choreographer: Simeon Qsyea of Birdgang Song: Timbaland - The Way I Are Outstanding moment: Knee drop (30sec); The tutting section (1min 17sec)
Tommy and Charlie's routine had some moves that reflect Simeon's style in the choreography with plenty of 'and' counts, although considering Charlie's main style isn't hip hop, reproduction of it was a little under par (but not bad considering - if Simeon can turn around JLS' talents, think what he can do with a developing jazz dancer).
With a bench prop the routine worked well to include levels, a meeting point for the dancers, as well as a stage to pull off moves, which worked to Tommy's strengths as a b-boy. Of both hip hop partner routines, I preferred this one.
Mark Calape and Lizzie Gough Choreographer: Kate Prince of Zoonation Song: Rihanna - Take A Bow Outstanding moment: Hat and kneeslide (30sec) - slick
A big NO to the choice of song, considering Take A Bow is so often a sending home song on X Factor! I wasn't feeling Kate Prince's routine last week in the choreography camp, considering it was labelled 'hip hop' when it was actually a) not to a hip hop song, and b) a fusion with hip hop styles but not specifically hip hop - don't be misled.
The style of the routine (lyrical hip hop) was a wink in the direction of her Into The Hoodsproduction, which included full props and costume, with big smiles and jazz hands. Both Mark and Lizzie performed the routine as it was intended to look, although it was nothing they wouldn't have been capable of, so it was a lucky pairing of styles and dancers.
Lizzie and Tommy are both starring in Blaze at the Peacock Theatre in March - click here to buy tickets!
What did you think? Which do you think was the better hip hop routine on So You Think You Can Dance? You can comment below!
Mark Calape, aka Swarf Mafia is one of the Animaineax, whose group profile is really high since winning Move Like Michael Jackson, and our site statistics reflect their popularity at the moment!
I met Calape briefly last January at Funk Physics' We-R-One celebration after the main show to commend him on the group's original set. He was very humble about it all and he told me Animaineax had a lot in store for 2009. He wasn't wrong about that!
The way he picks up the different layers of the music when choreographing is what makes Calape, and indeed the Animaineax stand out, and is probably due to his "dance is a feeling, not just a routine" mantra.
Anyway, for the Mark 'Swarf' Calape fans here's a little more about the nonconformist Filipino allstar from Milton Keynes. First, to set the tone here's the Swarf Mafia showreel:
A couple of facts about Calape include his background in skateboarding. His YouTube includes videos of scoring some good air to pull off grinds on hand rails, shot skater style with full soundtrack and camera filters. Also, if you're wondering where he cops his clothing from, try Kaveman Clothing, where he's a member of the team (so are other members of the Animaineax if you were wondering where they get their clothes)
As a choreographer, Calape is very fortunate to get to travel the world to teach, judge and battle. Better yet for his fans, he's a keen YouTuber, cutting together videos of his adventures for people to watch. The video below shows him travelling Estonia, Korea, Vietnam, and others. It also has the début of the Man In The Mirror routine from Move Like Michael Jackson.
Let's get this out of the way too, ladies: Calape is a proud father, as you can tell how he signs off the above video.
His background in dance includes being the guy behind the dance group Pink Mafia (you can see him rocking the shirt in some of the videos), although before this he danced with a group Culture Shock Dance Troupe (I picked up that fact here), part of iDance.
Calape has also danced with a lot of the major street dance companies like Boy Blue in their Pied Pipertour last year, and a run in last season's Into The Hoods as well.
The music video résumé is healthy too. His most recent appearance included Jay Sean's Down video with Lil Wayne. It's been watched 29 million times, but you can probably spot Calape in one.
We believe its his relaxed attitude and quirky persona that will make Calape popular. Although he's out of his comfort zone in anything that isn't street dance or breaking, he's fared well so far in styles he's not trained in.
Same as with Tommy Franzén, being a street dancer we wish Mark Calape the best of luck in So You Think You Can Dance.
You can comment and share your thoughts about Mark Calape below, or share this page on your social network. Also, if you linked over from Mark's fan page, don't forget to 'fan' us too, so we can keep you up to date with hip hop and street dance news and more!
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!
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.
Move Like Michael Jackson is due to move on - to Holland and Belgium.
Here's we were thinking that the UK would be the exclusive hosts of the talent show to find the dancers who would represent Michael Jackson at his tribute show in June.
In a news update after the Move Like Michael Jackson final from Mark Summers last week, it was announced the show would be moving to Holland and Belgium to audition for more dancers on TV channel SBS6.
The show will run over nine weeks compared to BBC3's week-long run. From what we can make out from translations (not confirmed), this time Lavelle Smith Jr will be promoted to judge, sitting alongside Jermaine Jackson. Timor Steffens, one of the dancers on the This Is It tour, has been announced as another judge.
Will the judges need to learn Dutch, will the Dutch audience have to learn English, or will they have translators?
After several months, the East London Dance (ELD) website has been given a makeover with a design that is second only to ours. Ahem.
Thanks to Hot Pepper Design the website is looking sharp and fresh, and keeps in line with past promotions they've done for ELD - they did the artwork for I Love Dance and Dance Athletic.
All the sections are on the side, and things are really easy to find with colour-coded sections to make things easier to know which section you're in.
It's a simple, intelligent funky design, and we like it!
The good people at Basement Sessions have dropped their 20th podcast this week, which coincides with the festive season.
I met these guys at the Brick City Boutique earlier this year, and TooMuchFlavour has featured on some of their podcasts recently.
Our contribution to this episode is an interview conducted by Emma Figuero of HumanBeatbox.com with Reeps One, the UK Beatbox Champion 2009 (read report) talking about what he's been doing since winning the title of champion - he's a deep guy, but I wanted to put the interview where lots of people would be able to listen to it and appreciate it, hence Basement Sessions
On top of that there's a selection of Christmas-related songs and plenty of UK hip hop too.
You can listen to the podcast on the link below.
They've got loads of great shows coming up in 2010 including interviews with Speech Debelle, Sonny Jim, Mystro, DJ Cro and many more so stay tuned! You can click the link to subscribe to listen on the Basement Sessions PodOMatic site here.
Basement Sessions 20 Playlist:
1. Mystro - Mess I Ever Had
2. 810 - The Oath (Prod. by Midus)
3. Roeg Du Casq - Like Us f. Kosyne
4. Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin
5. Homeless Genius - Plug One f. Eddie Skratch
6. Team Facelift - No Love
7. Lotek - Ctrl+Alt+Delete
8. Ryan Leslie - Diamond Girl (SirOJ Remix)
===Reeps One Interview by Emma Figeuro for Basement Sessions courtesy of Humanbeatbox.com & Toomuchflavour.co.uk **
9. TY - Oh You Want More
10. Alphabetix - Children
11. Kenn Starr - Coming Of Age '09
12. Homecut - I Don't Even Know f. Soweto Kinch & Corrine Bailey Rae
13. Twizzy - Blessings
14. Kidz In The Hall - We At It Again
15. Souls Of Mischief - Tour Stories
16. Speech Debelle - Searching
17. Run DMC - Christmas In The Hollis
Beats
1. Zircon - Brazil
2. Pushing Buttons - Relax
3. Twelve Original Players - For Maya (during Reeps One Interview)
4. Zircon - Italian (during Reeps One Interview)
5. ZIrcon - Diva (during Reeps One Interview)
6. Twelve Original Players - The Hiatus
7. Twelve Original Players - Forcefield
"Ballet Boyz's Rite of Spring: Extraordinary blend of breakdancing, contemporary fusions, ballroom and poledancing. Splendiforous!"
That's what I would write, but in doing so lose all credibility for running TooMuchFlavour, let alone being able to comment on dance. It was really ballet in gimp costume... No, not really, I'm playing. But not far off.
This is great news to me. A week of Move Like Michael Jackson, then more dance on the Beeb with Ballet Boyz! It's a shame, because it wasn't that memorable after watching it.
Stravinsky: classical composer. Rite of Spring: Classically controversial. So the Ballet Boyz (with a 'Z,' gaining them mad credibility in our book!) decided to bring it back with a contemporary twist. They gathered dancers of different and contrasting styles. And they recruited the help of the Soul Mavericks. Step out of the woodwork, haters! They even met up with them at their London Bridge training sessions too. But didn't show the McDonald's the training studio is above!
In October we met up with Soul Mavericks for the UK B-Boy Championships, watch our interview below
"Stravinsky?" Kevin (aka DJ Renegade) answered when he heard the first few bars of music. Damn, after years on the b-boy scene he even knows his classical composers? "That's easy."
Funny how they can commission a piece of classical music for the programme, but had to use a licensed generic break to dub over for the training session...
So Renegade and the Mavericks get on with choreographing. Quite a challenge, as the piece of music is intricate and detailed with no set rhythm to follow, with climaxes and relaxed moments, but nothing is too hard when you're the crew representing the UK in several breaking competitions.
Then that's all you see of them for a bit. A little rehearsal footage midway in the programme at Laban before performance. You don't even get to see the bit where they slipped B-Boy Junior into the cast. Junior who? 13m views on YouTube Junior...
The producers seemed to have forgotten putting in that minor detail. Of course if you put Junior's style in your piece people will clap, the man defies gravity using his arms to propel him! It did look dope though, although for them to dance on beat when there are no obvious marks in the music isn't worth the criticism; the concept for when they moved and why was there.
It's just a shame that considering there were several different styles of dance here, most of the story of the documentary was spent on meeting the dancers rather than watching the pieces develop. I didn't just want to see DJ Renegade go "We're gonna do an eight there, then you guys do an eight when that bit is done." Whoopee-doo. I wanted to see how our b-boys adapted to the unfamiliar music, then how the contemporary dancers and the poledancers got along together with everyone else to pull the final performance together.
Give me drama dammit, I know what dancers are like, so watch dancers from one style argue with the another that does a different style!
It's not like it's the first time b-boying has been set to classical music. It works, and it works well - check this video. But if you're going to broadcast a show that adapts a controversial ballet, and does so with different styles, show us how it all came together!
