B-Boy Championships 2010 photoshoot

The artwork for the UK B-Boy Championships is being made - and so is a little bit of breaking history! And it's going to look as cool as the pre-visualisation artwork below, if not better. (Read the news story on AllStreetDance)

15 years of the B-Boy Championships and the creative they're putting behind it for its anniversary is surpassing past years.

Yesterday was a ten-hour day (not for me, as I turned up intentionally late) to get the promo for the championships ready. Everybody was in the house, from Soul Mavericks (national champions) to Plague (who had to jet off to Blackpool to rehearse for their show, MJ Timeless), La Familia, with members of Ruthless and Wet Wipez spotted around for additional faces in crowd shots.

The theme of this year's posters isn't just battles, it's all out war! Inspired by classical war paintings, the posters will be packed with action with hundreds of battles taking place.

At the start of the day shots were taken of four main 'hero' dancers in various poses, before additional 'layers' were added to the composition. Adding the layers meant that hundreds of photos had to be taken at different distances and angles from the cameras on what looked like a gaffer taped spider's web on the studio floor. It also meant a few costume changes to appear as different people in other shots.

What had to be done next was a lot of shouting and overreacting to cyphers until the photographers until they were happy with their shot. Here's the cool bit - as I was standing around I was asked if I wanted to be part of it! Somewhere in the background of the new posters you're going to see me overreacting and pulling a silly face at a dancer! To be a background face, even if it's the back of my head, in an anniversary poster for the B-Boy Championships - I'm honoured!

It's going to take around a week to make the poster artwork look perfect, although the graphic designers worked on early versions of the poster, live in the studio.
To give you an idea, the final poster is going to look something like the photo below:

Expect to see more 'making of' footage and photos as soon as we receive them...

Regional Conflict South 2010 results

Below are the results from the Regional Conflict South 2010 in order to win a place in the UK B-Boy Championships finals in October.

Full results of all the rounds (including qualifiers up to the semis) will be posted tomorrow on the main site - add our Facebook page to be notified.



Winners of each round are highlighted in bold.
Semi finals:
Trinity Warriors v Killer Ragz
La Familia v Foundationz

Finals:
La Familia vs Trinity Warriors

Third place qualifier:
Foundationz v Killer Ragz

Alien Ness Breakin Boundaries Apology

Alien Ness will not be able to judge at Breakin' Boundaries tonight due to a problem at Heathrow customs.
His apology was posted at 13:00 today on the UK B-Boy forum detailing the problems he encountered and has been copied in below.

From UKBboy.info:

upon ariviving last nite (wensday march 10th) to london, i was detained at customs AS ALWAYS (damn wankers)

originaly i was detained because i didnt have a printed out itinerery showing my return flite. despite the fact that they had computers and internet in the office i was being questioned, they didnt let me get on to show them my intinerery in my emails.

instead, they collected my luggage for me, and had me stand they while they searched it, they found a few alien ness dvds i was bringing to give out to some peeps.

since i dint want them to think i was a bootleger or such thing, i explained to them that i was alien ness, and that the dvds were gifts i was giving to friends.

this raised suspicion, and they naturaly assumed that i was a proffesional dancer coming to london to do work without a work permit. i swear to you all i was not getting paid to judge at BB, i was coming to look out for my lil sis cynide and spend my bday weekend in london with my son machine.

they started to examine my passport more, realized it was my 3rd (i do alot of traveling) and then realized that ive been in europe for a long time. despite the fact that im never in 1 country for more than a week, and legaly i can stay in a country for 3 months, they claimed i wasnt supposed to be in europe as a whole for that long.
i have been questioned about this before but it was never an issue cause im never in spain more than a week, and im never in a diffrent country for more than a weekend, but i guess the old chick questioning me had her period or something and decided to put me on the next flite back to spain.

(which was wierd in itself cause if i did break any laws they would send me back to the states not back into europe where they calimed i was there to long.

again, my upmost regrets and apologies to cynide and everyone else who is a prt of breaking bounderies, spectators included. i feel like its my fault for not having a printed itinerery, but i honestly think the lady had it in for me because of the attitude she gave me the whole time.

im sure breaking bounderies witll be a great event with or without me and i hope everyone had a great time.
i love the uk, and london especialy and have gone there with or without the work just to chill with my peeps, so i plan on taking a quick trip back home and come back just so ths doesnt happen again.

love, peace and godspeed to all that made breaking bounderies possible, aswell as the communty of dancers that makes london one of my favorite places to visit.

see you all again soon

[Alien Ness]

 You may post comments below

Tommy Franzen - So You Think You Can Dance - quick profile and videos

Hey! Did you click over to us from TommyFranzen.com? Be sure to check out our other blogs on Tommy and So You Think You Can Dance  and don't forget to fan us on Facebook for the latest in hip hop and street dance!

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!

You can post comments about Tommy Franzen below

Merry Christmas from TooMuchFlavour to all our readers!

To all our readers,

We'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thank you for your support throughout 2009. It's been a great year.

Enjoy our festive and appropriately flavoursome e-card below.

Warm wishes to everyone. Peace, love, and unity.

The TooMuchFlavour team

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanks to MoreThanAStance for linking to the ElfYourself site.

For more Elf Yourself Christmas fun, here's what happened when the elves took over New York City:

Ballet Boyz N Da Hood - Rite of Spring Review

"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!

Post your comments below

Find Your Flavour and win a pair of ASICS SportStyle trainers and breakdance mat

Find Your Flavour and win a pair of ASICS SportStyle trainers and breakdance mat

Win a pair of trainers from ASICS SportStyle and one of the first ever breakdancing mats - start the year the freshest kicks by sending us your freshest pics!

To celebrate the launch of their SportStyle range, ASICS have created the first ever breakdancing mat. Put together with the help of award winning B-Boy Mouse, it is designed to teach novices the basic moves through simple, guided steps. One lucky entrant will be able to win one of these mats and pull off the toprock, sixstep and even the wakfreeze. The winner will also receive a pair of ASICS SportStyle trainers to practise new moves in true style.

How to win:

Winning is simple - find your flavour and photograph it!


Started breaking in front of a local attraction? Dressed your dog in a tracksuit? Maybe you spotted something quirky, like funny graffiti or discovered a really funky record in your parent’s music collection.

If it’s got flavour, it has a chance of winning


Simply take your photo, ‘fan’ TooMuchFlavour on Facebook, then post your photo to the wall for a chance to win.

For further details, example photos and to watch a video of what happened when the ASICS SportStyle breakdancing mat took to the streets of London, go to http://toomuchflavour.co.uk/competition_entry.html

Good luck!

Lilou is Red Bull BC One 2009 winner

Just to clarify, I wasn't there. Shamefully, the only action I saw of the event was from a Twitter ticker! Journalism isn't glamorous! Enjoy your news story.

For more hip hop dance news, visit the main site at http://www.toomuchflavour.co.uk/

Edit: Now with video footage, see below before it's removed from YouTube.

Pics are from Cros 1's Twitter, follow @IamCROS1 for more of his tweets.

New York City, with its heritage of hip hop, was the place where further hip hop history was made, because last night (UK time) Lilou became the holder of the Red Bull BC One champions belt.

This is the second time Lilou has taken the belt since he won the competition in 2005, having returned in following years to attempt to win the title back.

In the quarter finals, Cloud (US) defeated Neguin (Brazil) and Lilou (France/Algeria) battled Morris (US), the solo champion at the UK B-Boy Championships for a place in the final.

Red Bull's Twitter described it as "the battle of the characters," and in a matter of minutes, what felt like eternal internet hours, the winner emerged as Lilou, 3 votes to 2.

Within minutes there were tweets from people at the event spreading the news, and even Red Bull BC One's Wikipedia page was updated seconds after it was announced.

What remains to be seen is whether the new BC One Champions belt, specially redesigned for 2009, will be returned. As documented in the film Turn It Loose, Lilou has become notorious for not returning his winner's belt, and an educated guess says he won't this time either.

Official Red Bull BC One highlights


The final: Lilou vs Cloud For more BC One amateur mobile phone video action, visit itzbryz's channel.


Red Bull Blacks Out
Tickets for BC One sold out weeks before the event, meaning only a lucky few were able to see it in person. Those that couldn't turned to Twitter to be updated, but a problem with Red Bull's BC One account meant there was an information blackout during the quarter finals, prompting them to re-register another account while their followers waited or followed others at the event. After Lilou was announced as the winner, Red Bull's tweeter apologised for the delays.

Props to Cros1 and BreakerNYC for updating their Twitters so this report was possible!

Give it up for the family: Why La Familia's efforts will pay off soon

It's like waging war against yourself. Rather than Regional Conflict, you could call the finals of the world qualifiers 'civil conflict.' For the entire Soul Mavericks clan it looks like they are their own rivals. How can you be the best when you only have yourself to battle?

For myself, my predictions remained the same as every battle event Soul Mavericks enter, they would be the finalists. Why not, they're dope?

But at some point in the semi finals, the (figurative) angel and devil popped up on my shoulder to cop some of the action, and my support went out to the underdogs. If ever an 'underdog' becomes classified as a breed of canine it would be an aggressive beast with teeth bared and the scent of victory up its nose. Round its neck would be a collar with the name "La Familia" on it.

La Familia battle with a passion every time bringing creative and energetic routines to the floor only to have victory snatched from them at the very end, often by the Mavericks. It's happened twice this year (at events TooMuchFlavour has covered) including Breakin' Boundaries in March, and in the southern qualifers last month.

Perhaps it was the size of the venue for Regional Conflict South (the qualifiers) that gave a different atmosphere making me feel less engaged with the action, but some of the crews hoping to qualify didn't look up to the standard of the world's best crews they'll have to face in October at Brixton Academy.

My concern now is with only themselves to compete with, Soul Mavericks will get comfortable with their victories and relax. It's like running a race and slowing down as you reach the finish line only to be overtaken. Frustratingly, it's a mentality hard to override - every time England score a goal in the world up they relax, only to concede one because they thought the rival team wasn't on their level.

Best of luck to Soul Mavericks and Mavericks X aka Fresh 2 Death. Just remember, La Familia are always hot on your heels!


Also check out:
Soul Mavericks qualify for UK B-Boy Championships
News: Regional Conflict Finals UK 2009 (B-BoyChampionships.com)

This Easter weekend...

Get yourself down to Southbank Centre which will be holding TWO events - with a lot of stuff to do for free!

The first is B.Supreme 09, celebrating the contribution women to hip hop culture, featuring a gang of special guests, battles, and a free popping, breaking and house classes.

The next is BoxCon 09, the international beatbox convention, where emcees will astound and amaze you with their microphone skills.

As I said, most of these events are FREE to check out (except for the main shows and concerts, all reasonably priced under a tenner), so get on down!

News and updates are on the site.

Have a great Easter

Flave

Get in your questions for b-boy Ken Swift!

This update is for the b-boys, b-girls and oldschool heads out there!

I have been fortunate enough to be able to get an interview with the "epitome of a b-boy" Ken Swift on Monday night in advance of a feature I'm doing on an upcoming event, and I'm reaching out to anyone that would like to sneak a quick question in after I've finished it.

The best questions will get put forth to him. Just leave me a message or write on my wall.

Flave

HipHopElements: Ken Swift

New article up, plus videos!

Hey guys, as promised, those videos I mentioned in the last update are now up!

The article is on Breakin' Boundaries, which took place last week, although I had to delay putting it up due to video compatibility problems.

You can now read the article and watch the entire half hour 'seven to smoke' with the YouTube player at the site. Enjoy!

Flave