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Your support makes all the difference.Over 11 years, the Sadler’s Wells festival Breakin’ Convention has celebrated and helped to broaden the hip hop dance landscape.
The dance battles, headspins and scissor-legged gymnastics are all there, alongside new approaches to storytelling and theatre.
Held over the Bank Holiday weekend, with a UK tour to follow, the festival has a hugely varied line-up. Debating his identity, US-based dancer Tom Tsai ties himself in brilliant knots, verbally and physically. Los Angeles crew Street Kingdom, pioneers of krumping, deliver a blast of old-school swagger. Powerfully muscled and full of testosterone, they twitch and seethe with crackling energy.
IN-SI-DE The Cirque, from the Czech Republic, are creepy hip hop clowns, all deadpan reactions and light-footed mischief. The French CIE Phorm provide bending, flickering moves, coming close to optical illusion. ILL-Abilities, an international crew of b-boys with disabilities, whizz through virtuoso steps – though their staging needs refreshing.
There are huge cheers for the home crews, too. BirdGang’s Kendra J Horsburgh slinks through lithe poses before sprouting glittery wings, which she flaps from her rippling shoulderblades. With massed ranks of dancers in armoured jerkins, Avant Garde Dance suggest a different kind of battle, as much warrior horde as hip hop crew.
At Sadler’s Wells until 5 May. Box office 0844 412 4300. Touring until 7 June. Tour dates from www.breakinconvention.com
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