COVERING ALL aspects of hip-hop culture, Breakin’ Convention Festival celebrates 20 years at Sadler’s Wells Theatre this month.
The brainchild of Jonzi D, the festival represents the origins and evolution of hip-hop culture from around the world and around the corner.
The exciting announcement that international dance sensation Les Twins, pictured below , will join this year’s line-up has been made already.
Other acts featuring throughout the weekend include the likes of South Korean crew Mover, 2019 winner of BBC Young Dancer Max Revell, locking specialists Ghetto Funk Collective, Brazilian bboy Samuka from Ill-Abilities, La Diva aux Pieds Nus as well as UK dance companies Far From The Norm and Boy Blue. There will also be performances from live DJs, bespoke graffiti, freestyle sessions and a total makeover of the Sadler’s Wells foyer – before embarking on a UK tour from May 17 to June 14.
It’s the 20th time it’s taken place, no mean feat considering the authentic, raw and unrestricted brand of artistic expression that can, and often has, occurred over the years. But how did it all come to life? How did this celebrated venue, famous for once being a mineral spring, discovered in 1683 by Richard Sadler in the grounds of his music house, become the home of Breakin’ Convention?
In 2003, Jonzi D had the dream of creating a festival to bring together the best hip-hop dance theatre performers from around the world on London’s doorstep.
The following year Sadler’s Wells helped make that dream a reality. The groundbreaking line-up saw artists and groups like Rennie Harris, Benji Reid, ZooNation, Boy Blue and the Electric Boogaloos performing to a sell-out audience hungry for the kind of cutting edge hip-hop theatre that had been missing from the UK landscape.
Jonzi D sat with The Voice Newspaper and reflected on the journey.
“After performing Aeroplane Man at the Queen Elizabeth Hall programmed by Alistair Spalding, when he was head of dance there, I said to him that I am not the only person doing this type of work, hip-hop theatre, using rap, using dance styles as narratives, as emotive. This was in the 1990s. I told him about the other people because I’d already been touring around Europe and the rest of the world.
“He got the job here (Sadler’s Wells) and in his first year, he was like ‘Jonzi, can we do that idea that you suggested, the hip-hop dance festival?’ And I said yes, of course.
“At first we didn’t really have the budget to do it big and he proposed a certain amount to be able to do some nice local event but I was like, no, if we’re coming to Sadler’s Wells, one of the main dance houses in the world, you’re telling me we’re going to come in with halfmeasures?
“For me, with my knowledge of what was out there already, I said no, we have to start big, we have to start strong.”
Jonzi says he set about delivering an event from which he had no future expectations for himself, it was an opportunity to present the art in a guise never seen before, to audiences who had never seen it, in a venue where it had never been seen.
A sold-out first festival featuring some of the top tier names from across the world in a UK first of its kind got him a little more than he bargained for.
“The broadsheets were loving it, we were getting five star reviews across the board, I think we got one four star.” He added: “The initial gamble, to do it, wasn’t as much as an initial gamble because we got funding from Bloomberg, who are funding this year as well, which is nice.
“So to a certain extent it wasn’t risky to Sadler’s Wells but after that they were like ‘ok Jonzi, we’ve got to do this again, we’ve got to do this every year.’ Alistair said he’d not seen anything like that in the space, especially because of the way we took over the space, putting graffiti over all the building and having ciphers. They had never seen anything like it.
“For me, that was normal. That’s how hip-hop jamz go. But obviously there is this distinction, that is an illusion basically, that this kind of art is not made for these kinds of buildings, we smoked that, in a moment.”
Success achieved by Breakin’ Convention wasn’t confined to these shores. Jonzi recalls: “Harlem Apollo 2013. To be able to go a stone’s throw away from the culture for our first international date, felt like an amazing co-sign.”
He added: “I have a lot of confidence in what we do, I’ve got a lot of confidence in all of the dancers I have worked with when it comes to their hip-hop technique but we know how New York can be when it comes to what hip-hop is and how it’s theirs almost.
“I felt like we were humbly going out there saying, ‘New York, thank you for this wonderful culture that you have given us, now check what we are doing with it and that was the vibe and that was definitely communicated. And it was great. We did it three times, 2013, 2015 and 2017.”
It’s been an incredible two decades for Breakin’ Convention rolling from one year to the next, unearthing and showcasing talent on a stage few in their dance careers get to grace, Even the 2020 lockdown couldn’t stop the show with Jonzi telling The Voice ahead of the ‘virtual festival’, Lockdown Lock-in: “Isolating but not isolated! We still connect, and we’re still creative. Social ‘diss’ dancing will attract attention. So let’s start Breakin’ Convention.”
Speaking about the feeling of fulfillment that comes with delivering this year’s programme of events, Jonzi enthused: “I was pretty anxious prior to the announcement of our big names.
“For the 20th anniversary of Breakin’ Convention I think it’s really important to be able to present someone of a certain stature. Throughout the years of Breakin’ Convention we have been putting on people and they have gained stature.
“That’s one of the things that I noticed particularly at the Olivier Awards nominations this year. There’s at least four acts whose first large scale show was at Breakin’ Convention.
“So in relation to legacy, coming from an idea, as something that breaks the convention of what receives value and attention and given praise, because hip-hop was never in these spaces back then, that for me is 20 years’ work and what it means to get there.”
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