Breakin' Convention Festival Returns to Sadler's Wells in May

Created and emceed by UK hip hop maker and Breakin' Convention Artistic Director Jonzi D, Breakin' Convention Festival will return to Sadler's Wells in Islington to celebrate hip hop culture in all its forms over the Early May Bank Holiday. 

The Festival showcases international acts from the USA, South Korea and France, as well as performances from local and national talents on Sadler's Wells stages. Performances, activities for children of all ages, live DJs sessions, dance and bespoke graffiti workshops, freestyle sessions and shows take over the entire building.  

Today, Jonzi D was nominated for an Olivier Awards for outstanding achievement in dance for his artistic direction of Breakin' Convention 2023, which marked the 20 years' anniversary of the Festival.
 
From 6pm on Saturday 4 & Sunday 5 May, audiences will be able to see performances from some of the world's leading hip hop acts including Femme Fatale (USA), Sons of Wind (France) and Jinjo crew (South Korea); CREATE4 (Netherlands) and Ekleido (UK); Ivan Michael Blackstock's company TRAPLORD (UK), Boy Blue (UK), When Time Was New (UK), Gully South Block (GSB) (UK), Company DHW (UK), Sasha Mahfouz Shadid (UK) and ShaolinOrShao (UK) – plus a solo by Jamal Sterrett (UK). During the interval, Cie Kilaï (France) performs in the Lilian Baylis Studio.  
 
The Festival's programme displays a wide variety of hip hop styles including breaking, popping, krumping, threading, funk and bruk up.  
 
2024 is a significant year for breaking as it becomes an official Olympic sport for the first time at the Paris Olympics this summer. Academy Breakin' Convention will open at Sadler's Wells East, offering a full-time further education programme for 16 to 19-year-olds that includes training in all aspects of hip hop – the first of its kind. Academy Breakin' Convention will have a stall at the Festival on both days, where audiences can find out more about the course, and will host auditions on Sunday 5 May.

Breakin' Convention 2024 lineup in Sadler's Wells Theatre 

Femme Fatale is a collective of three female dancers based in Los Angeles, originally from France, Mexico and Korea. Marie Poppins, Lily Frias and Dassy Lee bring their piece UNBOUNDED, showcasing their skills in popping, animation and robot through stories of the street dance scene, gender inequality, self-discovery and the ongoing challenges of being an artist. Femme Fatale performed for famous artists and brands and have starred in So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew. 
 
Sons of Wind is a French troupe made of 20 multi-disciplinary artists across dance, music, photography and video. They present Bounce, a choreographic essay with ten dancers. The piece is reclaiming the company's connection with freestyle hip hop by exploring how the movement of ‘bouncing' feeds body and soul. 
 
Jinjo Crew is a breaking group from South Korea which was founded in 2001. The crew won major competitions including UK B-Boy Championships, Freestyle Session, Battle of the Year, and Red Bull BC One. 
 
CREATE4, the brainchild company of Ibrah Silas Jackson, presents The Hereditary, which was first created at Breakin' Convention artistic development programme Back to the Lab. It is performed by Ibrah Silas Jackson and Angel Gonzalez Felix, with music by Kenzo Alvares. Jackson's work focuses on hip hop culture and storytelling with visual art. Versed in different movement languages such as contemporary, funk styles and African cultural styles, he is also a member of Netherlands' locking dance crew, Ghetto Funk Collective, who performed at Breakin' Convention 2023. 
 
Ekleido is a dance company by Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser. They present Splice, in which they perform together. The work is an exploration of connection and architecture between two bodies as they configure themselves amid restriction and possibility. The work takes influences from both Faye and Hannah's vocabularies combining contemporary dance and underground club/battle styles including voguing, bone-breaking, threading and electro. 
 
An inspiring cultural innovator, Olivier Award-winning choreographer Ivan Michael Blackstock is a South London-born multi-disciplinary artist who has worked with Breakin' Convention for 10 years, alongside his thriving choreographic career. In 2022, Blackstock presented his Olivier Award-winning production Traplord at 180 studios in collaboration with Sadler's Wells. For this year's Breakin' Convention Festival, with his company TRAPLORD, he presents the world premiere of a new work, a variation on his Traplord universe. 
 
Founded in London in 2001, Boy Blue, the award-winning brainchild of producer Michael ‘Mikey J' Asante and choreographer Kenrick ‘H2O' Sandy MBE, encapsulates the pulse of the city it was born in. The company won an Olivier Award for their production, Pied Piper, and contributed choreography to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. They come back to the Festival with a new show. 

Dance company When Time Was New, spearheaded by Brooke Milliner, presents Psyche. Milliner is a dancer and former trampolinist, who uses gymnastics movements in his choreographic work. Psyche is a hip hop dance theatre show about male mental health, a major social issue in the UK today. Through a range of techniques, including popping, krump and contemporary, the work also gives a message of hope. 
 
Founded in 2017 by Chaquille Forrester-Osborne, GSB is a South London-based krumping collective whose aim is to give an intimate insight into one's lifestyle, and to highlight that there is strength in vulnerabilities. They took part in the Breakin' Convention artistic development programme Back to the Lab and return for their second Festival in a row. 
 
Dani Harris-Walters' Company DHW explores society's impact on individual identity and self-worth with p = F/A (Pressure), a piece combining choreography and storytelling. Developed from his solo "am I worthy?”, the piece exposes vulnerabilities, courage and resilience in the face of societal pressures. Harris-Walters aims to represent the unrepresented, focusing on the youth, the global majority, and those who do not traditionally engage with the arts, embodying inclusivity and diversity.

Sasha Mahfouz Shadid is a British-Palestinian artist born in Southsea, UK. He is passionate about street dance and contemporary dance languages, mainly hip hop, krump and house dance. He has worked and toured with hip hop theatre shows such as ZooNation. He presents a piece that he developed through Breakin' Convention programme Open Arts Surgery.

Founded by Sami Bekkay-Rowland, the group ShaolinOrShao presents MP3 + Movement Init, a tribute piece to UK grime culture – and Jamal Sterrett, a street dancer from St Ann's in Nottingham with Asperger's syndrome, performs a style known as bruk up, originating from Jamaica. His piece, High Spectra, explores how Aspergers heightens his sensitivity to sensory and mental stimuli.  

Extra events around the Breakin' Convention Festival 2024 

Special activities for families take place front of house. On the First Circle from 4.30pm and again during the interval, the Tiny Totts Workshops are dedicated to children who want to explore various hip hop dance foundations, hosted by two fully qualified facilitators.  
 
Live DJ sessions take place in the foyer, featuring DJ Pogo, Cutmaster Swift and Yugson Hawks. Audiences can also learn to tag in the Graff Zone on the First Circle, and in Sadler's Wells outdoor space, the Yard – while children from all ages are invited to take part in drawing workshops. The main wall in the foyer will be painted by Nean, a Belgian graffiti writer from the Kingdom crew. An hour of improvised theatre, the Freestyle Funk Forum is in the Lilian Baylis Studio.

During the interval on both nights, French company Cie Kilaï performs Raw, an intimate show featuring four dancers and spoken word centring women in hip hop in the Lilian Baylis Studio. The company was created in 2014 by Sandrine Lescourant – known as Mufasa – who heads a hip hop troupe with variations on classical, contemporary and traditional African dances. 
 

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