Them’s The Breaks

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The Sadler’s Wells Breakin’ Convention, the famous festival of hip-hop dance theatre, returns for an 18th time in July and once more will be curated by hip-hop theatre pioneer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Jonzi D.
Breakin’ Convention Presents will showcase the UK Premiere of Compagnie Niya’s Gueules Noires on Thursday & Friday, July 1&2, whilst on Saturday 3 & Sunday 4, Breakout Convention will feature eight different performances from exceptional hip-hop companies: AWA [Atypical With Attitude], made up of young dancers with different special needs and disabilities; Waacking artist Bagsy in a new work entitled Surrender; Compagnie Niya (France), who, alongside their full-length piece Gueules Noires on Thursday and Friday, will also present the UK premiere of an excerpt of Resurgence, a game between movement and sound; Dey Dey & Manuela (France/Germany) from the acclaimed Zamounda Crew; Gemma Hoddy (UK) who will present Vintage, in which a quartet of women perform a blend of iconic jazz dance shapes, punctuated by a furious popping technique; Patience J (UK) offers Colours, a celebratory work exploring modern Afro dance forms from the African diaspora; Spoken Movement (UK) led by artistic director Kwame Asafo-Adjei.; and W.A.R. (UK) [We Ain’t Regular] which brings the raw to the Sadler’s Wells stage with a world premiere performance.
The 2021 programme also features films from Breakin’ Convention’s latest initiatives Power To The Pixel and Next Day Delivery – a collaboration between choreographers and writers. Next Day Delivery films come from winners Sun Kim and Surid – [Gas] Lighting; Anthony and Kel Matsena – Too Much, Too Little; Ken Masters and Rob Anderson; and Berkavitch and Si Rawlinson – Eat The Rich.
Tickets: £15 – £45. Performances at 6pm and 8pm. Visit sadlerswells.com for more info and to book.