OFFICIAL LINE UP
2009 Performers
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Program A∗
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- Loose Change (San Francisco)
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LOOSE CHANGE Dance Company formed in 1999 to explore and fuse different styles of movement ranging from hip hop and modern to lindy hop, tap, martial arts and African. Under the direction of choreographer Eric Fenn, the company has become a San Francisco Bay Area favorite that inspires, provokes and entertains audiences with its fresh and exciting approach.
LOOSE CHANGE is featured annually at the San Francisco Hip Hop Dance Festival and at other dance shows and festivals in the Bay Area and beyond. Their first evening length performance, QUEST, premiered to sold out audiences at San Francisco's Cowell Theater in June 2005. Their second full length performance, HUMAN NATURE, premiered at San Francisco's finest contemporary arts venue, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in February 2007. HUMAN NATURE was then taken in September of 2007 to the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts in Salt Lake City for its first showing outside of California.
Eric Fenn, the company's primary choreographer, has been contributing to the Bay Area dance scene for over fifteen years. He was the founding artistic director of the hip hop group, San Francisco Culture Shock and he continues to teach dance locally and in studios throughout the U.S. and Europe. His worked has been called "captivating from beginning to end".
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- Ill-Abilities (Canada, Los Angeles and Bay Area)
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ILL-ABILITIES is an International Breakdance Crew with dancers who may be perceived as being limited in some way. Each dancer has taken those limitations and created their own unique style. The crew is currently comprised of four "ILL-Abled" dancers; Checho, from Valdivia, Chile, was born with a major malformation in his legs; Kujo, from Los Angeles, California, born with a severe hearing impairment; Lazylegz, from Montreal, Canada, born with arthrogryposis, which affects the muscular growth in his legs; and Tommy Guns, from San Francisco, California, a transfemoral amputee. The purpose of this team is to show the world that "anything is possible" as long as you keep an open mind, are creative, and can adapt yourself to any situation. The crew was founded by Luca "Lazylegz" Patuelli and debuted at Red Bull's BC One, in Los Angeles, in the summer of 2007, though the crew did not officially come together until June of 2008, for the ILL-Abilities world premiere at the "No Limits" fundraiser in Montreal, Canada. Since then the crew has had the opportunity to perform on NTV's 24-HR TV in Japan, the Halifax International Buskers Festival, and Unvesti World Battle in France, and now ILL-Abilities has the honor to perform for the San Francisco Hip-Hop Dance Festival. Prepare to be inspired and entertained, as the crew will help shatter any misconceptions society may have toward the differently-abled, and will convey the true message of "No Excuses, No Limits." Check out www.illabilitiescrew.com for more info.
*Please note that Bboy Checho from Valdivia, Chile will not be present for this performance due to prior engagements.*
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- Mind Over Matter (San Francisco)
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- Plague (London)
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Plague were formed in 2000 by director and choreographer Mukhtar OS Mukhtar, and since then have become trend setters in the UK in terms of technique and style and known by many as one of the biggest crews to represent the UK. They gain Respect not only from crowds they perform in front of but also from dancers too.Plague have won and performed in numerous Competitions and top shows. They are 3 time UK champions and 1 time world champions.
They are students of dance who train in different dance styles such as Popping, Locking, boogstyle, New style, House, Punking, Gumboots, tap, hype, and many more. They recently blew the roof off at breakin convention 08 in Sadlers wells London with their versatility and performance ability. and are always looking to strengthen their ability by learning from the founders/innovators of the particular styles.
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- New Style Motherlode (Oakland)
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Corey Action and Teela Shine-Ross met in 1995 in Oakland CA and founded the New Style Motherlode Dance Company in 1997. As directors the dynamic duo envisioned a company that fused hip-hop, jazz, ballet, modern, and theatrical themes to present a realm of dance never seen before. With this vision, they formed a unique and dynamic dance company, consisting of dancers from all walks of life. Action and Shine-Ross aspire to develop a multi-dimensional training and performance curriculum that explores all facets of dance and dance production. New Style Motherlode is an African American based but culturally diverse dance company, which strives to promote self-expression, cultural relativity, training and education through dance. In addition, New Style Motherlode is a community-service oriented dance company which aims at exposing inner-city youth to the arts by organizing master classes, performing at local high schools and community sponsored events. The company presents an annual concert and performs at various Bay Area and Northern California venues throughout the year. Auditions are held twice a year and open to dancers of all levels who are serious and have the desire to embrace the spirit of dance. Action and Shine-Ross intertwine their versatile and unique teaching and dance backgrounds to propel The New Style Motherlode Dance Company to new heights.
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- Deep Down Dopeizm (Norway)
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Deep Down Dopeizm (3D) is an all style crew formed in 2008. We found each other in the tiny street dance community in Oslo; in the clubs, at the jams and at the training spots. The unity of 3D is natural through the love and passion for the music and the freestyle dance.
We are 6 individual dancers with each our personal style and flavor, representing different ways of movement within the street styles: B-boying, popping, house dance, hip hop dance, waacking, locking, tutting, etc.
Reflecting the culture, we've come together despite ethnicity, age and religion. We have roots from all corners of the world; east, west, north, south. This shit is universal! We are Maxim, Tasha, Marwless1, Mr. Quiz, WebCam & Mathias... dEEp doWN d0pEiZM.
DEEP DOWN The feeling inside, deep down, when the music hits our body and moves our soul. It translates from deep down to outside... movements... dance. The connection to our roots. We care about what we are and where we're from.
DOPEiZM To define this ism which is creative, funky, fresh and phat. It's about style, flavor, finesse and feeling.
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- DS Players (San Jose, CA)
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We are a hip hop dance crew based out of Mission College in Santa Clara, CA. We focus mainly on funk styles, particularly popping and locking. We are also slaves to the almighty Nintendo DS. Harnessing its great power, we cannot help but bask in the glorified perfection that is Mario Kart. We strive for triple gold stars, seamless drifts, and blue shells. Basically, we love dancing and portable gaming consoles.
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- One Step Ahead (Los Angeles)
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One Step Ahead is a collaborative organism dedicated to the exploration of the unique voices of its members, resulting in work that incorporates the freedom and power of breaking with the abstraction and lyricism of contemporary dance with the nuances of character. Founded in 2001 as a youth advocate organization, OSA has now established itself as a prominent dance company performing across the US and Internationally. Under the artistic direction of Marissa Labog One Step Ahead is committed to exploring human spirit to find meaning within dance and inspire others through community outreach to find individuality and self-expression.
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- Future Shock (San Francisco)
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- Kenichi (New York)
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Kenichi Ebina is a solo self-taught dancer and dance-based specialty act, burlesque performer. Kenichi's unique dance shows with illusion effects of sound, light and visual entertains a lot of people who are not even interested in performing arts. He has been performing in USA, throughout Europe, China, Japan, and Australia.
Kenichi is the only two-time grand champion of a year in the world famous Apollo Theater history. (original "Amateur Night" in 2001 as his founded crew, BiTriP and TV show "Showtime at the Apollo" in 2007 as a solo)
Kenichi's other noticeable appearances are TED 2007 (CA), private parties for Madonna (Prague), Simon Cowell (London), etc, Australian Open Tennis 2008 (Melbourne), Life Ball 2009 (Vienna), TV shows in USA; "Maury Show", "Angelina Ballerina".
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- Last For One (South Korea)
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Last For One is an internationally renowned b-boying team from South Korea and are widely considered one of the best b-boy crews in the world. They were the 1st place winners of the 2005 Battle of the Year in Germany, the largest international b-boying event worldwide, as well as holders of numerous other titles. Last For One appear regularly all over the world in the most prestigious arts & culture venues such as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Quai Branley Museum in Paris, and they have performed for such public luminaries as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Korean president Myoung Bak Lee. Recently, they were the subjects of the documentary film "Planet B-boy" by Korean American filmmaker Benson Lee.
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Program B∗
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- SoulForce Dance Company (San Francisco)
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SoulForce Dance Company was created in 2001 by legendary choreographer, teacher and SF Hip Hop DanceFest producer Micaya. Not your average hip hop dance company, SoulForce is a company not afraid to take artistic risks and fuse other dance styles and theatre into their repertoire. Micayas’ choreography and SoulForce dancers have been featured in music videos, touring productions, nightclubs,cabarets, festivals, corporate events, colleges, theatres and commercials. Described as "witty, dramatic and emotionally nuanced" by Dance Magazine, this dynamic group brings together dancers of diverse backgrounds to create inspiring works on stage. For more information about SoulForce, Micaya's classes, and more, please visit her website at www.micaya.com.
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- Bad Taste Cru (Ireland)
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- Funkanometry SF (San Francisco)
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Funkanometry San Francisco Dance Company is a 501(c)3 non-profit performing arts organization renowned for their cutting-edge choreography, stylistic versatility, and professionalism. It was established in 2002 and has been serving the Bay Area dance community, and beyond, ever since. Through performances, company classes, workshops, and youth mentorship, Funkanometry SF is a dynamically different dance company whose eccentric style of choreography has been recognized worldwide. Their annual benefit showcase, The Sockhop , takes places every summer as a means to bring together individual dancers in the community to bond on a personal level.
Today, the Funkanometry SF Umbrella - aka the Funkbrella - has come to include five performance companies: Funkanometry SF (the professional company), Project EM (all male), De La Femme (all female), The Odds (collegiate competitive team), and Funksters (youth performance company). Check out their new website, WWW.FUNKBRELLA.COM, to get more info about classes, performances, and events.
- Contact: Gina Rosales, Executive Director info@funkbrella.com
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- Versa Style (Los Angeles)
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Versa-Style Dance Company consists of young, committed and conscientious artists representing the diversity and beautiful complexity of Hiphop in Los Angeles. As a reaction to the widespread media misrepresentation of Hiphop culture, Versa-Style specifically aims to perform for the youth of Los Angeles to instill the roots, history, social and political issues surrounding the art of our generation. Versa-Style promotes complex, meaningful, and positive representations of our youth culture and art forms, while instilling self-worth, discipline, knowledge and a sense of unity. Jackie aka Miss Funk & Leigh aka Breeze-lee are the Artistic Directors of Versa-Style and most of the compan'’s most successful work has been performed on PBS TV Special, Ford Amphitheater, Carnival Choreographers Ball at the Key Club, Highways Performance Space, Freud Playhouse Theater & Kaufman Hall of UCLA and The Portal Theater in North Hollywood.
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- F.B.C. (San Francisco)
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- Mop Top Music and Movement (New York)
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- Soul Sector (San Francisco)
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Soul Sector is an all-styles street dance family of friends from San Francisco, founded in 1998 by Mikey Disko. Soul Sector began as a hip-hop and house dance collective, primarily influenced by New York City dancers, such as Mop Top. The numerous opportunities to dance on the east coast in the 90s enabled Soul Sector to bring New York house dance to the Bay Area. Over the past 5 years, Soul Sector has evolved to include popping, locking, and bboying. The strength of the group is their love to train in multiple styles. Soul Sector's past and present members have greatly influenced the Bay Area funkstlyes, bboying, and house dance scene.
Soul Sector has traveled far and wide to train and learn the history of each of the street styles by the founders and innovators of each genre. Through individual members and as a collective, Soul Sector has competed, performed, taught and judged contests across the USA, United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. For the past 5 years, Soul Sector has been a consistent headliner and crowd favorite of the San Francisco Hip Hop Dancefest, a very prestigious Bay Area theatre festival. One of Soul Sector’s most memorable performances took place at House Dance International in New York in 2007. Soul Sector members have been selected by Red Bull to participate in the elite Red Bull Beat Riders program. Hip Hop International presented Shy Guy with the "Don Campbellock Award" for locking in 2008. Soul Sector was a special guest performance and runner up at Dance Delight New York in 08. Recently, Soul Sector won Dance Delight New York and represented the USA in Dance Delight in Osaka, Japan. This winter, Soul Sector will represent the USA again at Funkin Stylez in Germany.
The members of Soul Sector are: Mikey Disko (house, hip hop, popping, locking), Jardy (house, hip hop), Naytron (bboying), Shy Guy (locking), and Boy Wonder (popping)
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- Smash Bro'z (Birmingham, UK)
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The Smash Bro'z are a hip hop dance group, based in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK. Formed in January 2009 by Kashmir Leese, Aundre Brown and Jahmai Jones with the aim to put birmingham on the hiphop map. In a short time The Smash Bro'z won The Battle of the Shires in both crew (hiphop) and solo (freestyle) and second place in freestyle solo and third place overall in hiphop crews at The UK HipHop Championships. This qualified The Smash Bro'z to compete at The World HipHop Championships earlier this year in Las Vegas, the first birmingham crew to achieve this.
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- Shadow Optix (Santa Rosa, CA)
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Shadow Optix is a diverse hip hop crew from the north bay. They strive to represent all forms of hip hop. Their biggest inspiration is the legendary Gary Kendall. Gary's incredible musicality and movement style has impacted today's hip hop tremendously. The crew aims to inspire and entertain all audiences. Collectively, they teach at various studios from Marin County to Mendocino County. Shadow Optix has been dancing together for a little over a year and is 10 members strong. They will continue to grow, perform, innovate, and promote hip hop for years to come.
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- B-Boy Spagetti (Norway)
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Navid Rezvani, aka B-boy Spaghetti: 26 years old, breaking since 2001, winner of the Norwegian championship in Breaking, winner of the 2008 scandinavian 1on1 bboy championships, Finalist of the Norwegain "So you think you can dance", First bboy to work in the Norwegian National Opera, Been teaching workshops all over Scandinavia, performed in Norway with DJ Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, Shugarhill Gang and Beatnuts. Performed in Music Video for Melanie C and Madcon on MTV. Member of Frikar dance company (winner of the world Eurovison with Alexander Ryback 2009). Wide Range of professional teather experience all over Norway.
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- Academy of Villans (San Francisco)
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Part of Skool District, a combination of academies from all over, to LA, to Hawaii, all the way to Philly.
Academy of Villains is an all-style urban dance crew, consisting of locking, popping, krump, house, bboy, and hip hop. Pharside, leader of Supreme Soul (from MTV's Americas best dance crew), has brought together one of the first all-style dance companies to hit the Bay Area by storm. Being a new company, they bring different foundations to the dance scene. To help inspire dancers from all over. Every dancer in Academy of Villains shares their own expert qualities with each other, to bring some of the most amazing shows to the Bay Area.
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