“Who wants to party tonight?” hollers the MC, Radio 1Xtra’s Fee Mak. A holler comes back at her, because Breakin’ Convention audiences are not shy.
Now in its 22nd year, the UK’s venerable street dance festival brings a multi-generational crowd to Sadler’s Wells. Seats in the front stalls are yanked out, so a mosh pit of bodies bobs in front of the stage, ready to get their hands in the air.
Head-spinning stunts will always snare attention — but what’s arresting about the headline act on opening night was its cool gravity. Stuck, a terrific debut choreography by French dancer Mounia Nassangar, starts slow, with one of the dancers settling into a salon chair and getting her head shaved. Only once the clippings have been swept up do the lights crack a dystopian ruby red and the dancers judder to life.
Nassangar and her exceptional dancers are adepts in whacking — a staccato style born in 1970s gay clubs. It’s all about the whirling arms and flickering fingers, the jolts of speed and stillness. Stuck takes a journey from anxiety to ecstasy, and these five women are jaw-droppingly sharp. Their majorette precision and steel-trap composure, their ferociously controlled flailing, all emerge with graphic intensity. They don’t beg for applause — they don’t need to.
The evening’s eager-beaver opener on Fierce Friday was by UK company WeGrowTogether. Competing dance tribes — house versus hip hop, grime versus Afrobeats — soon unite in a peppy, chaotic tour of street dance influences.
The festival nurtures sensitive young plants as well as bouncy pups. From Birmingham, Jamaal O’Driscoll’s ruminative solo unfolds over a rumbling soundscape cut with subdued saxophone. O’Driscoll, a strikingly liquid mover, tumbles as softly as brushed cotton. Contemplative hip hop, why not?
It takes swagger to tame the wide Sadler’s stage — and The Ruggeds positively tang with assurance. The popular Dutch crew formed 20 years ago, inspired by an early edition of Breakin’ Convention. The six current dancers perform stop-motion stunts and spins that mock gravity. They wind their bodies up like corkscrews, then release them at speed, ending by wiggling an impudent instep in the air. It’s a b-boy firework display which sets camera phones flaring across the theatre.
Breakin’ Convention is a bank holiday bonanza: more than just a stage show. It’s also about the pre-show battles in the foyer, the graffiti stylings across the building, the workshops and DJs and after parties (led on opening night by Rampage). And it’s about capturing hearts and minds.
The young ones next to me — no more than seven years old, solemnly taking their seats — were entranced, breathing in the rhythms and trying out the moves.
They’ll be back — and, who knows, maybe it will be on stage.
Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells, until May 4, sadlerswells.com
