The Floor Is Flava: an international breakdance battle in C12

The Floor is Flava 2019 is the first edition of a brand new international breakdance battle happening in Brussels, organised by Future Art Movement. 16 duos of world-class B-boys will be battling each other to become champion and take home the prize money. Who hypes the crowd and jury most with their best moves, skills and flows? 

12 teams from every corner of the world have been invited to participate: Russia, South-Korea, brazil, USA, France, Netherlands, Canada, Ukraine, … Apart from these, an open qualifier will be held the day of the event to attribute the last four spots of the tournament. Anyone can subscribe to the qualifiers, with teams from Spain, Denmark, France and Italy already registered. Are you up for it?

Future Art Movement is a non-profit organisation founded in 2015 by Benoît Quittelier. After having done a Phd about hip hop Culture in Brussels, he decided to specifically dedicate himself to one of the conclusions of his study. It revealed that art forms emerging from hip hop culture have a hard time finding a fair place inside the cultural institutional network.

6 Belgian teams were invited for the tournament. Who are they?

Benoît: I believe we invited Belgium finests B-Boys. Tirock and Lucky from ‘Belgium With Attitude’ are a kind of dream team. They are some of our finest dancers, putting Belgium on the international break dance map.

Admir and Simon represent Team Shmetta, a Flemish historical crew. Simon is the actual Belgian champion and he will just be back from India where he will have represented Belgium.

We will also have a special collaboration between Belgium and Brazil with lawson and Ratin. Lawson is a Brussels based dancer that has been world champion with a French crew in 2011.

The three other Belgian teams are really the next generation, the upcoming dancers. Battle Droids have been world champion in the kids category two times in a row. Style Invaders are is a crew winning a lot of jams for 2 years now. They have a really intricate style and they start to be recognized internationally. Funky Belgian’Z. are the next generation from Brussels. They have been Benelux champion in 2016.

We also asked Benoît where the break dance tradition comes from.

Benoît: The breaking art form appeared first in the Bronx in New-York in the early 70’s. It was a deprived area at that time with a lot of gangs controlling the streets. When Hip-Hop emerged, everybody in those neigborhoods was involved, even the gang members. Slowly, instead of fighting with fists and knives, they started fighting with moves and skills. This still exists today, but I really think it’s important to see what’s behind. Battling is mostly a way of exchanging. If you come to The Floor is Flava, you will see a lot of cyphers where dancers exchange energy without battling.

To me a good battle is a battle where you don’t care who wins because both sides have done their thing to the fullest. It’s not always the winner that you will remember the most. It’s the dancer that touched your soul with his style. Sometimes picking the winner is a really difficult task that’s why we will have world-class judges on november the 30th.

What music is to be expected during The Floor Is Flava?

Benoît: Hip hop and sampling are central, but you will hear so many musical influences in the DJ-sets. Raw funk and 90’s US rap will also be very present, but every DJ will bring his own touch. Some DJs will also remix contemporary rap tracks, while others will explore more electronic sounds. There are really no rules. As long as the drums are funky and the BPM is good, you could even have a jazz or rock track played. Since this art form emerged in New York in the 70’s, funk and soul clearly play an important role.