Hip-hop Dance - International Competitions

International Competitions

See also: List of street dance competitions and B-boying#World championships

• UK B-Boy Championships was founded by DJ Hooch in 1996 in London. There are four world championship titles: breaking crew champions, solo b-boy champion, solo popping champion, and locking two-on-two champions. The world finals also include the "Fresh Awards" (best dressed) which are hosted and judged every year by Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón—the president of Rock Steady Crew. In 2011 DJ Hooch wrote a book about the competition called B-Boy Championships: From Bronx to Brixton.

• Freestyle Session was founded in 1997 in California by graffiti writer and DJ Chris "Cros1" Wright. It is the largest breaking competition in the United States. The main competitive event is for b-boy crews, but there are also popping and locking competitions for solo competitors. Although the U.S. is the flagship location for Freestyle Session, it is not the only country where it is held. Promoters outside the U.S. pay Cros1 to use Freestyle Session's name and fly him to their location to judge the competition. Using this method, Freestyle Session has been held in 18 other countries including Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

• Hip Hop International: World Hip Hop Dance Championships (HHI) is a hip-hop dance competition founded in 2002 in the United States where both crews and soloist compete. There are two categories of competitions: world battles and world championship. The world championship is for hip-hop crews. There are four divisions: junior (ages 7–12), varsity (12–18), adult (18+), and mega crew (all ages). Each crew must have at least five but not more than eight people (mega crew must have 15–40) and must perform a routine that showcases three styles of hip-hop dance. For the 2009 competition, there were 120 crews representing 30 countries. Within the world battles category, there are four world championship titles: three-on-three breaking champions, one-on-one popping champion, one-on-one locking champion, and one-on-one all styles (freestyle) champion. HHI also runs the USA Hip Hop Dance Championships and produces the television show America's Best Dance Crew.

• Juste Debout is an international street dance competition founded in 2002 by Bruce Ykanji in Paris. Competition categories include popping, hip-hop, locking, house, toprock, and experimental. Breaking is not included to put more focus on the hip-hop dance styles performed while standing up, hence the name (French for Just Standing). There are not any team trophies at Juste Debout. The experimental and toprock categories are only for solo dancers; popping, new style, locking, and house are for duos. Juste Debout also publishes a free bimonthly dance magazine of the same name. In 2008 the editor-in-chief of Juste Debout magazine, Ingrid "Shéyen" Gamboa, wrote a book called Hip-hop: L'histoire de la danse (Hip Hop: A history of the dance).

• United Dance Organization: World Street Dance Championships (UDO) is a street dance competition founded in 2002 in the United Kingdom. It is endorsed by choreographers Ashley Banjo and Sisco Gomez and dancers Twist and Pulse and George Sampson. People can compete in teams, in quads (four people), in duos, or as solo dancers. Solo dancers compete in breaking, locking, popping, house, and krumping. UDO also runs the British Street Dance Championships and the European Street Dance Championships, but the European championships are held in Germany rather than the U.K.

• Street Dance Kemp Europe (SDK Europe) is an international competition and dance convention that was founded in 2004 in the Czech Republic; it is held every year in Jedovnice. There are team events for three-on-three breaking crew and five-on-five hip-hop crew and solo competitive events for house, krumping, locking, and hip-hop dancers. SDK Europe begins every year in the summer and lasts seven days. Daytime hours are reserved primarily for dance workshops and classes taught by an international pool of instructors; competitive events are held at night. All of the classes, workshops, and competitive events are held outside and—although hotels or cottages are an option—many participants stay in tents and camp outside on the SDK event grounds.

• EuroBattle was founded in 2005 in Portugal by Max from Momentum crew. There are five competitive events for solo dancers: b-boying, b-girling, hip-hop, locking, and popping. The international final is held in Porto but the winner of the Spanish qualifying tournament also gets to compete at the UK B-Boy Championships in London.

• World Supremacy Battlegrounds is an international hip-hop dance competition based in Australia. The heritage of World Supremacy Battlegrounds goes back to 2002 when it began as GROOVE, a local hip-hop competition held in Sydney. Over the three years that followed, the competition was renamed Battlegrounds and went national to include dance crews from all over Australia. It became international in 2006 when crews from the Philippines, Japan, and New Zealand entered the competition. For the 2011 competition, teams from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Guam, New Zealand, Samoa, and South Africa came to compete. There are four dance crew categories: open (all ages), junior (12 and under), varsity (12–18), and monster (all ages). A monster crew must have 20–40 members whereas the other crew categories only require 4–16.

• World of Dance Tour (WOD) is a traveling hip-hop dance competition founded in 2008 by Myron Marten and David Gonzales in Pomona, California. It differs from other competitions because there is no final championship. WOD travels to different cities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom and holds a competition in each location; therefore, WOD distinguishes itself as a tour. Each tour stop is a stand-alone competition; they are all related to each other in name only. In 2012 WOD will travel to New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Cardiff, Vancouver, Toronto, San Diego, Montreal, Boston, Manchester, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Birmingham (England).

• World Dance Colosseum is a two-on-two dance competition founded in 2009 in Japan. There are five two-on-two world championship titles: b-boying, locking, popping, hip-hop, and house. Japanese dancers qualify for the international final through preliminary tournaments held in the country but foreign dancers do not qualify through tournaments because 30 of the top-ranked foreign dancers are automatically invited to participate in the final. At the final, the winning duos from the Japanese tournaments compete against the top-ranked foreign duos to determine who is the best. There is also a "kids" title (hip-hop) at the world finals but this event is only for Japanese children.