BREAK THE WAR

Wojtek Potaszkin Dance Academy is proud to be associated with one of the very first and one-of-a-kind Breakdance and Hip-Hop dance festivals – ‘BREAK THE WAR’!

The one day event will take place at WPDA’s studios in Palmerstown, Dublin on October 29.

‘Break the War’, conceptualised by Adedayo Adeyemi is a series of annual breakdance and all-styles dance festivals in Dublin city.

The event will consist of 1vs1 and 3vs3 adults and kids dance competitions, adjudicated by local and international artists also teaching workshops.

Adedayo Adeyemi – Curator of the first edition of ‘Break the War’

An Irish Nigerian, Adedayo was born in the UK but spent his youth in Nigeria, before emigrating to Ireland in 2000. He is a trained and qualified Architect, however also learned to breakdance in the very same institution he learned to draw buildings back in 2008 as part of DIT societies breakdance group. It was there that his interest in breaking and hiphop grew to become par of his daily ritual. Ade has taught kids and adults, and performed at home and abroad, and still actively competes solo and with his crew Dublin City Breakers.

For those unaware – Breaking, in association with the World DanceSport Federation is all set to make its Olympic debut at Paris 2024. Here’s an interesting excerpt on the dance form –

Breaking is an urban dance style that originated in the Bronx borough of New York in the 1970s.

Breaking the Mould
Breaking, also known as break dancing, is a form of street dance. The earliest proponents of breaking were Black and Puerto Rican youths who formed crews who would compete in dance battles on the streets. Breaking athletes are referred to as “b-boys”, “b-girls” or “breakers”, the “b” standing for break, since athletes put down dance moves during instrumental breaks in a song.

Becoming a Sport
Since its start on the streets, breaking has developed and gained a global following as an art form, intertwining elements of music, dance and athleticism. Within the Olympic movement, breaking is a discipline of the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) that was founded in 1957. The first WDSF World DanceSport Games were held in 2013 in Chinese Taipei.

Breaking Competition
In breaking competitions, two breakers go head to head. One breaker performs and then their opponent responds, while five judges score athletes on six criteria: creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality. During a competition, each judge moves sliders on a tablet to determine the scores in each element.

Olympic History
Breaking made its Olympic debut at the Summer Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018 with three events: two individual events and one mixed team event. Twenty-four b-boys and b-girls battled in separate competitions, with the numbers evenly split into 12 boys and 12 girls. The individual events took place over two days, beginning with the round-robin competition on the first day followed by the knock-out on day two. Russia’s Bumblebee (Sergei Chernyshev) won the boys’ title, while Japan’s Ram (Ramu Kawai) won the girls’. The mixed team event was also organised over two days, and was made up of 12 teams, each one made of a b-boy and a b-girl based on the results of the individual events. The team of Vietnam’s B4 (Hiếu Lê Minh) and Japan’s Ram (Ramu Kawai) took the gold.

After witnessing breaking’s popularity at Buenos Aires 2018, the Paris 2024 organising committee proposed to have it make its full Olympic debut in the French capital. The IOC confirmed its inclusion on the Paris 2024 programme in 2020.

^{(Source https://olympics.com/en/sports/breaking)}

BREAKING AT WPDA

Most of you are familiar with the WPDA also conducting classes in Breaking!

Here’s a little bit about Leon Dwyer, who teaches our breakers at the Academy.

Leon Dwyer Leon/ Bboy Aleon is a professional breaker from Dublin Ireland. He has been breaking since 2010, and competes, performs around the world. In summer he competed in 6 of the biggest events in the world and placed second in the legendary UK BBoy Champs, one of Breaking’s highest level events, and recently won big events like South East Project in Murcia, Spain and BFD in Porto, Portugal. He represents Primal Instincts crew, a crew based in London. They have been winning battles internationally! Leon also teaches regular breaking classes around Ireland. Some recent shows he has been involved with are Algori Gala and Cabaret Breakers both in Porto. He has worked with companies such as Google, Nike, JD Sports, Lifestyle Sports, Bulmers, Orchard Theives and Arizona.

We are absolutely chuffed about the upcoming event and can’t wait to witness the amazing talent, skill and energy on the 29th of October.