Wojtek Potaszkin Dance Academy is proud to host again the one-of-a-kind Breakdance and Hip-Hop dance festivals – ‘BREAK THE WAR’!

This 2 day event will take place at WPDA’s studios in Palmerstown, Dublin 20 – on October 28th & 29th.

In 2022 we hosted what was a fantastic event and we look forward to this year being even bigger & better ! Take a look at last years pictures… https://www.facebook.com/breakthewar

Our own WPDA dancers cannot wait to take part in this years event also! Below – Frankie and Fred!

We are delighted to welcome some of Breakings top International professionals also to this years event – they will adjudicate and offer workshops throughout the weekend!

A little bit of History…..

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)}

Contact WPDA today if you are interested in joining the event or coming along to try our Hip-Hop and Breaking regular classes – more offers and teachers from this September!

For details about any of our classes, please contact the Academy directly.

Location & Timetable of all classes can be found here: Contact us