Prototype 5th Win At Jump Off 2012

Kashmir ‘Dancegeek’ Trailer Part 1

Hey Check Out My First Trailer

Midlands Best Dance Crew 2010

Punch & 2Funky presents MIDLANDS BEST DANCE CREW 2010!

The search is now on to find Midlands Best Dance Crew 2010. After the success of Leicester’s first dance heat where crews went head to head to compete for the title of Leicester’s Best Dance Crew, it is now back and bigger promising to be one unmissable night.

The urban dance championships comes to Birmingham Town Hall on Friday 12 November 2010. Like MTV’s show ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ where the hottest street dancers compete in the hope of winning the cash prize, 12 of the Midland’s best crews will battle it out to win the trophy, £1000 and claim the title of Midlands Best Dance Crew 2010.

A great show for the whole family to see with a surprise guest artist performing on the night, plus a chance to win a £50 prize for the best dancer from the audience.

Register now and Step Up for the chance of your crew to go head to head and claim the title of Midlands Best Dance Crew 2010. For more information on how to register, please click on the link below:

Registration Form

Auditions: Saturday 2 October 2010, Birmingham

Closing date to register: Friday 17 September 2010

Tickets are now available online, click here or contact Box Office on 0121 780 3333.

For further information about this event please email, gurpreet (at) punch-records.co.uk

http://punch-records.co.uk/2010/08/03/midlands-best-dance-crew-2010/

HipHop International aka World HipHop Championships 2010 In Las Vegas

This blog is gonna make people very unhappy lol

If I was to sum up the whole competition HHI in Las Vegas in one word, it would be “NotHipHop”

I know your thinking HUH?? But don’t be confused thinking kashmir your wrong “NotHipHop” is two words………weeeelllllll not really! Considering the fact the Hip and Hop are two different words but when put together make ONE and bring you a different meaning entirely
That’s called Street Language, one of the 9 elements of HipHop and I’m usingit to create the word “Not HipHop” because other words simply can’t describe the feeling the competition gave me!

The theme song for this competition pretty much speaks for itself and I’ll post the video of that soon as I recorded it live while I was in las vegas lol some funny stuff :p

Anyways already knowing that this competition was a little commercial because that’s what the majority ofcompetitions in the world are like. And the first thing that gives that away issssssss………. THE MUSIC!

I think the first thing that kinda raised my brow was THE AFTER PARTIES!?!?! they pretty much occurred every night after a days event went by!

In honest words of myself and many other people that was there!

The parties were embarrassing!!

Nothing but commercial music for 99% of the time!!!! This is ment to be one of the official WORLDHIPHOPchampionships After parties and for someone who didn’t know anything about the street or hiphop culture would have come into that room and left thinking “YEAH!! Lady GAGA is HipHop”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! HELL TO THE NO!!!!! “Not HipHop” My Friends!

This poses a pretty large problem for people who know real HipHop and actual cares about the uplifting of the culture because right there you have misrepresented HipHop happening right in front of my eyes!

What made it worse was the dancers and frankly I was very disappointed with the majority of the dancers at this event especially the BBOYS!
They had no sense of music! Don’t get me twisted they had musicality but they had no sense of music! Its different and….
I’ll explain!….. a breakbeat comes on! Bboys go crazy and cyphers start! Next track lady gaga bboys still going crazy un phased by the music and this goes on and on………..who see’s the problem? Yes? No? Come on people work with me,

For those who don’t know the original style of HipHop is BBOYING! So in all respects they should be at the forefront of the HipHop army driving and keeping the culture alive but NO!! There music and culture is being misrepresented rightin front of them and they supported it…. How??? BY DANCING that’s how!

I’m sorry but when that crap came on I stopped moving and so did many others, because they understood what was going on! But many many many people did not!

People may even give the excuse to me! “Arr u can’t dance to this! your ment to be a dancer etc blah blah blah”

If you think that your dumb! Lol

And people think I only listen to hiphop where as if uwent through my ipods you will see I have every genre of music on there and I like music for being music in every form.

So that’s why I always tell people I can dance to anything and if needs be I can smoke people to anything! “My” music”their” music, it don’t matter I’m a dancer full stop.

But the problem was bigger than that! Dancing to it ment you supported it, were as we stopped dancing andcomplained! It even got to the point a few after parties after the first where we had to booo the DJ just to get our point across! After 2 or 3days of the commercial crap enough real hiphop heads managed to start a revolution and booed the resident DJ OFF!!!! and a real DJ was bought in a day before the finals! So we had one good after party of music that reflected the so called title of the competition “World HipHop Dance Championships”

IT ONLY LASTED FOR THAT DAY ( ‘_’)

OK Let your mind wonder from what you’ve just heard as I flash into a different scenario…………..

In the UK ” Not HipHop” competitions there’s a certain craze that’s been going on for a few years now and that the “Sound Effect Era”
Which to be honest annoys the hell out of me and I always knew deep down why but I could never put it into words until my time in Las Vegas.

I was at a HipHop seminar where a man would ask a few OG/Pioneers/2Generation Dancers/HipHop Organisers question regarding HipHop Culture and Dance etc

One of a few comments that stood out to me was regarding soundeffects used in music and was spoken bya “well known” ( ‘_’) dancer and choreographer Shotyme and he gave his reason on why dancers use sound effects in their music, he said, “The thing that is missing in the HipHop Dance Culture today is being replaced by sound effect becausepeople no longer understand the music or how to groove” and I was like “o s**t” it was correct what he was saying……………and……….another person was preaching on the fact that certain television programs and Competitions were killing The Street Dance and HipHop Culture and everyone on the panel was nodding there heads, including Don Cambellock and Boogaloo Sam the inventors Locking and Popping………

I was standing there thinking “What the F**k are you doing here if you think that” the man who is paying you to be at these competitions happened to be the organiser of HHI and America’s Best Dance Crew. The two biggest dance competitions in North America and the exact thing they are complaining about on the panel?!!?/!/(:/

I’m sorry but I was a tad bit confused on what was going on here!

So tell me how we (The Smash Bro’z) were ranked 36th out of 50 countries when we used only 2 dope hiphop tracks, not 10 and with no sound effects, just music groove and dance.

Fair enough it wasn’t the tightest bit of work but given the circumstances on how 2 people dropped out and we had to fly 2 replacements over to vegas last minute to rehearse on the day of our round and still go out and inspire tons of people (NOT THE JUDGES) I think we did well no???

Usually I would say the UK but after vegas I can now confidently say the majority of the worlds “HipHop” dancers focus more on costume, hair, make up, flips and sound effects rather than actually doing HIPHOP on stage! I dunno if its just me but A LOT of HIPHOP and STREET dance shows seem to resemble cheerleading??!!?!? ( ‘_’) am I right or what? Watch some cheerleading on youtube and then some “Street Dance” groups/shows like Diversity or the majority of groups that enter these so called HipHop and Street Dance events you see around the world today, then you’ll see what I’m on about!

In this world the four main elements of HipHop are Flips, Sound Fx, Choreo, Costume. Lol
(Luke ‘TJ’ Lentes)

I call it Urban “Cheerleading” a lot of people call it HipHop or Street Dance! Either way its “NotHipHop”

If I was a pioneer I wouldn’t be too happy with the way things were going “Shoulder Popping”, “Pointless Uncle Sam Points”, “King Tut” or “Finger Tut” for a whole routine, flipping and flapping arms about to added sound effects :/

Music is so beautiful and vast that to me I don’t need to add anything to music because I understand it for what it is! There is no excuse for adding a sound effect into a song. And some people said that our piece wasn’t artistic enough?? Huh?? Really?? Well what is artistic? Something that looks visually entertaining or innovation while still keeping to the foundation of the dance? And I’m referring to a group called “Pro Phenomenon” from france! Youtube them.)

Cheerleading to sound effects isn’t artistic its wack! Because in an actual sense everyone who is moving to a sound effect is dancing off beat!!! Right? Because its not music so if I popped in a silent part of the music that would be considered popping off beat so why is it ok to do it with a sounds effect?
To me it just shows a lack of understanding of MUSIC!
And that should be a dancers one true purpose….

The relationship between Dancer & Music is Key!!!!!

A few more issues I wanna raise and one is the lack of socialization between countries :/
I went over there looking to mingle like a pringle lol
Only to find people not returning my hello’s, waves or smiles! I got bare air time

For me the best part about travelling to competitions abroad is to talk to people (maybe because I don’t win many competitions :p lol) anyways talking to new people helps to build a stronger network and dance community but instead people just stuck to their groups and walked, talked, ate and chilled together!

As soon as I got to the hotel which was around 12.30am lol I wanted to meet people, but I found that everyone wasn’t as open as I was and this was the case for a few days but for some other people it lasted the whole competition!

Can’t say I’m dead surprised because the HipHop and Street dance culture nowadays are perceived as anti social people always walking around with Headphones on etc

Yes HipHop wasn’t spawned from love, flowers and pretty things! HipHop was born from the oppression of black and latino people and they didn’t all have nice backgrounds, some were drug dealers, street hustlers etc and obviously had a certain attitude about how they carried themselves.
So I think modern day HipHop and Street Dancers try to put it on without actually coming from the background because obviously things have changed and now that HipHop attitude has been substituted for arrogance and that helps no one!!!!

Last issue I think and its mainly for the UK!!!!

FREESTYLING!!!!

IF YOU DONT FREESTYLE THEN YOU ARE NOT A HIPHOP OR STREET DANCER! FULL STOP!

And I’ll tell you why!

WITHOUT FREESTYLE THERE WOULD BE NO HIPHOP OR STREET DANCE!

Freestyle is the essence of HipHop Culture and without it, it can not grow or innovate.

Ballet has been around for hundreds of years and its still the same! HipHip has been around for 37 years and look how much it has changed since its conception!!!!!!
Its amazing isn’t it????

I never usually compare dance styles because I LOVE all forms of dance and try to do as much as I can including ballet but a few days ago while teaching, a mother came up to me and asked me to tell her little daughter why its important to be individual and an answer popped into my head that I never thought of before and I used ballet as an example. I said:

” The individuality of HipHop makes it perfect for human’s state of mind because with ballet its stressful, because ballet technique is all the same and there is no individuality because of it, the only way to be individual is to be better than everyone! “Be The Best” which makes the dance very stressful because of competitive levels, where as with HipHop its not about being the best its about being DIFFERENT! You don’t have to be the best to be the best! we as a hiphop culture don’t judge on the who is better at the technique but who takes the technique and does something amazing with it! So there is no stress, well there shouldn’t be lol

I’m not really finished with this post but for now its concluded and I’ll add all the other stuff soon
Hope its given people something to think about?

Wat You Got! Newstyle HipHop Battles!

Yo Yo!

What’s good people I’m gonna be in swansea this weekend for a newstyle hiphop battle all info is below! See you there if your around!

**Ms J!NG & D-LO ENT**
present

¤ WHAT YOU GOT !? ¤

SUNDAY 27th JUNE
2pm-9pm

@MONKEY BAR
13-14 castle street,swansea,sa1 1jf
“Swansea, south wales”
( swansea railway station )

>1vs1 HIP HOP NEW STYLE >1vs1 BBOY BATTLE
& workshops with judges

( prize £ to win & ticket for the WHAT YOU GOT !? Big final in london ” sun 18th july @BARUMBA )

Hip hop New style judges
* DIABLO ( criminalz ” FRANCE )
* IVAN ( bird gang ” UK
* JULIA CHENG ( I.H.W.UK )

Bboy judges
* BGIRL SUNSUN ( flowzaic )
* BBOY KOFI ( boy blue )
* BBOY AJ ( Soul Mavericks )

Host
* D-LO… ( House dance uk – what you got !? Nyc )

Entry
£5
£3 to battle

Battle start @5pm
Workshop with judges
2pm-5pm

Info :
*Fbk/WHAT YOU GOT !?
*Jingwongdance@hotmail.co.uk
07792120272
07891336560
***********************
AFTER PARTY @Ms J!NG’s CRIB ( pyjama party )

>FREE ENTRY with drink all night…

Peace kashmir aka the dancegeek

Double Bill Of Real HipHop

BASS Festival Double Bill of Hip hop and B-Boy dance:

Insanity Isn’t and Fresh Genes

25 June

Live @ mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham

£10 / £7 concessions

Smash Bro’z new dance piece Fresh Genes depicts the journey and discovery of a young scientist who is on a mission to find a cure for the misrepresentation of Hip Hop in the UK. The scientists then discover a new gene – the ‘Hip Hop’ gene. West Midlands based Hip Hop dance collective Smash Bro’z recently won first prize in the 2010 UK Hip Hop Dance Championships.

Insanity Isn’t, written & Performed by US based Rudi Goblen tells the story of Acey who, whilst trying to sleep through the American dream instead wakes to an American nightmare. He finds himself plagued by financial burdens, media propaganda, religious beliefs, keeping up with the Jones’, and apocalyptic prophecies. B-Boy movements, rhyme, beat box and live music weave together his journey back to insane sanity.

www.macarts.co.uk

BASS Festival Double Bill of Hip hop and B-Boy dance:Insanity Isn’t and Fresh Genes25 JuneLive @ mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham£10 / £7 concessionsSmash Bro’z new dance piece Fresh Genes depicts the journey and discovery of a young scientist who is on a mission to find a cure for the misrepresentation of Hip Hop in the UK. The scientists then discover a new gene – the ‘Hip Hop’ gene. West Midlands based Hip Hop dance collective Smash Bro’z recently won first prize in the 2010 UK Hip Hop Dance Championships.Insanity Isn’t, written & Performed by US based Rudi Goblen tells the story of Acey who, whilst trying to sleep through the American dream instead wakes to an American nightmare. He finds himself plagued by financial burdens, media propaganda, religious beliefs, keeping up with the Jones’, and apocalyptic prophecies. B-Boy movements, rhyme, beat box and live music weave together his journey back to insane sanity.

www.macarts.co.uk

Link to book tickets below

http://www.macarts.co.uk/page/3649/performance/52

House Dance UK 4.0

Yo Yo!

Just letting you know that I’ll be entering House Dance UK today in london represting Birmingham/UK.
If you in london and can make it down then do so because its going to be a dope night
Info is below.

SUNDAY 20TH JUNE
9PM-3AM

@MADAME JOJO’S
( PICCADILLY CIRCUS STATION )

1VS1 HOUSE DANCE BATTLE £300 & BAG OF GOODIES TO WIN

JUDGES

SHANNON ( NYC )
TURBO ( UK )
SEKO ( FRANCE )

SHOW CASES

SHANNON & ANNA ( HOUSE DANCE )

LASSEINDRA NINJA ( VOGUE FEMME )

£8 ALL NIGHT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOUSE DANCE UK WORKSHOPS

( Monday 21st june )

@MARYLAND DANCE STUDIO
( STRATFORD STATION )

4.30pm-6.30
* SHANNON nyc ( house dance )

6.30pm-8.30pm
* LASSEINDRA NINJA ( vogue femme )

8.30pm-10pm
* SEKO ( AFRO HOUSE )

£10 each workshops

Info
07731748707 – 07958211462
DLO-@HOTMAIL.COM

Peace & House
Kashmir

Dancegeeks Trip To Manchester :)

What’s up people!

While I was in liverpool performing the last ever GBB I bumped into Baba Israel (if you don’t know him! Get to know him! Google is a good place to start lol) and his wife DawN really kool people. And while in conversation at a resturaunt he invited me down to an event they do in Manchester called Mixed Movement which is basically and open mic for dancers all info is posted below and if you around come chech it out! Pz

Mixed Movement

Saturday 15 May 10pm to 11pm (May), 9pm ’til late (June to Sept)
Saturday 19 June 10pm to 11pm (May), 9pm ’til late (June to Sept)
Saturday 17 July 10pm to 11pm (May), 9pm ’til late (June to Sept)
Saturday 21 August 10pm to 11pm (May), 9pm ’til late (June to Sept)
Saturday 18 September 10pm to 11pm (May), 9pm ’til late (June to Sept)

FREE

THIRD SATURDAY OF THE MONTH

Straight from its successful run at the legendary St. Marks Church in New York Mixed Movement comes to Contact every third Saturday of the month.

The event is the brainchild of dancer, theatre artist, and poet DawN Crandell – who has created an open mic for dancers after being frustrated with the lack of spontaneous opportunities for performance.

Created by:

DawN

Hosted by

Kelly Morgan (April)

DawN (May to September)

Music by:

Alex Mackrill

Rory Duff

Showcase Artists:

April – JUBA JAZZ DANCERS directed by blu. Showcasing 80′s UK club jazz dancing with spoken word.

May – prior to his full show on 22 May at Contact, the showcase artist will be Peter Grist

June – featuring special guest Rudi Goblen of Insanity Isn’t.

*************************************************************

JOIN IN!

SLOTS FOR MIXED MOVEMENT GO FAST SO BOOK YOURS NOW TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!

1st round: improvised solo

2nd round: Improvised duet with randomly selected partner

Email: Dawndusk@me.com to submit for the 8 slots.

We are looking for a diverse range of styles- so please note your genre or range of genres (Contemporary, Club, Hip Hop, Breaking, House, Vogue, Wacking, Ballet, Traditional dance, or a genre we have not yet heard of!)

**********************************************************

Future Showcase Artists:
If you are a dancer or company with a work-in-progress extract (5-10min) that you would like to share at a future Mixed Movement please email DawN at Dawndusk@me.com. Please include as much information about you including any video or website links.

***********************************************************

Mixed Movement: The Dance Class

DawN also teaches an improvised dance class at Zion Arts Centre every Wednesday night from 7pm to 8:30pm. The class is open to all ages and abilities and costs £5 (£3 for those under 16).

If you have any questions call Zion on 0161 226 1912 or email info@zionarts.com

Zion Arts Centre, 335 Stretford Road, Hulme Manchester M15 5ZA

Judging At Throwdown

Sup people

Just gonna post a lil something about the new style battles that happened at an event called throwdown which happens in brixton london on thursday every month hosting all kinda of battles and shows.

For this particular one I was asked to judge the new style dance battles and for me it was a great honor that I found very challenging because for me the level on new style was the highest I’ve seen it in the UK which is great being a new style head myself

What I found interesting were peoples interpretation on the new style foundations and a lot of UK newstyles….well I can’t really say UK but more london interpretation of new style seems to be based more on character or swagger rather than just dancing, which I think the swagger aspect comes from a lot of recent new stylers are coming from a UK STREET DANCE background or LA style.

Musicality of the night was very good aswell seeing as how I really love musicality and take pride in my on sense of this. But for me a dance can’t be judged solely on his sense of knowing a tune, but on knowing a tune and being able to interperate movement to go with it or what I think is the biggest challenge is not knowing a tune and still being able to pull out dope material on beat and naturally, not trying to hard to hit every beat but just letting your mind go and let your body be moved by the music rather than you (your mind) trying to always tell your body how to interprate the music rather than just letting it happen

I’ve said my piece……peace lol

Kashmir aka Dancegeek
Smash Bro’z
House Hidden In The Leave
Birmingham lol

THE BASS FESTIVAL 2010 IS COMING TO A PLACE NEAR YOU!!!

Yo, this is Dre – once again, bringing you the latest on what’s happenin’!

As some of you may or may not already know (or probably gathered from the title of this Blog post) is that – yes, the BASS festival is back again once more, bringing you some of the best of what the UK has to offer – creatively.

So what is the BASS Festival, exactly?

“BASS Festival (British Arts and Street Sounds) is the UK’s only month long celebration of Black Music and Art. Every June, the UK comes alive with a phenomenal line up of events, new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film.

Produced by Punch the key aims of the festival are to: 

• Forge communicative and appropriate artistic partnerships between venues, artists and promoters
• Challenge programming and audience development practices in an attempt to expand, diversify and improve the image and accessibility of urban arts.
• Build concrete foundations to establish the festival as a long-term feature of the region’s and the UK’s annual cultural programme.

Now in its 5th year BASS has established itself as a driving force on the UK’s festival scene and has huge outreach to a fantastically diverse audience base.

Events are held mainly in the Midlands region (Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester and Derby) with satellite events in cities such as London, Manchester and Bristol. They are delivered in a range of contrasting venues from universities, museums, galleries, bars to public spaces. This approach ensures that a huge cross section of the region’s communities have unrivalled exposure and easy access to the festival.

BASS creates platforms for artist based commissions that initiate and develop new networks for dialogue.

The theme for BASS 2010 is DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) forms the building blocks of life and controls the development and functioning of all known living organisms. But what does DNA mean to us individually in the 21st century? Identity, test tubes, control, heritage, science, ID cards, family, databases, samples, genomes, protest? The fifth BASS festival will explore how DNA varies and develops, whether caused by external forces, or by personal development, enabling us to rethink our evolving identities.

Every year the BASS festival follows a theme to help develop a united, innovative, challenging and progressive method to showcase urban arts”.  (For more info, please see: http://www.bassfestival.co.uk/)

For those, who are wondering if i’m just advertising the BASS festival or if it has any relevance to myself or The Smash Bro’z – then the answer’s pretty simple… Both!

As well as promoting the BASS Festival, The Smash Bro’z will be performing a piece, made especially for this event, on Friday 25th June at the MAC (Midlands Arts Centre)! It’s definately not one to be missed!

(Time  is to be confirmed).

This is Dre. Peace.

*Note that all quotes, images, etc on this post are orignally from: http://www.bassfestival.co.uk/ - All rights go to that particular website.