Classes and Training Sessions

Michaelmas Term 2009



Beginners Classes

None or little experience? You will receive teaching on basic footwork/techniques from an instructor.

Venue;
Saturdays, 4-5pm at School of Pythagoras, St. John’s College, followed by training session with the others.

Fee;
Free, however you must pay after your first class/at your second class for the academic year if you wish to attend classes regularly. See "fee" under 'labels' on the right hand side of this blog for details.

This term we hope to go for dinner out in town to follow the training session/beginners class when possible, as an opportunity to mix with members of the society.


Training sessions

There is more than just attending the class; training sessions are where you practice what you have learnt before and putting them into context, as well as learning off others of all levels.

Tuesdays from 7-9pm @ Hughes Hall College (advanced/show crew)
Thursdays from 8.15pm - 10.15pm @ School of Pythagoras, St. John’s College (all welcome)
Saturdays from 5-6pm after beginners class @ School of Pythagoras, St. John’s College (all welcome)

Fee;
Free, however you must pay after your first training/at your second training for the academic year if you wish to attend classes regularly. See "fee" under 'labels' on the right hand side of this blog for details.

If you think you know a place where there is a big space to train for free, please contact us on breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk


Da reel shizzle

Happens outside the classes innit.

Committee 2009/10

Hey to da b-boyz and b-girlz,

CUBiC is back in action from this autumn for the next academic year! Most of last year's committee members are staying, but we've all shifted our roles a bit to add some fresh air to the breakdance club a bit.

Ali (below) is your new President; contact him if you want the Cambridge A-Team and other fresh breakers to perform at your Ents, Bops, Balls and other events on ak617@cam.ac.uk



Marcus team up with Ali to run the club as Vice-Prez and will answer all your queries (including classes) that you send to our committee address (breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk).



Mazza, CUBiC's President last year, will be stepping in the new role of Publicity Officer and will keep this blog up to date. Email her on ms775@cam.ac.uk if you have photos of us or want to feature us on your newspaper, magazine, or even on posters and other artwork/advertisement!



Matt will stay in charge of the society's Treasury, as well as keeping the membership list alive as Secretary. All money issues should be emailed to him on ml503@cam.ac.uk and cc-d to our President.



Steve is our new addition to the committee as Social Secretary. Contact him on stevendwatts@googlemail.com if you are an Events Organiser in your local area and want us to dance in exchange for a free/discounted entry and drinks! He is also responsible for increasing the breakdance movement on local soil and hosts the practices at St. Paul's on Sundays.



We look forward to meeting you and breakin' with y'all!

Popping Workshop with Special K; Varsity's Pick of the Week

We welcome back Special K as he returns with newer techniques and routines!


He was the winner of Urban Sinfonie and UCF Sheffield, 3rd place in Breakfest Birmingham and 4th place in ClubDanceStyleOff Manchester. He is currently teaching extensively up in the northern part of England, and is part of the Justice League Crew. Before he ran away up north, he was part of the breakdance crew here in Cambridge; this is one opportunity you cannot miss!

There will be two sessions, as Varsity newspaper has advertised it at a different time;
The first will be held at 5pm (our original schedule), the second at 7:45pm (Varsity's publicised time).
Both will be held at School of Pythagoras, St. John's College, on Saturday 21st February.

Entrance Fee;
Members - £2
Non-members - £5

You can join membership on the day (£10) and participate upon the discount price. Membership also offers free classes and training sessions, reduced prices to attend workshops and other events throughout the year. As it is for the academic year, the sooner you join, the more profitable it will be!

Don't know what popping is? See a clip here;

CU Breakdance Club at the ADC Theatre

(By Mazza, President 08-09)


From the 2oth to 24th January, 2009, Cambridge University Contemporary Dance Workshop hosted their annual event at the ADC Theatre. This year, the show was titled Beauty, in which the CU Breakdance Club gave their first staged performance illustrating the beauty of spontaneity and freestyle behind the break-dance culture.



The show consisted of a mixture of a breakin' routine choreographed by Ali, popping improvisations both in pairs and solo, as well as a concluding piece where all the breakers had a chance to do their own breakin' freestyles. Although everyone has their own style among the break-dance sub-genres, the unity within the group was represented through a fixed routine which we all did at the end.


Here are some of the best shots that professional photographers captured during our performance and rehearsals;



"The show picked up, as a large crew of break-dancers, body-poppers and hip-hoppers roboted their way onto the stage and filled the ADC with pumping energy" - Varsity on the CU Breakdance Crew at Beauty.



The critically acclaimed humorous "muppet-dancers"..


"Alone on stage, she overcame the natural movement of the legs and arms to be so mechanical, jerky and without bones it was as if she'd given everyone Nintendo gameboy glasses with which to view a post-apocalyptic spaceport where electricity dancer through unicorns. Yes, like that" - The Cambridge Student


If you missed the show, you missed out, but not quite - check out the video on facebook below;

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=45951315786&subj=746010786

The video only says very little about our performances. Our key point is to have fun ourselves, but you to feel the enjoyment too! This is what we were like backstage...



If you want to discover this unified enjoyment at your events, bops and balls, be sure to email on breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk!

CUBiC Xmas Party 2007!

(by Mazza, CUBiC President 08-09)


The Cambridge University Breakdance Club hosted their first ever party on November 28th, gathering keen breakdancers and other interested audiences (who do not necessarily pursue the dance) at the Graduate Union Lounge.




The music during the course of the evening was provided by Daniel, a former MIT student and currently a graduate mathematician at Homerton College.


In the second half we were able to invtie DJ Rez, a former Cambridge student and the original founder of this society.

The party was a good bonding opportunity for recent members to mix with the already existing crowd, as well as an opportunity for those interested in our society to come and see who we are. One cannot forget the importance of the music - old skool hip-hop represents the true art form in the culture of breakdancing, which seems so hard to find these days.




Be sure to come and join us at our next party!!

Popping Workshop with Special K! (Sat. 22nd Nov)

This year, the popper Special K was the winner of Urban Sinfonie and UCF Sheffield, 3rd place in Breakfest Birmingham and 4th place in ClubDanceStyleOff Manchester. He is currently teaching extensively teaching up in the northern part of England, and is part of the Justice League Crew. Before he ran away up north, he was part of the breakdance crew here in Cambridge; you will have to chance to meet and learn from him on this rare occassion! Come along to Lee Hall, Wolfson College, between 4 til 6pm on Saturday 22nd November.

Entrance Fee;
Members - £3
Non-members - £6

You can join membership on the day (£10) and participate upon the discount price. Membership also offers free classes and training sessions, reduced prices to attend workshops and other events throughout the year. As it is annual, the sooner you join, the more profitable it will be!

For those of you who don't know what it is, here is what it is all about;



Hope to see many of you there!

Committee 2008-09

From the President;



Hi, I'm Mari or Mazza, a second-year Music student at St. John's. During my days at music school, I spent most of my time practicing the piano as I wanted to become a professional classical performer. Therefore I never had any training in dance at all; I started attending funk classes as soon as I got to Cambridge, but since the start of Lent Term freestyle dance dominated my life outside my musical studies. Since then I've been hanging out with the small minority of breakdancers here in Cambridge and all I can say is that they were a nice bunch of guys to chill out with!

Me and my committee this year really want the society to pass down the skills of what we have in this dance to the students at Cambridge University ; we hope to accommodate for all levels, so please come and check our classes and training sessions out and get involved (N.B you don't have to be a student at the University to attend our sessions)!

Marcus (below) is the Vice-President and Workshops Co-ordinator. He will be here to give you a hand in classes and invite some amazing dancers for workshops you can take part in! If you are also an experienced dancer and is interested in giving us a workshop, email breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk

Ali is our Events Organizer - if you would like us to perform at your ball, college bop, talent show or charity event, he will respond on breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk

Naveen (or Nav, as we call him) takes care of the financial aspects in the society.

The treasury role will soon be taken over by Matt, a fresher! Don't be scared first years...there are some around.


Josie is the secretary of the society; any advice on rooms should go to her, we are always looking for better places to train and have our events in!

.
Nathan looks after the official webpage, which is currently under construction.

We hope you come along and meet us all!

UK B-Boy Championships Finals – Warm-up Jam (Saturday 11th October)

By Dan (CUBiC Instructor)



This Saturday I went to a jam – no, this isn’t something you spread on your toast (dum-dum), a ‘jam’ is a dance event. This jam is the UK B-Boy Championships, a global breakdance competition that has been running since 1996. Qualifiers are held in each country and the best dancers go through to the world finals in London. There are team battles, solo battles, popping battles and locking battles. ‘Popping’ and ‘locking’ are different dances from breaking (or ‘b-boying’) which are now considered party of hip-hop culture, but that’s another story.

The finals are a two-day event with a ‘warm-up jam’ or ‘pre-final’ on the Saturday and the actual finals on the Sunday. I went to the Saturday event because (a) I don’t have the time and money for both; and (b) the finals is more about watching the dancing, rather than doing it!

I spent most of my time watching the ‘footwork battles’ in one of the two rooms – these battles focus on techniques done on the floor which don’t involve dynamic power moves such as headspins, backspins and so forth. It’s a real test of skill and style, as you have to have as many combinations as possible and to avoid repeating any moves.



In between the battles the DJ plays music while everyone spends time drinking, talking and dancing. People form circles on the dance floor, which B-Boys and B-Girls called ‘cyphers’ (I have no idea where the name comes from). People take turns dancing in the cyphers while everyone else watches (see video above). Understandably, this can be a little nerve wracking, especially when there are some really, really dope B-Boys and B-Girls going in before you! At the same time it’s a chance to show your style, to be appreciated and to appreciate others. It also inspires you to practice and you may even see some new moves you’d never thought of before!

The winning team on the final on Sunday were Top 9, a Russian crew who has been coming up in recent years. Last year they came second to T.I.P, a Korean crew. The winner of the solo battles was B-Boy Kosto, also from Top 9 crew! The winner of the popping competition was Gucchon from Japan, and the locking winners were Lock and Lol from Korea.

Check out the freebie – the Sony Ericsson reps were handing out fat laces all night: marketing genius!



To watch more videos from the event, visit the youtube channel here.

FLIPP Project Launch Party

(by Mazza)



Members of the Cambridge University Breakdance Club kick-started the year in style by performing at the FLIPP Project Launch Party Event at Keynes Hall, King's College in Cambridge.

(FLIPP LOGO HERE)

The FLIPP Project is based at Centre 33 in Cambridge. Centre 33 provides confidential advice for young people; FLIPP is a new project which aims to reach out to young people through the medium of creative workshops. The Breakdance Club have therefore been invited to collaborate with hip-hop related workshops, which will motivate hidden creativity among teenagers and raise skills to work in groups.



To find out more about FLIPP, click to read the report below;

www.flipp.org.uk



If you want us to perform at your College Ents/Bops, Society Events or May Balls please contact us on breakdance@cusu.cam.ac.uk

Freshers' Squash on Wednesday 15th October

The Cambridge University Breakdance Club would like to welcome the freshers of 2008/09 and other students who have just signed up to the mailing list to the Freshers' Squash which is happening this coming Wednesday , on 15th October! NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE OF BREAKDANCING IS NECESSARY!

Come to the Palmerston Room in the Fisher Building, St. John's College at 7pm. Porters or students will be able to direct you, just ask them where the Fisher Building is.

We will give you a free class on basic footwork, as well as an induction on the culture behind breakdancing.

We will head to Lion's Yard for a jam afterwards (by 8.30pm), then drinks at a bar for some more chilling out and general bonding. Will be good to know new names and faces properly! (If you are new to Cambridge but advanced in breakin', we would love to meet you too!)

Clothing; anything loose, e.g. Tracksuits or baggy jeans, t-shirts, hoodies and trainers. Any accessories such as caps and armbands are more than welcome.

Bring £10 in case you want to become a member - if you feel that you want to continue classes, you will need to pay this annual fee. There will be membership forms you can fill in. You will also need to pay for your own drinks when we go out afterwards.

Hope to see many of you there!