B-boys, b-girls, krumpers, poppers, lockers, and more are gearing up for the Pacific Northwest’s biggest breaking battle at the 27th annual Massive Monkees Day.
Massive Monkees, with the Seattle Theatre Group, will welcome dancers, crews, and spectators from all over the world for a weekend of back-to-back battles, cyphers, block parties, workshops, and kid-friendly events. The weekend event, which will run May 22-25, will go beyond being a battle, Massice Monkees co-owner Hocine Jouini says: It’s a jam that brings a range of dance communities to the Seattle scene.
The event began nearly three decades ago as a battle in a community center and has grown into an annual worldwide jam. Yet even with its success, organizers say they may step back from hosting the festival next year.
The break will allow Massive Monkees “to focus on other things within our crew,” Jouini said. “A lot of energy, a lot of resources, financial, people … [put] on this event, which is dope, and we love it. But I think we want to take a little breather.”
Despite its global reach, the event is still rooted in grassroots organizing, Jouini said. The event is mostly sponsored by community grants, including from 4Culture, CID Business and Improvement Area and Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, which can make it hard to know where funding will come from each year.
Breaker Noah Rañola was only 11 years old when he went to his first Massive Monkees Weekend in 2017. Today, he’s part of the crew’s new generation.
“I always say it [to] my younger students: They'll have their aha moment where they fall in love with breaking,” Rañola said. “That's where I had my moment. Watching these professionals battle, and seeing these people I loved, looked up to. It was like an unreal experience.”
For the Seattle breaker, pausing such an inspirational event is “very bittersweet.”
“Of course we want to continue to keep it running,” Rañola said. “But at the same time, I think it's also super tight that just because we're taking a step back, doesn't mean we’re diminishing its value.”
The upcoming weekend kicks off on May 22 at the Armory Stage at the Seattle Center, where the crew will host a kids’ breaking exhibition battle known as the Massive Break Challenge. The battle will include students of the Massive Monkees’ studio, The Beacon, as well as kids from out of town, Jouini said.
Saturday moves the event over to Hing Hay Park for the “Prelims Block Party.” Representing breaking, open styles, and footwork (an essential foundation of breaking in which people balance on their hands while moving their legs in the air in complex patterns), dancers battle in preliminary rounds to qualify for the main event on Sunday at Neptune Theater. The Sunday showdown will feature the top eight dancers and crews in each category.
The weekend will feature international and Pacific Northwest-based judges and guest battlers, such as ReMinD, an OG breaker of Style Elements Crew in California; Momo, a “world-renowned” breaker from Vancouver, B.C.; and Beasty, a house dancer and battler from Japan and the United States. Organizers hope their panels pay homage to dance elders and those “who paved the way for us,” Jouini said.
Of all the judges, Rañola is most excited to see Kid David, a well-known b-boy from the Bay Area who broke into the entertainment industry.
“He's one of my biggest inspirations, just in dancing,” Rañola said. “I loved watching him growing up. Such a fire dancer, like, probably some of the best musicality in the world.”
Micaiah Jeffrey will represent krump, a “hyperkinetic” street style of dance sometimes described as “extreme hip hop” that originated in South Central LA. Jeffrey looks forward to hanging out with his friends and meeting new dancers from out of town every year. This upcoming weekend, he’s most excited to see open-styles judge Daisy, a first-generation krumper from LA, who he saw as a kid in one of the first Krump documentaries, “Rize.”
“The first time I saw her, I really related to her because she was a teenager learning from all the OGs, and she was finding herself through krump,” Jeffrey said. “I just see her as an inspiration.”
Massive Monkees also host the world’s first and longest-running footwork battle, organizers said. One of the footwork judges will be Tim the Pitt of Massive Monkees, who will also be judging breaking.
In between battles on stage, spectators can watch cyphers, a street-styles tradition where dancers form a circle and exchange styles by taking turns dancing in the middle.
“You get to catch movement on stage, but also movement as you walk through the venue,” Jouini said.
To close the event on May 25, the crew will host a community BBQ at Jefferson Park.
While Jouini said nothing is “set in stone” when it comes to the future, they plan to come back with “a very big one” for their 30th anniversary in 2029.
Jouni said people receive a lot from the weekend. “People feel inspired afterwards, and then [it] just makes our community bigger,” Jouini added, praising the community’s resilience. “We’re still here, we’re doing our thing.”
You can check out the Massive Monkees Day weekend schedule here.
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