Krown'd 2009 Freestyle Battle (Axelle vs Marvin) part 2

Comment

Comment by Oskars on January 15, 2010 at 2:45pm

flying lotus - tea leaf dancers

Comment by Nana Ataa Ofosu-Benefo on January 3, 2010 at 1:13am

oops - meant to say " I don't know much about dance categories..."

Comment by Nana Ataa Ofosu-Benefo on January 3, 2010 at 1:11am

Well - I know much about dance categories, but I do know that these two brought it! I also happen to LOVE that song, whatever it is..."I gotta go"...the tempo was really slow, and sexy, and deliberate for this round (Axelle won at that), but the original tempo is a lot faster I believe...had that version played - I believe all of Marvin's movement would have been totally, totally on point.

Comment by santiago on December 18, 2009 at 11:50am

Just watched this video again. Yes, of course it was" just dancing", I can appreciate that cause you were riding the groove in that abstract beat in whatever way that felt natural. I can appreciate that you say you were doing your hip-hop thang, so who am i say you weren't dancing hip-hop - but i definitely think u were throwing some house up into the mix as well, especially the second round, just sort of freeflow. And the combination of all the elements, with the vibe of the track - well I think your performance tends to escape categorization - which is why I stick to my guns and say you were in the experimental zone.

also, in terms of Hip-Hop, I can tell you are a Golden Age child of hip-hop; it's not that street jazz crap they do nowadays. Sometimes it's very difficult to describe what hip-hop is, cause the golden age styles, personified by cats like you and Loose Joint, is an endangered species.

Comment by Marvin R Baptiste on December 17, 2009 at 2:17am

Well i guess everybody said a little of the truth it wasn't experimental it was just dancing... I guess If you were able to witness the second battle of the night you would understand better. cause the participant of the second battle were really going out of the usual boundaries of what we could define as typical hip hop or what you saw in this footage. And in that case Link made it clear that (I'm paraphrasing now) that he didn't want to see "motions" with no connection to the music" just to move. No matter what you did you have to "groove to the beat". I do house, I do Hiphop and most of it's variations ,flavors, styles, which ever you like to call it. And for me, I was doing my hip hop thang on that track. For me if somebody labels theire style as experimental, it implies that not everybody will understand there vision or there interpretation of the music cause the vocabulary used would be "unspecific", and most of the time chaotic. right?
But it could also be true that if someone understands it, then maybe they'll be able to put a label on it, identify some of the root movements of that indivudual. anyway it's an interesting subject.
That battle was probably the most interesting one I could participate in. Axelle did a great job the way she finished that round. The key here was to improvise with what you know .So If I had to agree with Santiago it would be that in another setting or dance style it would probably be experimental if it wasn't hip hop.
Voila it,s getting late for me but It's good to see the footage as made it here.

Comment by santiago on November 25, 2009 at 2:22am

My bad, I mislabeled the first video description as Experimental, when the battle was actually just characterized as "freestyle". Having said that, my view in watching this was that it was indeed experimental by nature of the music. and movement. The dancers had to react spontaneously to music that could not be characterized as corresponding to any established street dance style.

I think what's misunderstood about the term "experimental" is that the music is what drives it. There is no set technique or movement vocabulary that one could really describe as experimental. IMHO. It is unique, spontaneous, in-the-moment interpretation that forces dancers to draw upon a variety of vocabularies and techniques. If you were to really break down "experimental" movement, you would find that Experimental is simply an extreme variation of an existing style, such that it no longer fits within the defined parameters of the accepted style. Jon - you say you could see everything they did done in Hip-Hop or possibly House. Kind of proves the point. They weren't really dancing hip-hop, nor house, cause they weren't dancing to a hip-hop or house song. The dancers were tapping into unique variations that indeed became abstract as a result of the music channeling through them

Future Ninja is a good example of this theory "extreme variation". He takes popping and martial arts movements, combines them into something entirely individualistic and performs them to offbeat instrumentals. That qualifies as experimental in my view of the world, although traditionalists could easily say, oh that's just extreme popping.

In the end, this discussion raises the point that these labels for contemporary forms of dance are socially constructed and not really REAL. Within virtually every move we see in Hip-Hop and House, a well-educated dancer could most likely find a parallel move in the vast nomenclature of traditional West African or Diasporic dance. Hip-Hop, House, Vogue, Capoeira, anything performed in response to the beat of the drum , these forms are simply modern variations of African dances that have been practiced for millenia in one form or another.

But back to the point: Experimental dance (in the street dance world) is a spontaenous and individualistic expression of movement that escapes characterization. If we try to over-deconstruct it and link the vocabularly to an existing style, the form (to the extent we can call it that) loses value. So yeah, if Link prefers the term freestyle, that's cool, but I would define what they were doing as Experimental.

Comment by Axelle a.k.a. Ebony on November 25, 2009 at 1:33am

sorry ! i guess it is a miss understanding the battle was a fresstule battle not experimental we had to do any style we wanted to !! ;)
judge Link from NYC specified that he really wanted to see dance style ( fresstyle) and not experimental !

sorry for the miss understanding

Comment by Jon on November 24, 2009 at 11:08pm

I think they both are awesome dancers! but im trying to understand whats sooo abstract about their style? as i could easily see everything they did to hip-hop or possibly house.

im not knocking them, just curious about what is key in an experimental dance form... honestly nothing really struck me as experimental about their styles of dance.... it could just be my lack of understand of the dance... def give me some feedback