Juste Debout New York 2013

Before reading,,,,,

My objective here is to write my personal thoughts about this internationally recognized event. I'm stating what I honestly thought, however, I don't have any intention to disrespect anyone. Therefore, I sincerely apologize if there are any statements that offends anyone.  All comments that is directed towards my thoughts are welcomed. PLEASE DO NOT POST COMMENT TO DISRESPECT DANCERS/ORGANIZERS.

Juste Debout (JD)  is no doubt one of the most recognized and credited Street Dance Competition in the world. The event attract dancers from across the world by hosting regional events across several countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. There are five categories, Hip Hop, House, Locking, Popping, and Toprock. The battle is done in 2 on 2 and the winner of each categories will earn the opportunity to attend the main event in Paris, France.

Since 2011, JD's regional event began to take place in the U.S and Canada. In 2011 it took place in Brooklyn, NY, and in 2012, Montreal, Canada.

This was my third regional JD. Compare to the past two events, JD New York 2013 had a totally different feeling.

Lets compare.

Location

In both 2011, 12, the location was huge. The past events were hosted at a warehouse and a gymnasium. I personally didn't like the warehouse in Brooklyn due to its location and the condition of the warehouse. The floor and the bathroom was just a mess. 

The gymnasium was great. It was clean and there were a lot of room for dancers to rest, eat, and have cyphers.

It also had raise up benches on the side so that people can sit and enjoy the battle. 

Compare to the past two, this year's location, Santos Party House, had the best atmosphere.

The Lighting, Sound System, Beverage, Food, DJ, and the people were great! 

BUT

1. It was too small....

It was so crowded that I felt like I was riding a morning rush hour subway to the city :( 

That, was a total turn off.

And this even effected the competitors. The floor that dancers had to dance in was so small. I mean look at the pictures and compare the size of the floor space.

The club environment was great. But it was way too small. People had hard time dancing and watching the battles. They did have a projector that lived the battle on the big screen, but WHO WANTS TO SEE THAT WHEN THE ACTUAL BATTLE IS HAPPENING IN FRONT OF THEM???

2. Locking us in

WAS NOT COOL

Until the last couple hours of the event, the dancers were locked inside the venue. You can get out, but to get back in, you have to pay $40, which was the price of the ticket for the event. 

This was ridiculous.

I mean the place was packed with people and it was hot. Of course people will get exhausted and will need food and beverages. But no. They offered food inside the venue and for it to be sold out (I assume), they cut our access to stores around the venue. Good for them. But think about the us. 

For this reason, although the location had a the best atmosphere, it sure made us have a bad experience.

People/Dancers

Ok, on this section, I will focus on POPPING ONLY because that is the style that I know best for now.

The dancers/poppers that attended the event were great. 

On 2011, most of the poppers were from the east coast U.S or Canada. The only crew to attend the battle from the west was Machine Gone Funk.

On 2012, most of the poppers were from Canada. I can surely say that about 80% were from Canada.

This year, we saw people from various locations. Let me name some recognizable poppers who attended the event.

Monsta Pop & Venom (Symbiotic Monsters), Canada

Jrock & Popula (Animated Beat Mechanics), LA and Indiana

Breeze Lee & Ms. Funk (Versa Style), LA

Jon Boogs & Jonh Doe (Soulbotiks Crew and Control Freakz), Texas and Miami

Dnoi & Soul (Soulbotiks Crew and Ill Minded Stylez), ? and Detroit

On top of those names, we had large attendance from the east coast and Canada popping community as well, making Popping categorie to have the most competitors on this event. 

Therefore, the quality of the dancers were great :) 

I personally enjoyed meeting new dancers and reuniting with many of my friends. Having many friends at an event is awesome :) Everywhere I went, I saw faces that I recognized or haven seen in a while. 

Now HAVING SUCH ATTENDEES SURELY WOULD MAKE A GREAT BATTLE! Yes, it does, but there is one more fact that you can not miss out. The Judges.

Judges/Battles

Judges play a HUGE ROLE in making an event awesome.

JD have four judges from each category (Hip Hop, House, Locking, Popping) to Judge the competition. Toprock is the only category that has a single judge for it's style of dance.

Some people have mixed feeling about this Juge system because not all the judges practice all these four styles. In fact, most of them don't. Therefore, it may not be as accurate than it should be. 

But for the past two event, they had a epic battle that typed the crowd like crazy!

In 2011, the Popping final battle had Machine Gone Funk against Assassins. You can see from the crowd reaction that it was amazing. And yes, I enjoyed this battle a lot.

In 2012, the Semi-Final had Symbiotic Monsters against Namco & Boombeast. Watch it and you'll know how hyped we were lol

This year, by the looks of the name that appeared on the event, I assumed that it would have epic battles of  the night like the above that I can still picture in my head how awesome it was.

However, this year was different. I don't have any battle that I can recall as epic as the two above.

The battle that gives you chill and make you think "damn how the f did they get to this point? like how do they dance so awesome???" didn't happen. 

Why?

I think because this was the year that the politics in the game revealed itself the most.

This doesn't mean that I disagree with the winner of the event. Symbiotic Monsters definitely deserves to go to Paris to represent the U.S. They were on the next level.

However, the selection of Top 8 and couple battles that occurred that night was questionable. 

Reason 1: 

I think the winner should have been Jrock & Popula.

Now some of you know that I've been hanging out with Jrock & Popula, and they've been really good to me. But that does nothing to do with my opinion.

I've fought against Breeze Lee before and got toasted really hard and learned a valuable lesson. I havent met him since than but I have huge respect for the guy.

So there is no dislike on which sides. With that in mind, let me break my opinion down.

1. Synchronisation

When I see 2 on 2 battles, I see them as ONE CREW and not two individual. Thus, having a synchronized vibe, feeling, get down is vital in battling 2 on 2. If you see the footage above, I see ABM vibing off each other really well. They are battling as a crew. In contrast, Versa Style goes out to the floor individually while the other wait rooting when he/she does a cool move. From this perspective, I think ABM has advantage over Versa Style.

2. Level of the rounds

Synchronisation IS important. But the level of individual round needs to be taking in account as well. This is because their rounds sums up the average level of rounds of a crew. This means that when battling 2 on 2, a partner shouldn't outshine the partner, but vibe off with an equal level of dance to have a balance that shows how the two is connected as a crew during the battle. 

There are cases where the one of the opponent comes out really hard and you have to out match that. But on this battle, I think that Breeze Lee had an awesome round that was on the next level compared to Ms. Funk.

In contrast, Jrock and Popula both had a solid high quality rounds without showing much of a skill difference between the two. 

For these reasons, I think ABM won. But they did not. 

Another battle that I thought similarly was a battle between ATN & C-Pop VS John Lock & Katalyst. ATN & C-Pop are two top poppers in Canada. They are young but very fierce and hungry, and surely proved their skill on the cyphers. 

But on the battle, C-Pop didn't have a solid round. Instead, John Lock & Katalyst showed a equally high quality rounds. 

There is not footage of them yet, but I thought that was a questionable judgment as well.

Last but not least, on Top 8, Dnoi & Soul was not selected.

From my perspective, the two have higher skill level than most of the poppers that was selected. Honestly, this was a wrong choies. 

For these reasons, I think the crowd lacked in getting hyped compare to the past two events. Given such atmosphere, they were missing out on the opportunities for us to be hyped.

I mean lets assumed that ABM won, and Soul & Dnoi were selected.

We could've potentially saw Symbiotic Monsters VS Soul & Dnoi on Top 8 and ABM VS Symbiotic Monsters (I WAS VERY LOOKING FORWARD FOR THIS SCENARIO) or ABM VS Soul & Dnoi!!!

Now that, would've been a battle of the night :))))

In conclusion, the event was ok over all. Given the fact that it is one of the most recognized international Street Dance Competition? It should've been much better.

But I had fun that night :) 

And I thank the people who is TAKING ACTION to make this HAPPEN. I'm just stating this but doing nothing. But they actually DO IT. Now thats a BIG DIFFERENCE. Huge props and respect to the organizers.

And to all the winners of JD NY 2013, GOOD LUCK AND REPRESENT US HAAAAAAARRRRRDDD!!!!!!

You guys either STEP UP OR GET SMOKED!!! 

Sincere thank you for people who read it all the way through.

Peace and God Bless.

P.S This is my prelim with ilya :) there is also Jon Boogs, John Doe, and our good friend David Castro! Check it out!