Battle of the Year 2011

The annual Battle of the Year is taking place in front of 12,000 b-boy fans this weekend in Montpellier, France, picking up speed this week with a series of lectures, workshops and preliminaries before the grand finals this Saturday.

Over the past six months a total of 35 qualifying rounds have taken place across the world. Starting with list of 350 crews and 3,000 b-boys, only 20 crews have made it to the final.

Update: Read our BOTY 2011 report here!

Those top 20 crews look hot: Jinjo are reigning champions, winners of the international competition R16 Korea, and were runners up at this year’s UK B-Boy Championships in October, and if fates conspire and they brave it to the final rounds they could face current UK B-Boy world champs, Vagabonds during the show down.

Thomas Hergenröther, organiser of Battle of the Year says: “All crews have been practicing long and hard for this one day, trying to convince our five international judges with their choreography in the first round to rank top four and to qualify for the final battles.”

Those judges are: Poe One, Movie One, Crazy, Lilou and Taisuke.

He continues: “To win the competition the crews have to come up with an extraordinary choreography first. For the battle finals, a high level of individual skill and a good crew tactic is needed.”

BOTY - more than just a showcase

Movie One and Poe One are also lending their judging eyes to the internationally acclaimed We B*Girlz battles with third judge Valentine.

B-girls Rose and Pauline from their success of qualifying at IBE 2011 as they face seven other international b-girl couples competing for the title.

Founded and promoted by Nika Kramer and in collaboration with the photographer Martha Cooper, We B*Girlz will see the dopest dancing duos cypher in a girls-only battle where the ladies always come first.

Once again Sunni (Breakin’ Nest) will be representing UK in the b-boy solos up against a mighty line up of international giants (see below)

And let's not forget Hip Hop In Creation featuring performances from Second Souffle (Pockemon Crew) and Sadako (Uzmaki B-Girl Valentine) and Hotmoves by Storm, a lecture combined with a talk show.

The Battle of the Year 2011 grand finals take place at the Park & Suites Arena, Montpellier. Smaller events and preliminaries happen around the city – see www.braunbattleoftheyear.com for details and locations.

Battle of the Year 2011 crew line up

Jinjo Crew (Korea) - defending champions
1piece ud town (Thailand)
Amazon B-Boys (Brazil)
BMT & Mafia 13 (Russia)
Battle Born (USA)
CT Group (Poland)
De Klan (Italy)
Dead Prezz (Greece)
Guatemaya Crew (Guatemala)
Hoochen Crew (Belgium)
Kosher Flava (Isreal)
Maximum Crew (Korea)
Nine States B-Boyz (Japan)
Over Boys (Dubai)
Reckless Bunch (Germany)
Ruff'n'X (Switzerland)
Simple System (Kazakhstan)
TPEC Crew (Taiwan)
Vagabonds (France)

We B*Girlz Line Up

B-Girl Aliya & B-Girl Marion
B-Girl Pauline & B-Girl Rose
B-Girl Kelly & B-Girl Loueasy
B-Girl Cugi & B-Girl Alessandrina
B-Girl Lusi & B-Girl Lentos
B-Girl Soe & B-Girl Narcis
B-Girl LiL FeNeSiS & B-Girl yuRle
B-Girl Nadeen & B-Girl K

Solo b-boy line up

B-Boy El Nino v B-Boy Rossi
B-Boy Lucky Look v B-Boy Wizard
B-Boy Soso v B-Boy Matthew
B-Boy Vicious v B-Boy Poter
B-Boy Niek v B-Boy Titris
B-Boy Sunni v B-Boy ATN
B-Boy Lil G v B-Boy PetAir
B-Boy Wing v B-Boy Jed