Open Art Surgery Newcastle

If you think the work dries up for Breakin' Convention when our international festival and tour finishes you couldn't be further from the truth. Breakin' Convention is committed to supporting hip hop dance and the hip hop theatre genre all year round. Through our education and professional development strands we aim to offer a range of opportunities and platforms.

One of these is Open Art Surgery, a unique course led by Jonzi D for professional hip hop artists to engage in hip hop theatre. Open to dancers, DJs, beatboxers, emcees, musicians and graff artists, participants receive training, mentorship and studio space to experiment and create new works in progress. This culminates in the Open Art Surgery performance at the end of the week where the results are shared to a live audience who are then invited to critique, question and feedback to the artists.

Dance City continues their dedication to supporting hip hop by partnering Breakin' Convention to deliver Newcastle's first ever Open Art Surgery in July. It will feature local artists from Bad Taste Cru, Rice & Peez, Battalions and Sana Crew.

"This is a fantastic opportunity to support the dancers with whom we work to further develop their skills and expression," said Anthony Baker, Dance City's artistic director. "It brings leaders and creatives in the field of Hip Hop together to accelerate development and provide a meeting place of ideas for growth."

Not content with winning most of the UK's major b-boy battles, Bad Taste Cru entered the realm of hip hop theatre a few years ago and have already been finalists of the Global Dance Contest and The Place Prize. Keen to make the most of Jonzi's experience of rap and spoken word, Bad Taste's Conor 'Doke' O'Kane plans on using his time at Open Art Surgery to explore rap and spoken word theatrically. 

"Following a recent injury I'm currently unable to dance but I still want to perform. I'm also really keen to bring hip hop's elements together through theatre," said Doke. "I rap, so this is the perfect opportunity to experiment with this. We all have experience in dance theatre but introducing spoken word is something we want to learn about."

Nicola McCarthy is hot on the heels of Bad Taste Cru and brings a femininity to an often male dominated genre. She founded all girl hip hop group, Sana Crew as well as funkstyle duo Rice & Peez (alongside Will Freeman) and is looking forward to Open Art Surgery to learn new ways of approaching choreography/story telling and also to challenge her dancers to step up a level.

Robby 'RawB' Graham, also of Bad Taste Cru, is keen to push potential collaborations and try working with a range of artists outwith the disciplines he is familiar with. He goes on to explain: "What is great about Open Art Surgery is that there is no pressure or guidelines on what has to be created, which really opens up the possibilities."

Anthony Baker adds: "As part of our artist development programme Open Art Surgery will support an already creative community to take a big step forward and we hope to see new work developed to then be further supported at Dance City to become full shows in their own right, perhaps supported by one of Dance City's commissions."

The live event will be hosted, and feature a performance, from hip hop theatre pioneer Jonzi D. He will also introduce the fresh new work developed during the week. Expect to see the very best in breaking, popping, locking, rapping and turntablism chewed up and given a theatrical overhaul. Dance City and Breakin' Convention's commitment to offering high quality theatre at an affordable price is evident in the £5 ticket price.

The audience is then invited to a free post show party, featuring DJ Ken Masters, to meet the artists and talk to them about their work. The Open Art Surgery performance is the place to see the work of the future first!

The Open Art Surgery performance takes place on Saturday 7 July 2012, 7.30pm at Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, NE1 4BR. Tickets are priced at £5 and are available online at www.dancecity.co.uk, by phoning 0191 261 0505 or in person.

If you are a hip hop artist and would like to get involved in Open Art Surgery Newcastle please email peter.maniam@breakinconvention.com.  Following Newcastle, the next stops are London and Edinburgh.