February 3rd, 2011 marked the beginning of the year of the Rabbit and Chinese New Year in Austin, Texas was celebrated in style. Every year to ring in the new year, dancers from the Texas Dragon Dance Team perform their athletic, traditional dance routines in colorfully adorned and beautiful Chinese lion costumes. They perform this annual ritual to scare away evil spirits so that the local businesses who hire them to perform can receive good luck and receive wealth in the new year.

The Lion and Chinese Dragon dance routines are performed by dozens of dancers, who move to the beat of a giant Asian style drum and cymbals. Lion dancing is hard work – lifting heavy paper mache lion heads built on thick wooden frames gets tiring. Because of this, dancers are constantly switching in and out during the almost 45 minute routine that involves acrobatic kicks, jumps, and even many lion dancers standing on the shoulders of their teammates.

Each lion is operated by a pair of dancers, one representing the head, and the other controlling the tail. The team must work together in unison to portray a convincing lion. The lion head is especially lively – dancers may blink and unblink they eyes of the costume and the lion ears also move when the operator pulls a string inside of the lion’s head.

The Chinese Dragon dance is performed by 10 dancers, who each hold a segment of the long, serpent like paper mache dragon. The dragon head follows the motions a colorful ball that is attached to a stick which is carried by a runner that controls the motions of the dragon. Each dragon dancer controls a segment of the dragon and they follow the motions of the dancer in front of them, producing a life-like wave effect.

To purchase and use any of the following photos as a stock photography, simply click on the photo.

If you watch TDDT in action, make sure to bring some earplugs! They dance while very loud firecrackers explode all around them. They must be brave to put up with the smoke and the loud noise.

For even more Dragon Dance photos, stock photos are available here.

Bboy City is an annual breakdance event held in Austin, Texas hosted by Romeo Navarro and the Bboy City Crew. If you haven’t it yet, click here to view my first post about Bboy City 16.

Some interesting info on Bboy City:
If you are familiar with show America’s Best Dance Crew, several of the best bboys on that show have been in Austin at some point for bboy city either to compete or judge the events (including members of the winning crew from Season Two – Super Cr3w).

Also, there’s a great documentary film called Inside the Circle directed by Marcy Garriott that follows the lives of Romeo and two of the most popular dancers at Bboy City, Omar and Josh, through many of the Bboy City events (I also make random cameos in the background taking photos). This film premiered at the SXSW film festival in 2008 to rave reviews and recently aired on MTV. It’s available on DVD as well.

Enjoy the rest of the Bboy City photos!

Marlon of Havikoro (winners of Bboy City 16) practicing Footwork before the event begins

Toprocking in a practice circle during a break

Headspin battle in a cypher – contestant #1

Headspin battle in a cypher – contestant #2

Shorty of United / Knuckleheads California doing Flares

Little Kid Freeze

Knee Slide

Misa footwork

Marlon suspended midair during the Havikoro / Masters of Mayhem final

Toprock

Footwork

Bboy Elusive Freeze

Happy Headspin

Elbow Airflare

Gravedad Zero (Mexican Crew) – Group Routine

Bboy Zeshen of Havikoro (winners of Bboy City 16)

Rhythm Attack (Chinese crew) – flips

Rhythm Attack (Chinese crew) – splits after a flip

Bgirl Misa invert freeze

Every year hundreds of bboys and bgirls from all over the world descend on Austin, Texas to compete in one of the biggest bboy jams in the country, Bboy City. 2009 was no different and on Sunday, April 26th I headed down to the Parish to capture it all.

If you’ve never been to a bboy jam, you’ve been missing out. At the Bboy City 16 finals, the energy was intense, the dancers’ moves were on point, and the competition was fierce as hundreds of people crowded into the Parish to watch some heated bboy battles.

The level of skill this year was really high, as two great international crews entered the crew battles – Rhythm Attack from China, and Gravedad Zero from Mexico. There were also the usual suspects from Texas and some out of state crews as well. In the end, after a long, hot, energy filled night of dancing, world famous crew Havikoro came out on top.

Enjoy the photos and check out more pictures from Bboy City here!

The Parish club – the venue for Bboy City at least 3 times now

Bboy Kirk from Havikoro doing modified 1990s

Bboy Marlon from Havikoro brings his unique flavor to the dance floor

Joel from Havikoro doing a flip while battling the Mexican crew Gravedad Zero

Turtle toprocking while sporting his best ninja turtle outfit and looking happy as always

Bboy Elusive doing footwork right before he kicked my camera lens!

Tory Harvey getting down in between battles

Bgirl Misa doing an air freeze during a cypher

Genie Windmills by Mando from Rhythmic Rockerz

Bboy Recon Inside the Circle as the crowd watches

In January of 2009, I participated in a Strobist photo shoot at the Go Dance Studio in Austin, Texas and had the pleasure of meeting a whole bunch of talented dancers. The Go Dance studio had beautiful bluish green walls that made the perfect backdrop for my studio portraits. I shot more than a dozen dancers over the course of a few hours and I had a blast.

I have been shooting breakdancers for years, so I was excited to capture that same excitement and sense of motion in a different form of dance. Both groups of dancers are passionate about what they and their love comes through in their body language and expressions express that while in the photos.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the photos.
-Peter

Dance partners and couple Favian and Jennifer meet after a spin

Lorenzo brings Monica out of a dip so that I could capture the motion of salsa dance

David and Barbara pull off an acrobatic sweep move

Monique and Johnny, a couple and dance partners

Pearl, a hip hop dancer striking a pose for the camera

Amanda, a dance instructor at Go Dance Studio

Jason, a salsa dancer

Jason and Aleth, salsa dance partners from San Antonio

About a year ago, I photographed the martial arts group Cry Havok in their practice space in Austin Texas. These guys are Martial Arts action choreography experts, using a variety of weapons and hand to hand combat techniques. While they look pretty intimidating, these guys were really cool to work with and they seemed like cool dudes. Check them out in action here – it’s crazy! http://sg.video.yahoo.com/watch/195554/1191682

Stick Fighting in Motion

Jump Kick – Bruce Lee Style

Martial Arts Weapons