Here it is, the last in the series of Bboy City 17 Finals Photos! Frequent readers of the blog know that the other two posts are located here: Bboy City 17 Finals, Part 1 , Bboy City 17 Finals, Part 2.

Please enjoy the photos, which I hope capture all of the raw energy, excitement, and emotion of the cyphers and bboy battles. Also, If you work for big jam in an awesome location like Red Bull BC One or IBE – hit me up! I’d love to go abroad to take bboy photos.

Masters of Mayhem – toprock with attitude

Headspin

Coindrop

Bboy Vyllyn from Burn Unit Crew – Atlanta

Windmills

Headspin

Going to the Floor

Head Freeze Suicide

Body roll

Bboy Mini – Headspins

Bboy Judo – Flare

Gravedad Zero – Elbow Hops

Air Freeze – Gravedad Zero Crew

Part 2 of the series of breakdance images from Bboy City 17 in Austin, Texas on April 25th, 2010.

To see more images, please check out
Bboy City 17 Finals 04/25/2010 – Austin, Texas (part 1)
Bboy City 17 Finals 04/25/2010 – Austin, Texas (part 3)

If you want to help me out with bboy names for the captions, please leave a comment and I’ll get the pictures updated ASAP.

Bboy from Gravedad Zero – Flares

Airflare \ Airtrax

Bboy Crisis Footwork + Masters of Mayhem Crew

Bboy Chili Dog – Invert Freeze

2 Man Bboy Routine

Bboy Full Deck Airchair

Crazy headstand

Breakdance Levitation – Vicious Germz Routine with Bboy Beast (closest) vs Jeremy and Zeshen of Havikoro

Bboy Hector Headspin

Bboy Judo – Intensity

Bboy Minnesota Joe – Flares

Bgirl Vendetta (flipping) and Bgirl Severe from Burn Unit Crew in Atlanta

Bboy Footwork by Checo of Jive Turkeys with JesseGerm vs Zeshen and Jeremy (Havikoro)

Bgirl Footwork

Bboy City, Romeo Navarro’s Annual bboy jam, was back in Austin with a vengeance for an amazing 17th time this April. As usual ( ever since Bboy City 8 ) I was at the Parish nightclub documenting the finals, capturing amazing powermoves and sick footwork from the best bboys and bgirls from around the world.

The beats were sick, the dancing was on point, and we actually finished before 2am this year! Props to United Jungle Brothers for winning the crew on crew battles – everyone has been pulling for United for years and I’m glad they finally took home the championship.

If you want to help me out with bboy names for the captions, please leave a comment and I’ll get the pictures updated ASAP. Also, be on the lookout for more Bboy City 17 photos coming your way soon.

Additional Bboy City 17 finals photos:
Bboy City 17 Finals 04/25/2010 – Austin, Texas (part 2)
Bboy City 17 Finals 04/25/2010 – Austin, Texas (part 3)

Top Rock Mean Mugging

Crew Routine Flip

Bboy Crisis Airflare

Bboy City 17 – 2 on 2 Routine with Bboy Thesis (close) and Bboy Flexum (far)

Elbow Freeze!

Kip up to freeze

Bboy Thesis – Suspended in Mid Air

Air Freeze

Bboy Mini Headspin Contest

Gravedad Zero Routine

Flares

Hi all, this is the first in my series of interviews / portrait sessions with my portrait subjects. I plan for this to be a regular feature on the blog, so come back to check out more periodically. Thanks!

1. Who are you and what is your bboy name?

What’s up Peter and thanks for the interview. My name is Ebun Omoni and I’m a 27 year old techie, teacher and b-boy currently residing in Iwate, Japan. My b-boy name, Boon, is an abbreviation of my name which is pronounced “eh-boon”. People started calling me that in college and I’ve been using it ever since.

2. How long have you been dancing and why do you dance?

I first started dancing in 1998 but it wasn’t until 2007 that I really started to build a deeper connection to breaking. Before then, it was more of a fun, occasionally stress-relieving activity and workout to me. But after an evening of therapeutic breaking in 2007, Misa—a dope bgirl from Austin—remarked “You needed that floor tonight”. I had pushed myself harder that night and those 5 words made me question why. In that moment, I realized that breaking was a means for me to truly open up and express myself unapologetically. I can’t lie when I lose myself in the music and there are few ways for me to be so shamelessly honest. I continue to dance for that reason.

3. If you had to describe bboying to someone who had never heard of it before in less than 10 words, what would you say?
It’s the art of full body musical call and response.

4. What have you learned from all of your years of dancing?
I’ve learned a lot but the biggest thing is that music is an important part of life. I feel like our bodies crave music and that dancing is really just a natural reaction to it. I don’t like it when people say they can’t dance. We all have rhythm at our core. It just sometimes takes time to dig inside and find it.

5. You once started regular bboy practices at a corporate 9-5 sort of office. How did that go?
That was a pretty interesting experience. It came together quite well but a lot of it had to do with the circumstances.

First, I had been working at a San Francisco-based startup company at the time so the “sort of office” part is spot-on. Startup companies tend to have flexible working environments so they allow pretty much anything as long as you get your work done. And since they had an extremely danceable kitchen floor, I proposed weekly breaking practices there.

Second were the people. Another great thing about startups is the type of talent they attract. Out of the 100 or so people using that office, 5 were already into breaking. So we would break after work and occasionally take “break breaks” during the day. It was a pretty cool ordeal and the company even mentioned it in job listings for a while.

The last factor was that our office was in the same building as a 24-Hour Fitness gym. We moved practice there because we all had a heavily discounted group membership and the gym had a general purpose room with an even nicer floor, lots of space and mirrors. And as luck would have it, one of the guys who worked there was also a b-boy. He started practicing with us and hooked up the room’s sound system for our music.

Had any of these contributing factors been different, it definitely would not have worked out as well. We ended up forming a crew and practiced together at least 2 times a week. We’d also occasionally go to area b-boy practice spots and clubs around San Francisco and Berkeley. Through it all, we ended up meeting some of the Renegades Crew and learned a lot from b-boys Wicket and Iron Monkey. And even though I’m no longer there, the rest of the crew is still going strong.

6. You are now in Japan teaching English and still consistently dancing out there. What can you tell me about the dance scene in Japan and was it easy to communicate with other dancers without knowing the language?

Japan has a vibrant breaking scene and I run into bboys and bgirls nearly everywhere I go. For example, on my second day here, I had an impromptu session with some bboys who were practicing outside of a mall near my hotel. Though my Japanese is horrible and very few of the ones I’ve met speak English, we always manage to communicate through our common dance. Rhythm and movement replace nouns and verbs. It’s amazing to be able to connect despite the language barrier.

It’s also fascinating to see breaking in a culture that’s so different from America. Breakdancing started in the States and its inherent ideas are somewhat aligned with U.S. culture. In Japan, however, those ideas—individuality, ego, being distinct—are seen as “Western” and are traditionally frowned upon. There is sometimes a notable difference in breakers attitudes when compared to the rest of Japanese Society though they usually leave their swagger on the dance floor. But the longer you break, the more breaking becomes a part of you so I don’t think they can keep it separate forever.

7. Any final words on bboying?

I’m glad that bboying is once again gaining traction, that bboys are winning nationally syndicated dance shows and that there are $50,000 breaking competitions. But I’m also of the mind that there is absolutely NOTHING better in the breaking world than a cypher. There’s a pure, harmonious energy generated in cyphers and it’s uplifting to be a part of it. Whether you’re new to breaking or have been at it for years, don’t forget to get down in cyphers!.

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

12 of my photos will be exhibited at the Gallery Lombardi in Downtown Austin. The photos will be a part of the Bboy City Art show. I’m pretty excited about this one, and the opening should be cool w/ a lot of the bboys from around Austin showing up.

Info can be found here: http://www.gallerylombardi.com/exhibits/0705exhibit.html

XIV BBoy City Convention

Opening Reception:
May 3rd, 7pm – 10pm

This year’s convention opens with a photo history of BBoy City, I-XIII.
Marcy Garriott’s exciting new documentary,
Inside the Circle, which explores the creativity of Texas bboy dancers.
The exhibit features still photos from the
movie “Inside The Circle” by Terri Glanger,
photographs of Texas dancers by Chale Nafus,
Merideth Kohut, Charles Reece, Peter Tsai,
and graffiti art by Nathan Nordstrom.

Exhibition Dates
May 3rd – May 12th

The gallery hours are Tues.-Sat. noon- 6pm

602 West 7th #A, Austin TX
78701, 512-481-1088

We are just north of Katzs, Clements Paints,
& Ranch 616. We use the alley entrance
between 7th & 8th St. We are in a tan house
the alley off Nueces is a super steep grade,
not recommended, enter from Rio Grande and
park behind the purple building or ours.

10 of my photos are being featured on the website for the documentary “Inside the Circle”, an amazing story about 3 local bboys here in Austin. Follow the link below!

http://www.insidethecircle.com/gallery_peter_tsai.htm