Their swiveling soles kissing the wooded floor, fourteen b-boy crews from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose and Albuquerque, New Mexico strutted their stuff Friday night on the EMU Ballroom dance floor. And they did it to help sick kids.
About 500 people attended the University’s breakdancing competition, “Breakin’ down the EMU,” and all proceeds from ticket sales were donated to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
“For us, pushing (b-boying) through the college circuit, we want people to understand that ‘Hey, you guys need to know about this and respect it as much as any other element in hip-hop.’ We don’t need MCs, we don’t need DJs scratching, we don’t need graffiti,” Emcee and founder of Amplified Techniques Huy Pham said. “All we need is a circle, break beats and heart.”
Before the competition even began at 8 p.m., a crowd of on-lookers gathered in a circle around the b-boys, many of whom had never before seen a breakdancing competition.
“Some of the moves those guys did were pretty impressive; it was cool to see it in person,” said University freshman Richard Eatinger, who had never been to a breakdancing competition before and enjoyed the dancing and the head spins. “I didn’t expect it to be as much fun as it was; it was a blast.”
University freshman and organizer Dan Lam noticed the diversity of the attendees. “We saw people of all colors hanging out. I think it was a huge community-building event,” Lam said. “Everyone had to gather up closer, sit together and talk.”
University freshman and organizer Hieu Pham and fellow guest member Arthur “A-Trix” Bongat represented the “Moon Patrol” crew. Wearing bandanas around his neck and wrist, Pham smiled at the crowd and got them to clap to the beat.
“Depending on how I feel that day – that’s how I’ll dance – I try and portray that on the dance floor,” Bongat said. “Once I forget what I’m doing, I have nothing left to do but freestyle.”
Audience members peered eagerly into the circle’s center, where the b-boys continued to throw out moves and challenge one another with a playful, in-your-face attitude, filling the spaces between and keeping the energy high. DJ Omega Watts, a well-known underground hip hop deejay, spun funky tunes reminiscent of the 1970s and the early hip-hop days.
For the final battle, DJ Omega Watts put on the tune “Let the Sunshine In” for the “Freshest Kids” crew from Seattle against the “Def-Con 5” crew from Beaverton and Gresham, Ore. Eighteen-year-old b-boys Tony Orduña and Macelin Heaward of the “Freshest Kids” crew took the title and the $200 prize. Heaward, with curly brown hair and a green T-shirt, described the event afterwards as “tiring.”
Pham’s older brother and Amplified Techniques founder Huy “Gyant” Pham collaborated with the Vietnamese Student Association for the show. Huy Pham said that although the competitors Friday night were of “mid-caliber,” they were part of the “second golden age of the Northwest” in b-boying.
He described Friday’s event as “the stepping stone, the beginning.”
Pham stressed that b-boying is just like any other dance.
“If you want to be a b-boy, you need to dance,” Pham said. “You need to focus on the music.”
Lam said he intends on organizing an annual breakdancing event at the University until he graduates.
“We’re going to urbanize Eugene to the best of our ability,” Lam said. “I consider this our own four-year diversity plan.”
With the success of Friday’s event, Lam and Pham of Amplified Techniques are making plans to bring the international breakdancing tour “Ashes 2 Ashes” to Eugene next year.