Circles| 11TH ANNIVERSARY

[giggs106]

photos by EyeoftheCypher.blogspot.com

Since I am waiting for my videos from Circles 11 render, I might as well write my usual event writeup. The venue for Circles was located 2 hours west of Washington D.C. in Harrisonburg, Virginia, home to James Madison University. It was probably the most remote place I've gone for a b-boy jam. The town held a population of 40,000 people, which was even less than my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So yeah, the venue was out in the mountains of the Appalachians, and I suppose one could say in the "middle of nowhere". But yo, the location did not hold the organizers of Circles 11 down. The event turned out well, although a little on the long side (3 pm - 1 am), but nevertheless, it was a great time. As the legendary DJ Skeme Richards said, "Circles is official...number 11? Most jams don't even get that far without getting a little bored and outdated."

For me, I really enjoyed the event because my friends from Supernaturalz out in Canada came down. Ever since meeting them in Korea last year, it has always been a blast hanging out with McNasty, Puzzles, Lee, Bridge, and Drops. Too bad Dyzee couldn't get off his old man rocking chair to come down. Puzzles assisted me in a lot of my videos. We made another episode to the What Grinds My Gears series! That guy just went off! I felt bad for Bridge. That guy got so much shit from Puzzles, it was unbelievable. But I guess that was what made hanging out with Supernaturalz so much fun. Lesson learned: it was dangerous falling asleep in a hotel room full of Supernaturalz guys.

I've uploaded some of the battles on our Strife page already. However, it did not come without problems: I stupidly forgot to reset my microphone settings, thus all the battles I taped had no audio. That stressed me out for a while, until Chris Nguyen and Rob Zheng came to my rescue, and gave me their clips to "borrow" their sound. Big thanks to those two, for reals.

You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com

Circles| 11TH ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE from Daniel Zhu on Vimeo.

My coverage video, Vimeo version. I'll upload the Youtube version tomorrow, as Youtube's been under website construction for the past couple of hours. I think my coverage video is pretty dope, so check it out! My friend Peter aka KBE's been under stress the past couple of jams because he hasn't used profanity on camera for so long. So he was super happy to get that out of him this video with a couple of shit, fuck, and other censored stuff he usually does.

FAVORITE MOMENTS

--routine by Repstyles that imitated the movie, "The Ring". Apparently they got another routine, coreographed from the movie "Avatar" but did not use it. I want to see that one!

--Harly "Halfstep" Jackson simply destroying Atomic Goofball by doing Goof's exact set...with one leg.

--DJ Skeme Richards coming down from the DJ booth to the MC battle. He felt frustrated when the MCs couldn't rap & operate a microphone properly, so he called them all out. That guy meant business!

QUOTES FROM THE WEEK
"Bridge got nothing! He's got nothing! His shirt is wack, too."
--MC Puzzles, talking over the microphone, during an actual battle

"Let me quote KRS-One..."the bridge is over, the bridge is over, hey hey!"
--Metal from Repstyles, talking about his victory over b-boy Bridge in their tiebreaker

"Fuck you Differ!"
--Bridge, jokingly saying crap about Differ over dinner at iHOP.

"Have you ever did some kind of headspin, in somebody's house, and that (prosthetic) leg fly and puncture a wall?"
--Atomic Goofball interviewing b-boy Halfstep, who has one leg.

THOUGHTS I THINK

Bridge dances nothing like Differ. I dunno why people keep thinking it'd be an equal great matchup. Both are great dancers, but dance differently.

It was amazing to see how many students from James Madison University attend the event. It was shocking: hoards of small town kids from the Appalachian mountains attend a b-boy event. The dance has gone a long ways since the 1970s. Then again, what the hell am I saying? I grew up in South Dakota.

Poe One is an inspiration. He can talk for one hour, and the entire room would shut up just to listen to him. Add him to my list of OGs I admire, along with KwikStep, Virus, & Spirit. I filmed Poe One's workshop, and hopefully it will be online by next weekend. (as well as Kid David's workshop)

There were almost 100 middle finger taunts during the entire event. And among the 100, about 50 were from b-boy Metal (Repstyles).

B-boy Steve Believe from Repstyles really looks like Seth Rogen. Seriously, he does.

Ground FX crew from Boston definitely showed people you can still dance in your 30s and be successful. Big props to them for making it to the semifinals.

Thank you MexOne from TheBboySpot for giving me a ride back home to D.C. For y'all that don't know him, he's actually the first ever interview Strife.tv has done. That's history right there! Currently he is the founder of TheBboySpot, as well as Biggest & Baddest clothing.

Song of the Day:
chilled jazz + hip hop = this song

DJ Cam Quartet - Boss Guitar