2023-11-24 05:32:03
Par Antoine Sauvetre
Published on 24 Nov 23 at 6:32 See my news Follow L’Orne Hebdo
Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas et… Alençon!
In the land of hip-hop, an urban dance born in the streets of New York in the 1970s, the prefecture city of Orne has built a solid reputation thanks to its international breakdance competition.
Zone 61 (formerly Alençon Mouvement Hip Hop), the organizing association of this event which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is regularly called upon across the Atlantic, but also in Asia and soon in Brazil, to organize battles aimed at qualifying for the Alençon competition.
In the French top 5
The city of Dukes is currently one of the main lands of French hip-hop, in a country that is nevertheless hyperactive in this field.
France is one of the countries with the highest number of battles. We can reasonably think that WIBA is in the top 5 in France
Damien Guillet, president of Zone 61
From the United States to Taiwan, from Venezuela to Russia via England, Morocco and even Kazakhstan, the World Invasion Battle Alençon (WIBA) welcomed some of the best breakdancers in the world (also called b-boys or b -girls).
This will be the case again, Saturday November 25, with an exceptional opening show and a competition between 16 dancers (eight teams of two) during an evening which will “retrace the 10 years” of existence of the WIBA.
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The crowd for the premiere!
Born in 2013, this international hip-hop dance competition has since brought together nearly 1,500 spectators each year at Anova Park.
Young people already experienced in “footwork”, “power moove”, “top rock” and other “tricks”, these categories of movements which fuel twirling, acrobatic and therefore spectacular choreographies.
But also spectators who come to discover a world that is totally unknown to them, like “grandparents who accompany their grandchildren” and come out under the spell.
This success still surprises Damien Guillet, an unwavering practitioner from Alençon at the origin of this creation.
For the first edition, I was very nervous that it was empty when a security official came to pick me up in a panic after seeing the crowd at the entrance. With no pre-sales at the time, 1,000 people were queuing to buy a ticket!
Damien Guillet
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Born in Courteille
We have to go back to 2005 to find traces of this idea for an event dedicated to hip-hop in Alençon.
“We were a small group of Alençon dancers. We decided to set up a structure to have a place of expression. It was the social center of Courteille, the neighborhood where I grew up, which opened its doors to us. »
The Alençon Mouvement Hip Hop (AMH) association took its first dance steps in 2007, then organized its first battle in 2009. “Only with local guys, but I remember that, already, the room was armored. »
A first which attracts the attention of elected officials and other associations.
First The Firefly
The following year, Jazz Orne Danse arrived with a proposal: carte blanche during its dance festival at La Luciole.
For us, accessing La Luciole in this way was a blessing! Opening the doors of such a concert hall, which seemed inaccessible to us at the time, was huge!
Damien Guillet
It was finally the turn of Loïc Lecomte, then director of the Alençon Contemporary Music Scene, to succumb to the charm of breakdancing.
Thus was born Battle Luciole Pro, in 2012, “the first national battle” in Alençon which, already, had attracted a lot of people to the concert hall.
This success gives wings to Damien Guillet.
In my head, we could triple, even quadruple the scale of the event.
Hip-hop gems at Anova
Damien Guillet, originally from the Courteille district, has been practicing hip-hop, and more precisely breakdancing, since his adolescence. ©L’Orne Hebdo
Coincidentally, the construction of the neighboring Anova park was completed at the end of the same year. Damien Guillet dreams of organizing “a big thing” there.
Followed by Le Mans Événements, the company which managed the new exhibition park, the City and the Department, the Alençon association has since made its global competition an unmissable event in the country of Alençon, and well beyond .
Most of the breakdancers who passed through Alençon now have a good reputation in the hip-hop world.
We don’t necessarily bring in big names, but we manage to capture dancers who have great potential and who we often find at the biggest international events.
Every year, Damien Guillet takes up his pilgrim’s staff to find these “nuggets” in the different competitions across the country or on the Web.
A record edition?
A method that continues to be successful.
The anniversary competition could even break an attendance record, with the number of pre-sales a few days before the event being four times higher than in previous years.
“We’re not going to see ourselves as bigger than we are, but if we reach the 2,000 spectator mark, it would be a great gift,” smiles Damien Guillet.
10 years of the World Invasion Battle Alençon, Saturday November 25, at 7:30 p.m., at Anova Park. Price: €8. Free for children under 12. Ticket office: Zone61.fr
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