R16 Korea National Championship

Uijeongbu Art Center

Thanks to KTO (Korea Tourism Organization), on June 23rd, 2012, I had a really great opportunity to go to R16 Korea National Championship. Held at Uijeongbu Art Center, I had to take bus and it was 2 hours trip. Worth it? Hell yeah!
What is R16? If F1 is Formula 1, R16 is RESPECT 16. At least that is what I know after reading the introduction page on the R16 website, here. R16 is a world championship for b-boy. Do not know what b-boy is? Click here. The one that I watched was the Korea National Championship to select the best one in Korea and then become the representative of Korea at the World Championship.
Honestly, I do not have a lot of knowledge about this, but I do have interest. The competition was open by a performance from a b-boy: Animation Crew. They were awesome, I got goosebumps all over my body. It really heat up the atmosphere inside the room.

Crew Battle: Korean Assassins VS Fusion MC Crew

At the first time, I really did not know anything about what's going on and what is what. When the tournament began with performance by Animation Crew, I thought this was the competition and I was really excited because if every team was this good, this was gonna be super interesting. But then it turned out that they were only a guest for the competition.
There were three categories competed in this tournament: Poppin, Locking, and Crew Battle. In Poppin and Locking the dancers will have 1:1 battle with certain time duration. The judges then point with their hand who win the battle. It was really entertaining to watch Poppin and Locking dance battles, but when it went to Crew Battle, it was different kind of excitement.
In Crew Battle, two teams will do battle. There are 5 points that will be judged: foundation, originality, dynamics, execution, and battle. I think Crew Battle was more interesting than Poppin and Locking, because it was not one person but it was the whole team battling. Sometimes if both team got the same result then there will be an extra round.
After some tough battles, finally there left the winners who will be representative from Korea at the World Championship. The winner of Poppin dance is Boogaloo Kin, Locking dance is Du Lock (he tried to do some acrobat but ended up hurting his nose, but he won anyway), and Jinjo Crew as the winner of Crew Battle. I hope I can get the opportunity to watch them on World Championship! Fingers crossed!
Awesome b-boy, awesome performance. Worth it!

Want to know more about R16? Do visit their official website: http://www.r16korea.com/xe/

angga | 앙가