Dance Masterz

 Juste Debout is one of the hottest street dance events right now!!. The final for 2008 event is going to be held this weekend, March 2 at Paris. Juste Debout is the international street dance 2 on 2 battle event. It has hip hop, house, locking and popping. This year, they had preliminary event in different countries such as Swiss, Germany, Japan, Italy, Paris, etc.. and the only the team who won these preliminary event are going to enter the final event. I don’t know why there was no preliminary event in the US. Since the preliminary event are organized by local people, I guess there was no organizer who was willing to host the event in the US. This is the same case with Battle of the Year. The US being the pioneer of this culture, It is a shame!!!! The US needs somebody who think more about preserving the true essence of this culture as opposed to having a show like “MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew” . 

Anyway… This year, I expect the level of the competition to be really really high!! Many dancers I mentioned on this page are actually going to be at the final. Since I was at the Japanese event, I can tell Japanese dancers who won the preliminary events.

Hip Hip: Yokoi&Dominic (Electric Trouble -no need to explain!)
House : Pino & Kenji (Pinocchio: Pino is my favorite house dancer and he is also the member of ALMA)
Popping: Gucchon & Kei (Coo-Thkoo: -they went through the most intensive battle of the all category. Guccho was 2nd place at 2007 UK BBOY Championship)
Locking: Seiji & Yukari (They beated Hilty & Bosch. ) 

On top of these dancers, I heard the rumor that there are more big name dancers entering the contest from Paris preliminary event which will be held the day before. They are:

Acky & Salah for popping (what a team!!)
Yoshie & Akane (BE BOP Crew) for locking
Hiro (ALMA) & Tatsuo (Grass Hopper) for house

So anyway, I was going to fly to Paris just for this event. But I end up not being able to… If you happen to live near Paris, I must go to see this event. Yoshie said, “If you are a street dancer and you are missing this event, then you are not a street dancer.”For more information, visit at www.juste-debout.com

Took place at Battle of the year 2007. Spain (left) vs Japan (right)

I was in Japan for two weeks last month and I went to see Juste Debout 2008 Japan event in tokyo. It was really long event started at 9PM ended at 7AM. But the event was really hot. The highlight of the event was the final of popping category: Gucchon & Key vs Kite & Madoka. There was no doubt that the skill of these guys were supoer, but what really impressed me was the emotion or I should say “SOUL” that they put into their each move. It might be hard to see what I am talking about from this video clip, though. I guess you have to be there to feel it. Also, I am really impressed with DJ Batsu. He is by far the best DJs in Japan who specialized old school music. I believe he is going to spin at the Juste Debout 2008 final at France, too. oh, by the way can please someone translate what bruce and other people are saying in French?

Is this just me? I was really disappointed to see MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew. What’s up, America??I am sure there are tons of better underground dancers in this country and they just don’t show up on TV. But still….Now watch the clip from weekly Japanese dance TV show. It is aired on late night and it is not like big MTV show with big budget. Still, I believe that they got way better dancers there. or is this just me??