Music

In quest for respect, hip-hop dancers look to BBoy City

In the world of hip-hop, you've got DJs, the disc-spinnin' scratchers who make the beats; MCs, the crews who rhyme in time; and graffiti artists, who might tag bridge struts or create computer-animated short films and clothing lines.

Last but not least, you've got bboys and bgirls -- the street dancers who break to the beats.

At least, that's the hierarchical order as Romeo Navarro's experienced it. But he's out to change that. More than six years ago, he and his bboys decided to raise the profile of break dancing and its practitioners with a one-off competition called BBoy City.

The event has become an internationally renowned confab celebrating all four aspects of hip-hop culture. BBoy City 12 is slated for Friday through Sunday at three city locations.

Photo by Peter Tsai Gather your bboys and head to this hip-hop competition where the moves, not the rhymes, are the main attraction. BBoy City Friday: Film and video screenings, graffiti art exhibit, MC battle preliminaries (two-on-two) and DJ battle preliminaries. 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., Ruta Maya Coffee House, $10, 3601 S. Congress Ave., 707-9637. Saturday: Battle preliminaries, registration and qualifiers and trade show. The YoungCity one-on-one Battle, for 6- to 13-year-olds, also debuts. 4 p.m. to midnight, $20, South Austin Recreational Center, 1100 Cumberland Road, 444-6601. ($20 fee for video cameras.) Sunday: All battle finals, street fashion show, guest performances, capoeira exhibition and graffiti writers. 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., $10, Paradox, Fifth and Trinity streets, 469-7615. (No video cameras allowed.) Information: www.breakcheck.com; www.bboycity.com.

"There was no organization, there was no (official) competition, there was no money," Navarro says. "It was straight pride."

They raised prize money through entry fees, and winning began to hold some serious weight. East Coast, West Coast and even European competitors showed up for the twice-annual meets (which last year switched to annual events so Navarro's crew could take time to compete outside Texas as well).

In the meantime, it grew from a one-day event with about 150 bboys to the multimedia extravaganza at which approximately 2,000 people are expected. Activities include film screenings and art displays, a street fashion show, MC and DJ competitions and four kinds of bboy/bgirl face-offs: crew on crew, poppin' 'n' lockin' (two on two), all styles (one on one) and "Mickey and Mallory," a couples' battle named for the characters in the film "Natural Born Killers." Navarro describes it as "like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, but that's kinda soft so that's why we tried Mickey and Mallory."

According to Navarro, MCs, DJs and even graffiti artists are earning renown and money, but he adds, "Out of all the elements of hip-hop, bboy is the last thing to be looked at. As the four elements coming together, we are strong. But we just wanted more respect and more credit for what we (bboys) do."

Once he and his bboys started staging events, complete with promotion and marketing, respect and recognition arrived. A documentary feature film is being made about the Texas bboy culture.

For the past two years, teaching break dancing has also been Navarro's full-time job. But he has bigger plans. He wants people in Austin -- and beyond -- to be aware of the bboy culture.

"You know how, in Brazil, they know about capoeira, the Brazilian martial arts?" he says. "That's how we want Texas to be. If you're from down south, you know how to get down, you know how to dance or you know something about it."

In addition to working toward nonprofit status for Bboy City, Navarro wants to create an entity he plans to call "Rhythm 'n' Motion, an urban culture center."

"We want to get that started and teach dance," he says, adding enthusiastically, "all the four elements of hip-hop, and from media to sound recording, engineering, to computer animation, to folk dance, to ..."

His voice trails off, but his vision is clear -- and likely to be realized, if he can get enough civic and financial support. He wants a three-story building -- he's not partial where.

"We'll help out the community," he says. "We kept kids out of trouble for years."

Navarro has already been able to secure bank loans for BBoy City. This year, with the help of sponsors, he hopes to break even, pay off the loans, dole out $3,000 in prize money and have some cash for next year.

"We gotta give back to our culture and make it bigger, keep it alive," he says. "If we just promote us, we become selfish, and then we'll die. So let's promote everybody."