The fourth annual Calgary Hip Hop & Street Dance Festival took place from Nov. 20 to 23 with a wide variety of events and a roster of amazing guests coming in to participate in the festival. This being the fourth iteration of the festival, it’s slowly become a well-known name in town, with the festival becoming a fixture in the many events that occur in Calgary. The festival’s artistic director, Tara Wilson, shared her excitement over the artists that will be a part of this festival, as well as what has changed this year compared to last.
“The Calgary Hip-Hop and Street Dance Festival is a four-day event that is designed to celebrate Calgary’s Hip Hop and Street Dance Scene through battles, performances, film screenings, theatre shows. … And also bring other street dance artists to Calgary to also enrich our hip hop and street dance community,” said Wilson.
Wilson shared what it’s like to have the fourth iteration of this festival. She says that there’s still a lot of room for growth with lots to learn from festivals, but it’s incredibly exciting having so much support from the Calgary Arts Development, Redbull and most importantly, the community itself. It’s becoming an event that is entrenched in the community.
Wilson also shared what’s new with the festival this year. New additions include the artists Seventh Star, who’s one of Canada’s pioneers of a dance called Krump, and is also the head of the Montreal Krump Alliance. The festival also included Sugar Pop from Electric Boogaloo and Rock City Crew, who is a pioneer and icon of popping and locking. The theatre evening has expanded with the inclusion of live theatre work and a lecture on the history of Krump by Seventh Star. The venue has been moved from the West Village Theatre to the Chinese Cultural Centre.
“Every time [the organization] takes a step in growth, the organization becomes a bit more challenging because you’ve done it a few times, and some of the organizational things become easier. We have new challenges to face in terms of bigger capacity to reach more people, so we added some [people] to our marketing team, like Charmayne, who has been helping us with the marketing and rebranding a little bit [...]. That’s been a challenge this year to try to redefine what we are putting out into the community,” said Wilson.
When asked about what Wilson was looking forward to most during this year’s festival, Wilson said she was presenting a work on the film night that combines video projection and live performance. Wilson said she’s also looking forward to hosting artists in Calgary who are from all over the world.
More about the Calgary Hip-Hop and Street Dance Festival can be found on their website.
