Our 2019 Recap: Culture Shock

In 2019 we celebrated our 5th anniversary of Culture Shock! Instead of our regular one dance competition day, we extended it to two! The first day of the event was a series of instructional sessions to teach dance to youth new and old to the scene, skills that they can use in cypher or competition the following day. The session was well attended with youth from all over Calgary with over 50+ youth attending. It was so popular we had to change rooms partway through to make more room for our youth dancers! We had a Breaking teacher, a Waacking instructor and a rap instructor.  

The second day of the event began with opportunities for open-mic and dancing. This year we added an All-Styles competition onto our lineup, along with the Breaking competition we usually hold every year. In addition to the Break-dancing and All-Styles competitions, the programming also included guest performances from youth and professional dance and beat artists, as well as other showcases by judges.  

This event had a very popular open cypher time open to all youth to participate in. Sixteen mentee competitors that are in our weekly hip hop group competed in the programming compared to only a few the previous year. These youth started from scratch last year and are now performance and competition ready! The majority of performers in the top tiers of competition ended up being youth from our weekly program, which hadn’t happened in the past. 

The event ended with an awards ceremony for the youth that won the competitions, as well as our new Ella Award and our Dope Skillz award for participation. The Ella award commemorates one of the original Youth Voices crew that committed suicide this time last year. This award is given to a youth that has stepped above and beyond, being a leader and a mentor for others in the last year. We had one Antyx youth graduate from mentee to mentor this year and was the recipient of this award due to his leadership and growth in the last year. 

We had 700 active participants and spectators as well as many other spectators that passed through during the day. We also had one member from our weekly group join the youth voices event planning crew to take on more commitment and leadership and have a larger role in supporting this event and the group in the future. The rest of the Youth Voices crew has gotten more comfortable as event organizers and now more than ever they are using their own networks to support the event. We reviewed amazing feedback from the event! Everything was very positive with attendees and participants commenting on how open, friendly, supportive it was. One of these attendees was been in the breaking community for many years and felt like this event was one of the most positive events she has ever been to and it supported the most female dancers! 

While we aren’t sure if, or how, Culture Shock will be held this year, but we are continuing to see our youth practice and learn new skills as we’ve adapted to our new online platform. We can’t wait until we can all come together and host the sixth edition of Culture Shock!