Seomyeon Youth Street and Nori Maru Area Buzz with Street Dance
Just Jerk, TED, Jeikim, Gof, Famous Judges All Gathered
Busan City will hold the ‘Busan Dance Festival,’ themed around ‘Street Dance,’ a representative content of youth culture, throughout April at Seomyeon Youth Street and Nori Maru area.
The ‘Busan Dance Festival’ was newly planned by selecting Seomyeon as the venue based on the results of last year’s ‘Youth Culture Pilot Area Development Plan Research’ conducted by the city to create a representative street for fostering youth culture, and by incorporating ‘Street Dance,’ which has recently emerged as a leading content of youth culture.
The event consists of two main formats: ▲1:1 Dance Battle (individual) and ▲Dance Championship (team). From February 20 to March 10, dance video applications were accepted through the Busan Dance Festival website, and online preliminaries were held.
▲The 1:1 Dance Battle will hold offline competitions (preliminary-semifinal-final) for all applicants in four categories, each on a separate day. ▲For the Dance Championship, the top 25 teams who passed the online preliminaries through judges’ evaluation will compete in offline semifinals and finals over two days.
On the weekends of the first and second weeks of April, 1:1 battles in four dance categories will be held sequentially at Seomyeon Youth Street (car-free street): ▲April 1 ? B-boying ▲April 2 ? Freestyle ▲April 8 ? Hip-hop ▲April 9 ? Waacking, igniting the flame of the street dance festival.
Then, on April 15 at 5 p.m., the Dance Championship semifinals, which will select 15 teams advancing to the finals, will be held at the Samjeong eSports Stadium in Seomyeon.
On Saturday, April 29, at 5 p.m., the Dance Championship final will take place at Nori Maru in Seomyeon, where the top 3 winners will be selected.
The finale of the event will feature judges including Just Jerk and Ted, the winner and participants of Mnet’s Street Man Fighter, who will also perform congratulatory shows and select the best street dancers.
As a side event, on April 30, a one-day dance workshop called ‘Street Camp’ will be held at Sangsang Madang in Seomyeon for applicants.
Winners of the event will receive a total prize money of 30 million KRW, with the Dance Championship awarding 10 million KRW for 1st place, 5 million KRW for 2nd place, and 3 million KRW for 3rd place. For the 1:1 battles, winners in each dance category will receive 3 million KRW each.
To ensure fairness, Busan City has organized a diverse panel of judges for each dance category: ▲B-boying: Eagle1, Kingso ▲Freestyle: Popbong, Trix ▲Hip-hop: Withbill, Ocheon ▲Waacking: Yoonji, Hans ▲Dance Championship preliminaries: Park Daehwan, Kwon Kijun, Son Ihyun ▲Dance Championship semifinals: J Kim, Gof ▲Dance Championship finals: Just Jerk, Ted. For the Dance Championship final, a combined judging system involving both the judging panel and a citizen evaluation group will be adopted.
Admission to the semifinals, participation in the citizen evaluation group, and applications for the Street Camp will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis through the Busan Dance Festival website in early April. For more details, please refer to the website.
Nam Jeong-eun, Director of the Youth Industry-Academia Division, said, “In April, we expect the passion of young dancers to bring vitality to the streets of Busan,” and added, “We will continue to discover and foster representative youth culture contents where young people can freely gather and enjoy.”
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