Floor Rippers

Floor Rippers grew organically from an artistic trio in November 2011: Marie Guibergia (Artistic Director/Event manager), R-QI-TEK (BrokenJazz-SoulMarvericks-BlackHand), B-Boy Mouse (FLGZ-MZK-BreakLife-RF). Recently joined by B-Girl Vanessa Marina and Flowrex.

The aim was to take existing art forms and fuse them into something new and fresh. We wanted to bring two worlds together in a blending of dance and live music that rarely has been seen. These two worlds consist, on the one hand, of dancers and performers who are use to the battle scene of a regular competition with a DJ and no band and on the other hand, those that love listening to live music who appreciate the quality of a raw funk sound and don’t know much about the Bboy dance. These two very different crowds rarely get a chance to meet in one place and share the reciprocated affection of art.

The B-Boy scene was in need of a face lift to generate a platform in which the dancers can show off their freshest moves, sharpen their battle tactics and let the audience get down and not feel left out. So the idea was simple, take the battle format from the club environment and instead of having a DJ play for the dancers we would get a soulful, funktastic band to liven up the night’s proceedings to create an atmosphere of mutual intensity that would rival any big stage live show.

With the Host bridging the mighty chasm that exists between the audience and performers it is impossible for the night not to be engaging. The band plays throughout the battle and watches the dancers as they do their moves so as to accent or stop spontaneously as to create a call and response conversation between the music on stage and the dancers on the floor. During the intervals the DJ would be spinning the vinyl of old school funk and breaks. When the battle finishes and the winners get their prizes, everybody stays and continues the party with more DJs getting a chance to flip their favourite on wax.