More than 30 dancers competed at Study Your Arts, a free Something in the Water community event during the festival weekend.
Organized by “Guerilla” Will Riddick and Marcel “The Mighty” Amen, the contest showcased various styles of street dance from around Virginia to the bass sounds of house music, a genre with roots in Black and LGBT communities.
“Virginia doesn’t have a real club culture,” Riddick said. “We have bar culture, but we don’t have club culture.”
Study Your Arts hopes to change that.
In the 1980s, Black DJs in the Chicago underground club scene began experimenting with 1970s disco tracks, giving them a more mechanical tempo and stronger bass rhythm.
With that, came a distinctive dance style highlighted at the Study Your Arts event at 17th Street.
The contest started with a preliminary cypher, where each of the 32 dancers who signed up got one minute to show their moves to the judges. Only five qualified to move on to the semi-final rounds followed by one final battle.
Dozens cheered as Elijah “X-Glide” Fulgham came out on top, winning the grand prize of $1,000.
“I feel grateful for the fact that the judges thought my rounds were the better ones, but at the end of the day it’s all about community,” Fulgham said.
Playing at Something in the Water is a milestone for Adrienne “Novakane Omega” Bacon, the DJ who opened the event. An emcee in the area for many years, she’s only been DJing for two.
“[House music] never really went anywhere, it just went underground,” Bacon said. “It represents freedom. There’s all kinds for all kinds of people.”
DJ Decimus “Floyd Vader” Yarbrough grew up in Hampton Roads and is now based in Portland, Oregon. It’s given him perspective on the growth the house music scene in Virgina has experienced over the years.
“It’s a full circle moment to come back and take part in something like this, when before it was just some scrappy little kids on the beach,” he said.
