The street dance festival '2025 Breaking Summer' (BREAKING SUMMER), hosted by the breaking crew Jinjo Crew, which represents Korea, has successfully concluded.
This year's event, marking its second edition, was held on the 12th at SJ Kunsthalle in Gangnam, Seoul, and featured over 300 dancers from five countries: Korea, the United States, Japan, China, and Russia. As soon as people entered, the venue was packed with attendees, and the front row of the stage was quickly occupied by standing spectators without any empty spaces.
The expressions of those who lined up early in the morning clearly reflected high expectations and excitement for Breaking Summer. Many of them proved the public's interest in street dance by waiting in line for entry even before the event began.
This year, Breaking Summer was composed of four institutional sectors, showcasing battle stages with different themes. In particular, in the breaking youth sector, dancers aged 9 to 10 took the stage, demonstrating skills comparable to adults and garnering enthusiastic responses from the audience.
The battle video of the nine-year-old breakdancer KITTY rapidly spread on social media right after the event, surpassing 3.13 million views as of July 14, capturing great popularity. Additionally, this event was praised for creating a space where all generations could unite through dance, going beyond mere competition to include young children and family audiences.
In addition to the battles, a special showcase featuring Lady Bounce, HANYA, 2way kids, and h-has received a great response from the audience. In particular, Lady Bounce's performance utilizing chairs elicited explosive reactions, and there was a continuous stream of audience members filming videos on site.
At the end of the competition for each institutional sector, the results were as follows: ▲ 1st in BREAKING 1ON1 OPEN sector: NORD DIAMOND (Russia), 2nd: Kwon Young-jin (STUBBORN) BEST4: LITHE-ING, Kim Jung-hwan (BBOY T) ▲ 1st in OPEN STYLE 2ON2 sector: FUNK IN THE JINJO (Kwon Hyuk-jin/JIN & Park Min-hyuk/ZOOTY ZOOT), 2nd: DOKYUN & HEADY BEST4: RAI & HIDDEN, FUSION MC ▲ 1st in BREAKING 1ON1 UNDER 18 sector: COCOA (Japan), 2nd: OUKI ▲ 1st in OPEN STYLE 1ON1 UNDER 15 sector: Lee Yoon-young (RANA), 2nd: Byeoli celebrated their victories.
Jinjo Crew's representative, Kim Heon-jun, said, "This year's Breaking Summer was a festival of passion created by dancers and audiences from around the world in the heart of Seoul, and it was an opportunity for everyone to experience the diversity and appeal of street dance. It was a moment for street dance to become even more popular."
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