At sundown in Westlake Park last week, on April 27, 2005, Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger hosted a long-awaited Dance Battle between local disco street dance duos Fankick! and their boy rivals Streetbeat. Word on the street has been building for months which dance duo is better, who has better moves, and attitude. In the pages of The Stranger in recent weeks, a summons was served and announced. A date was set. Here are some scenes of last week's triumphant Dance Battle!
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The long-awaited Dance Battle between Capitol Hill street superstar duos Fankick! and Streetbeat hit the pavement on heel and toe dueling for the trophy of dance champions. The match was held before some 700 or so onlookers, fans, and the curious. Olympic dance athletes take note, both dance duos flexed with muscle and danced with synchronized strutting, much to the hushed Eighties retro-romantic groove Promises, Promises, the 1982 hit from the all-but-forgotten New Wave pop band Naked Eyes.
Coordinated by The Stranger, the Dance Battle took place in Westlake Park just before sundown under amber and faded blue partly cloudy skies punctually at 7:30 PM. Hundreds of attendees formed a large oval around the dance "stage" on the park's tile-paved concrete. It was an arena of shoegazer EMO fashion and hip, young and old alike, with the more nervous folks among them chain-smoking with anticipation: who would win this amazing Dance Battle? The girls of Fankick!? Or the boys of Streetbeat?
Fankick! performed first, with firm concentrated confidence, arms raised high and shoulders straight. The girls pirouetted, strutted and swooned synchronously. Wearing eye-glazing orange and pink fluourescent tops and bottoms, their straight outta the New Wave color-clash fashions lent some Flashdance and Footloose street cred. Afterwards, the boys of Streetbeat took the stage. Enter the dragon. In tight-fitting ripped camo shirts and cheek-hugging shorts and fishnet leggings, the boys sent a message that they're in it to win, and brought their fighting spirit with them in army greens and Eighties fly-away hair. They could be dubbed the Top Gun dudes.
Streetbeat, too, strutted their stuff with a take-no-prisoners approach. Not to be outdone by the Women of Mass Destruction, the boys held their outstretched arms and synchronized their way through the set despite cat-calls from Fankick!'s loyal fan base. Murmurs fluttered through the audience when the Streetbeat twins bounced to simulate man-on-man coupling keeping things steady to the beat.
By the next round, Fankick! had warmed up and showed us how it's done. Armed with greater confidence and determination, the girls had loosened up and were performing like pros, jumping down to their knees in gymnist style, and hopping back on their feet in sync. Their dance performing looked like they had the trophy bagged.
But after a few more rounds between Fankick! and Streetbeat, the evening favored the boys with their audacious and bold moves, making for an upset with the increasingly swelling Fankick! crowd. When this writer asked several in the audience who they think would win — some hesitated and mentioned that Fankick! would win. But in the end, Streetbeat won, from the wild audience applause and approval. And they got the beat.
For those who missed out, Streetbeat took home the trophy for their audacious and tough moves. But Fankick! performed great, and easily worked hard to compete as the evening's winners — hands-down.
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