Yangcheng Evening News reporter Hu Guangxin
"This!
"It's Hip-hop 4" aired the first episode on Youku on August 14th, and there have been huge changes in the competition system.
This season focuses on the concept of "invitation system + international competition". International players from all over the world compete with outstanding local Chinese players on the same field. The first phase contributed a number of "fairies fighting" scenes.
Recently, the program's chief director Lu Wei and popular players such as Ye Yin and AC accepted interviews with media such as the Yangcheng Evening News.
Lu Wei said, "This!
It is the "Hip-hop 4" which focuses on the integration of Chinese and foreign countries. "There is actually competition, winning and losing, but it does not mean conquering and defeating, but the exchange and integration of dancers from various countries."
The scene: the next game of the palace-level players
The contestant is "This!
It is the most precious resource of the "Hip-hop" (hereinafter referred to as "This Street") series. The first three seasons have invited many "great gods" from the Chinese street dance world to participate.
How can the program avoid the problem of lack of talent?
"This!
It's Hip-hop 4" so it became an international competition directly.
International players participated in the first three seasons of "This Street", but the number and quality of international players in the fourth quarter were the highest in history.
Nelson, a popping dancer from France, won three global championships in the JD Popping category; poppin C, a Swiss dancer who also danced popping, won the international championships in international competitions such as KOD and JD; Japan’s The waacking dancer ibuki (ibuki), has won two seasons of the Waacking Championship of the Get Movin event in Korea.
In addition to these dancers who have been active in street dance competitions in recent years, "This Street 4" also invited "ancestors" to the competition stage: two hall-level Locking duo-Hilty & Bosch (HB) Combination) and Gogo Brothers both compete as players.
Tony Gogo, the father of Gogo Brothers, is one of the founders of Lock Dance, and he is also present as a judge.
As for the Chinese players, the champions of the first three seasons Han Yu, Ye Yin and Yang Kai competed again, and outstanding players from the first three seasons such as Liang Liang, Xiao Jie, Huang Xiao, and AC participated in the competition.
"This Street 4" canceled the audition session. In the first issue, there were several "blasting ground" scenes of Chinese and foreign gods confronting each other.
The second season champion Ye Yin competed with Gogo Brothers twice. In an interview with reporters, he bluntly said "unexpectedly": "Gogo Brothers is the'strongest on the surface'. It is really a pleasure and honor to compete with them. They participated in the battle( The battle) really happened many years ago, and now you can only see their performances.” As an apprentice of the HB group, how does Ye Yin comment on the dance styles of the HB group and Gogo Brothers?
He said: "Gogo Brothers have a different style from Teacher HB. They are more gentleman and elegant, and they can feel the talent of black people in their dances."
The Chinese dancer AC and the Japanese dancer Yoshibuki Imada contributed to a dazzling dance battle, and the two became good friends in private.
AC said: "In addition to technology, the competition also has a sense of atmosphere, sense of performance and so on. We can learn from each other, which is very important to me."
Behind the scenes: International players are eager to participate
"This Street 4" satisfies the desire of Chinese dancers and international dancers to compete on the same stage, and at the same time provides international dancers with a rare performance stage under the epidemic.
Lu Wei revealed: “Due to the impact of the epidemic, many large-scale international street dance competitions have been closed. For example, JD, which is equivalent to the hip-hop Olympics, suddenly announced the suspension the day before the competition last year, and it was permanently closed. When we sent out invitations, many The dancers have not had any training, master classes or performances for nearly two years."
The difficulty of holding such an international classic under the epidemic situation can be imagined.
It is reported that the "This Street 4" program group started to invite international players to participate in the "This Street 3" finals (approximately last September), but in the end only half of the players came to the "This Street 4" stage.
Lu Wei said frankly: "It is a pity that many dancers have not been able to come to China because they did not apply for a visa, but there is no way. After all, we must strictly abide by the country's epidemic prevention policy." But Lu Wei still insisted on putting "This Street 4" Organized into an international competition: "The epidemic affects countries around the world, and world-class street dance competitions have been suspended. Our show should bear the responsibility of continuing the street dance culture, and must not allow the street dance culture to be completely interrupted in the past two years. On the other hand, we actually want the world to be interrupted. Seeing China, we invite dancers from all over the world to China and let them communicate with Chinese dancers."
Japanese dancer Acky (Kitamura Akira) is an international dancer who applied for a visa earlier to come to China.
Lu Wei revealed that after the quarantine was completed, Acky wrote a small composition and sent it to the group of contestants to express his touch. "After the quarantine, he came to our dance room for the first time and saw many Chinese and foreign dancers. Sweating and practicing dance together, he felt that he was back to the state where the dancers were happily practicing before the epidemic. He said that the feeling of free dancing is too long and it is very precious."
Acky is 47 years old this year. Although he is already a referee-level dancer, he is still willing to participate in "This Street 4" as a contestant. "He also said in his small composition, I don’t know that he will be able to participate in the battle in a few years. There is currently no competition to go to. When he sees that there is such a competition in China and good friends from all over the world are coming to participate, he feels that he will come anyway."
Style: Explore the fusion of Chinese style and street dance
"This Street 4" is also the season with the strongest Chinese elements since the four seasons.
The competition system of this season directly draws on the concept of confrontation in Chinese chess. The four captains of Han Geng, Wang Yibo, Zhang Yixing, and Liu Xianhua need to line up and arrange their players for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 games.
The competition stage is also designed in the form of a chess board, where the two sides will face off on both sides of the Chu River and Han circles.
In addition to visual elements, Chinese style has also been integrated into the dance and schedule settings.
Lu Wei said: "The fusion of Chinese style and street dance is a theme throughout this season. We invite foreign street dance dancers to China. On the one hand, we hope to learn the original street dance culture from them, and we also hope that they Can appreciate Chinese culture." In the first issue, French dancer Zyko chose Karen Mok's "If Without You" as the dance music. The combination of HipHop and Chinese lyric pop is refreshing.
Lu Wei revealed that in the next stage, more international dancers will choose Chinese songs to express their works; in the second stage of the competition, a Chinese song theme was also set up, and all dancers were divided into eight groups. All works of Chinese songs are to be performed. "This requires Chinese dancers to explain the meaning of Chinese songs to foreign dancers, and to interpret the song through their dance and choreography concepts. We place great emphasis on Chinese dancers and How does Chinese culture communicate and integrate with overseas culture".
Lu Wei "spoiler" some details in advance: "The theme of a song is more classical. We let some overseas dancers wear Hanfu. From the elegance of Hanfu, they understand the ancient Chinese feelings expressed by this song. Just changed the dance moves that were relatively more powerful and changed them into softer ones."
Lu Wei revealed that the finals of "This Street 4" will select a World Street Dance Federation. "We hope that these dancers from all over the world will bring street dance show brands back to their countries. A steady stream of young dancers are sent to this show."
Captain: "One old, two new, one cute" leading the team
As for the captain lineup of "This Street 4", which has attracted the most public attention, Lu Wei described it as "one old, two new, one cute".
"One Old" is the captain of the previous two seasons, Han Geng, "Two New" are the captains of the previous season Wang Yibo and Zhang Yixing, and "One Meng" is the newly added Liu Xianhua.
Lu Wei said: "Liu Xianhua was the first to practice tremor dance. Like Captain Yi Bo, he is relatively old school; Captain Yixing and Captain Han Geng are more inclined to urban choreography, so they are more balanced in the dance configuration."
In Lu Wei's view, the three "old" captains have different styles: "Captain Yibo expressed his mentality of going on this show from the beginning of this year. He even hopes to come and learn because there are many master-level dancers this year. 。As long as he doesn’t use video, he will learn some tricks from dancers he knows well. Captain Han Geng has made a big breakthrough in dance this year. I think his freestyle battle will bring everyone a big surprise. Captain Yixing this year He challenged a lot of dances he was not familiar with. Last year, everyone saw his Krump dance, and this year everyone saw his lock dance. After that, he and Captain Liu Xianhua had a round of shock dance confrontation, which was very exciting. ."
Last year's "This Street 3" was won by Wang Yibo's team. This year Wang Yibo's team has recruited a large number of powerful dancers such as HB group, Bobu, Yeyin and so on.
Ye Yin praised Wang Yibo for his "very fast progress": "In the third season, as a referee, I went to the scene to watch the battle of the four captains and watched Yibo's lock dance. At that time, I felt that he could dance with many kinds of dance, and the movement of lock dance. Yes, but the taste is not that mature. This year I talked to him face to face and taught him some points to pay attention to in lock dance. He learned very fast and made rapid progress in just a few weeks."