Dourdan, France! Powermoves!

Sunday/Early Monday

The upper end of Dourdan

Sunday was the day of the bboying event, so I didn't run around trying doing as many things as some of the other days.  This was a really enjoyable break - I was pretty exhausted at this point in the trip from all of the walking and traveling.  The event was held in Dourdan, a city about an hour outside of Paris.  Most of Dourdan was closed down, because it was both a Sunday and a holiday - Victory in Europe Day, the day the Nazi military officially surrendered to the Allies.  The town was pretty small, so it was easy to find the venue.  In fact, once I got off the train and walked for a block or two, I was able to hear the music (they were blasting some songs outside), and just follow the sound until I arrived at the venue - how hip hop is that?  Very hip-hop, I would say.
The jam was a 2 day event - the first consisted of several different competitions, the main one being a power battle, where different bboys battled for the open eighth slot in the main competition.  This also would've been fun to attend, but I didn't go because I wanted to spend the day in Versailles.

The event was held in a theater, which makes a lot of sense - most of the people were probably there to watch the world-class competitors, so obviously it is important that everyone can see.  A typical jam is held in a large open room so that between the rounds of the competition people have room to dance, but it wasn't as necessary here.  Sitting in a theater for a jam was a novel experience for me. There was also a projector that played short trailers of the bboys on the screen behind the stage, which was also new and interesting.  The only downside was that because of all of the power trailers, I heard that "Invaders Must Die" song by the prodigy at least 50 times, which gets old pretty quickly.

The stage where the competition took place.

Even though all of the bboys were doing powermoves, they all added their own unique flavor, which I think is a cool response to the idea in some bboying circles that there is this dichotomy between style and power - these bboys have a lot of style in their power.  The final battle was between lil g and marcio, with lil g winning.  The stamina of those competitors is amazing - I have no idea how they still have that much energy after throwing moves like that all day.  A link to the final battle is below, if you are interested.

That evening I returned to Amsterdam, via the route of train, to metro, to metro, to eurolines bus, to one more train.  I arrived home in Amsterdam, exhausted, early Monday morning.