Lt. Sunnie will emcee “The Gathering,” which kicks off the three-day dance street festival “Sota Movement.” (Provided by Lt. Sunnie)
He specializes in krump dancing, an expressive, muscular kind of hip-hop that features staccato movements. That’s how he met Gbadamosi, another practitioner of the form. Gbadamosi got his start dancing at Apple Valley High School, where many years before, Maiden had founded a hip-hop dance team called Infinity.
By the time Gbadamosi was in high school, he danced with that same group, and further taught himself krump dancing first via YouTube videos before visiting other states to further train in the style.
Johnson and Gbadamosi organized their first “Uprizing” in 2014 with Tou Saiko Lee, who has since moved on to other projects.
In 2021, Maiden was thinking of ways to expand the “Rooted” festival, and approached Gbadamosi and Johnson about bringing their two festivals together.
“When I was thinking about where to take hip-hop and street culture next, we didn’t have a festival that combined a battle and a performance and workshops and kind of a pre-party,” she said. “So when I thought about who the people to do this with would be, I immediately thought about Uprizing.”
Saturday’s event, “Uprizing,” is themed around passing the torch, where both experienced dancers and younger ones will be brought together for knowledge sharing. In an example of this theme, a young krump dancer from Detroit named Bam Bam will face off against one of the most world-renowned krumpers, Ruin.
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