Our Backyard
Subscribe
X

Get the latest from Beat

Our Backyard

ourbackyard.jpg

“I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot of the battles that will be going on,” enthuses Randy. “The exciting thing for us is that this will be the first time that we’re performing at Our Backyard as a crew. We’ve performed there previously but as part of different crews – Urban Force Senior and Elusive Dance Crew – those two came together because we shared a passion for popping. The two separate crews were just doing hip-hop and urban choreography at the time but Poptarts just does popping, that’s our speciality.”

For their routine at Our Backyard, Randy says Poptarts will do a short repeat of their performance at this year’s prestigious World Hip-Hop International competition which saw the boys fly to Vegas and have the time of their lives. Well, almost!

“A lot of the guys in Poptarts were actually under 21 at the time so we couldn’t really party as much as we would have wanted to!” Randy laughs. “We just ended up hanging out at the event a lot, we met a lot of our idols from world-famous dance crews – that part was just incredible in itself! There were 35 countries competing so we made a lot of friends from all over the world, and everybody was so friendly. We’re hoping to go back to the Vegas competition again next year, we’ll have more time to practice at least. We were happy with our performance but it was just a bit too rushed, we didn’t have much time! Being on that stage in front of the whole world pretty much was amazing. We were backstage at one point just before we went on – and the crowd outside would always do a unique chant for every country – and I remember us hearing ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi’ being screamed out there and we’d just never felt so proud to be Australians like we were at that moment! Plus, being surrounded by your mates in the crew, we’re all pretty close and me muck around – the whole thing was an experience of a lifetime. At Our Backyard we’ll get to do a two-minute version of that performance, so we’re looking forward to people seeing what we did in Vegas.”

For event organiser and Hip-Hop Coordinator for The Push, Arna Singleton, Our Backyard serves as the annual highlight due to the fact that the showcase brings so many people together – both young and old. More importantly, however, Our Backyard highlights the positive effects of hip-hop culture on the community and its importance in getting young people inspired to explore their creativity.

“The most surprising thing about Our Backyard is probably the demographic is attracts – it’s a real mix!” says Singleton. “I think people might assume that it’s purely a young people’s event, but it’s definitely not. You may have the young people performing on the stage, but there are a lot of mums and dads and families, and even grandma will come along sometimes! You’ll even see some punks walking around… People are just intrigued because it’s a free event. Apart from that, I think what makes this event unique is the different elements of hip-hop culture that are brought together at Our Backyard – that doesn’t normally happen. So all four of them – emceeing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti – all of those sub-cultures come together under one umbrella here.”

And even though the event is not just about young and emerging talent – Our Backyard also featuring a host of big hip-hop names – Singleton insists that it’s not the ‘headliners’ that serve as the main attraction.

“Well, last year we had Muph & Plutonic, the year before that we had Bliss N Eso, and this year we’ve got Mantra,” she lists. “But what we’ve found over the years is that it isn’t necessarily the headline name that draws the people to this event! It’s actually the wide variety of performers and types of performances that intrigues the audiences. The emcee battles and the break dancing battles have always been one of the most popular things about the event – and people don’t normally get to see that because it’s still fairly underground! We’ve found that people are really interested in the parts of the event which they wouldn’t really have a chance to see every day. So even though it’s nice to have the big names support us and take part in Our Backyard, that’s not all that this is about.”