Juste Debout 2013

Juste Debout 2013 is fast approaching and with all the preliminary matches finished all that’s left is the main event in Paris on the 10^th. Juste Debout is the biggest event in urban dance in the world they have categories for house, popping, hip-hop, locking, top rock, and experimental. I will be honest with you I don’t get the experimental section of the competition, it mostly seems to be people doing jazz or modern and those not doing jazz or modern really aren’t doing anything too special just happen to be doing it to strange “music”. If you don’t believe me, which you shouldn’t because I really don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the link to this year’s experimental prelims from Japan

I’m not taking anything away from them plenty of things are amazing that I don’t understand.

This year’s Juste Debout is especially interesting to me because this will be the second time that my company mates Tasha and Toyin are heading to Paris for the finals in house. Toyin and Tasha are both members of Urban Artistry as well as Assassins. They won two years ago in 2011 becoming the first Americans as well as the first women to win the competition, which finally gave me video proof that they were in fact the dopest in the world. I always knew that but now when anyone tries to argue I can send them the below links:

This is unfortunately the only video I could find of the finals 2011. It appears that Toyin and Tasha winning Juste Debout upset a few Frenchmen because you can’t even find the final on the Juste Debout youtube page. It may also be noted that if competition this year is nearly as stiff as it was in 2011 (they defeated Mamson & Babson, P-Jay & UK, as well as the Footworkingz in Paris alone) the two ladies will be in great company come March 10^th. This year in New York Tasha and Toyin beat Samo and Hurrikane in the finals:

(COUR would like to wish Toyin and Tasha luck in style: )

Unfortunately Toyin and Tasha dominating in NYC wasn’t the only repeat this year at Juste Debout. Ryan and Rashaad also Urban Artistry members and also Assassins got robbed in the final rounds of the popping qualifier this time on their tour in Europe. Both 2011 and this year’s injustices are posted after the jump.

I have no other way to describe this but my man Baronhawk said it best:

And I don’t know how this battle went to tie breaker much less how Ryan and Rashaad lost.

(And COUR would like to send our condolences to eh Assassins in style as well: )

The only way for me to describe this is to relate to a similar injustice in recent history. It seems to me that Green-Tek’s “victory” over the assassins was very much the same as Sandra Bullock’s best actress win in 2009. Hardly the best performance (the worst) but people (or in Green-Tek’s case Canadians) made enough noise about how upset they were there contestant of choice had never won before. In Bullock’s case the much more deserving Carey Mulligan, Helen Mirren, and Meryl Streep suffered, in Green-Tek’s case the much much more deserving Rashaad and Ryan suffered but I guess all we can say is next year hopefully.

Some bonus stuff for the kids:

The same year Toyin and Tasha won the Juste Debout finals, fellow Assassins and Urban Artistry executive director Junious Brickhouse battled Mamson and Babson in the first round with his partner Sara:

This is my favorite non-popping, non-house battle of the 2013 Juste Debout tour so far (and that’s not only because Tiger-B looks like a gigantic Frank Ocean: