‘We have to have graffiti!’ How we made the Breakin’ Convention hip-hop dance festival

Jonzi D, founder and artistic director I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, performing my piece Aeroplane Man. Alistair Spalding had booked the show and said: “Hey, what else are you up to?” I said: “Look, I’m not the only person who does this kind of work, using hip-hop as a theatrical device. Let’s do a hip-hop theatre festival!” Then Alistair got his job as artistic director at Sadler’s Wells and said: “Jonzi, shall we do this thing?” I was very confident about the calibre of artists I was proposing – they’d just never been seen in this context before. I wanted to feature krump in this country for the first time – Tommy the Clown, the dance’s originator in LA, usually performed at house parties and magic shows. We had Rennie Harris from the US, we had groups from Korea, we had the Electric Boogaloos [acclaimed California funk dancers]. I said to Alistair: “We have to have graffiti on the walls!” I was expecting him to say: “Ah, not sure we can do that.” But he said: “Yes, the walls are white so after the event we can just paint over them!” The only problem was at...