From November 12–16, Vilnius will be filled with the energy of dance, music and creative expression as the international hip-hop culture and dance festival Urban Essentials takes over the city. More than just a festival, Urban Essentials is a space to meet, share creative practices, learn and celebrate hip-hop culture. The programme features spectacular dance battles, creative talks and workshops with renowned dancers and choreographers, international dance performances, DJ sets, and a special performance by two-time Emmy Award winner Toki Wright and Augustina. Events will take place across various venues in Vilnius.
“Show your body tag!” – a new festival slogan
“This year, we are introducing a new festival slogan, ‘Show your body tag!’, referring to street art culture, where a ‘tag’ is an artist’s signature in public space. We invite people to express their identity, creativity and sense of freedom through the body, boldly leaving their mark on the history of Urban Essentials through movement. The festival is a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in hip-hop dance culture, develop your skills and experience Vilnius as a vibrant and authentic dance scene,” says Laurynas Žakevičius, festival director and organiser, and co-founder of Low Air, Vilnius City Dance Theatre.
This year, Urban Essentials sought to become a qualifying event for Juste Debout Lithuania, part of the internationally renowned Juste Debout hip-hop dance festival, bringing even more attention to both the festival and Vilnius. However, the organisers decided to withdraw from the opportunity after learning that, alongside events in other countries, Juste Debout had also scheduled an event in Moscow.
“For us, as artists and organisers, values matter more than opportunities today. Hip-hop culture was historically born as a form of resistance to political and social injustice, and today it has evolved into a powerful artistic and cultural movement that carries the idea of positive protest. Urban Essentials is a festival with a clear set of values, which is why it is important for us to distance ourselves from destructive political forces, actively participate in Lithuania’s cultural movement, and amplify the cultural community’s call to remove ‘Nemuno Aušra’ from culture,” emphasises L. Žakevičius.
€4,000 prize fund for the dance battles
On November 14–15, the festival will host its dance battles – a spectacular face-off between dancers competing in pairs. More than 200 dancers from over 10 countries will take part. A wide range of dance styles will meet on the floor, from hip-hop and breaking to house and funk, including waacking, popping and locking. The battles will be hosted by MCs who will set the pace, engage the audience and keep the energy flowing between the music and the dancers.
This year’s hosts and DJs include prominent names from around the world: JIKAY (France), winner of the Popping category at Summer Dance Forever; Mavinga (Congo/Belgium), winner of the House category at Summer Dance Forever Japan; breaking legend Poe One; DJ Renegade (UK); DJ Lucas Benjamin (Netherlands); MC Toki Wright (USA) and many others.
Registration for the dance battles is open until November 12. Participants will compete for a €4,000 prize fund as well as numerous gifts from festival partners, while audiences will have the opportunity to see world-class dancers up close and experience a true celebration of hip-hop culture and dance.
From the Lithuanian stage debut of locking to a collective groove experience
The programme features four theatrical dance performances. Moroccan company Cie Chara will present two works by choreographers Yassine Alaoui Ismaili and Friederike Frost, exploring narratives of the Arab world through the movements of breaking. Frost returns to the festival after serving as a judge in the final battle of Dominika Banevič-B-Girl Nicka, who won a silver medal at the 2024 Olympic Games. Together with Y. A. Ismaili, she critically explores themes of coexistence and the situation in the Gaza Strip through their work.
Urban Essentials will open with HIT 7AYT, an invitation to discover an artistic, urban and embodied vision of contemporary Casablanca – far removed from Orientalist or colonial interpretations and rooted instead in real life and everyday experiences. The company’s second performance, SELAM, brings the city of Casablanca into Vilnius’s public space, combining elements of participatory and urban dance with Moroccan culture and an intimate theatrical atmosphere.
French company As Compagnie will present QUATRE TROIS, the debut work by Andrège Bidiamambu and Seren Kano – the first professional stage performance in Lithuania dedicated to the locking dance style. The artists experiment with locking as a form of shared language, turning movement into a live conversation between themselves and the audience. Locking is an energetic street dance style that emerged in 1970s Los Angeles, characterised by sudden stops (“locks”), fast footwork and playful hand gestures. At its heart are joy, improvisation and personal expression.
The festival will close with Spanish dancer Marina Pravkina’s performance THE GROOVES EXPERIENCE, inviting audiences to a house dance and music party. Together with the dancer, spectators will immerse themselves in a collective experience – a choreographic exploration of club culture as a contemporary ritual that restores the need for communal movement in a society increasingly dominated by control and individualism.
A space to learn, connect and create
On November 13, a symposium will take place at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA) campus, followed by workshops with the dance battle judges at the Low Air Dance School on November 15–17. These events will explore hip-hop dance as a multicultural and diverse form of movement, inviting participants to reflect, create and learn through practices rooted in both academic and non-academic communities.
“Our aim is for Urban Essentials to become not only one of the most important international hip-hop culture and dance festivals in Lithuania, but also a platform that expands the diversity of street dance and encourages the exchange of creative experiences and knowledge. This year’s symposium is titled ‘Crossfade: From Knowledge to Creation in Hip-Hop Studies.’ We invite participants to rethink hip-hop as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, creativity and community, and to see it as a constant process of transition,” says Airida Gudaitė, festival organiser, symposium curator, co-founder of Vilnius City Dance Theatre Low Air and LMTA doctoral student.
The symposium will feature presentations by Jonzi D (UK), associate artist at Sadler’s Wells and artistic director of Breakin’ Convention; Toki Wright (USA), two-time Emmy Award winner and Head of the Professional Music Division at Berklee College of Music; DJ Lucas Benjamin (Netherlands), founder of Wicked Wax Music; and Airida Gudaitė, who will also moderate the event together with Laurynas Žakevičius. The symposium is free of charge, but registration is required.
Festival events will take place at Lukiškės Prison 2.0, the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre campus, and the Low Air Dance School, with satellite events at the Innovation Agency Lithuania. The concert by Toki Wright and Augustina will take place at Tamsta Music Club.
The festival programme is partially funded by the Vilnius City Municipality, the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Embassies of Germany and Spain, and the British Council. The information partner is LRT Plius.