An established Hip Hop breaker and choreographer in Berlin, Kadir “Amigo” Memiş has always been interested in collaboration between artists and forms across borders. However, Amigo explained to us that Hip Hop is based on the culture of battles. Competition is built in. Outsiders who don’t understand the rules might see this as combative or aggressive, but insiders recognize what the boundaries are and make choices about when to push them. This kind of competition can actually facilitate engagement and turn violence into art. For example, Amigo participated in a project in a prison that used breaking as a tool to bring enemies into conversation. “Arabs and Nazis were dancing together,” he told us. “It was amazing.” The project led to a piece choreographed by Amigo and directed by Adrian Figueroa based on discussions with the prisoners.

 

Amigo understands from experience what it is like to need breaking to survive. He first came to Berlin in 1984 as a young child to join his parents, who had migrated as guest workers (Gastarbeiter) a few years previously. Amigo told us how he grew up with his uncle in a small village in western Turkey where the local davulcu (a drummer who plays at important social events, like weddings and during Ramadan to wake Muslims up before fasting begins) employed him as a dancing bear. The folk dances of Anatolia often employ the movements of animals or evocation of their qualities. Replicating the movements as he told us the story, Amigo explained how, at 8 years old, he would pull a fur over his head and embody the spirit of a bear. Amigo also helped to harvest sunflower seeds in the Autumn. Holding a sunflower in one hand and a stick in the other, he would beat the seeds out as he moved the flower in a circular motion. Out of boredom, Amigo began creating rhythms, treating the sunflower like a drum.

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Amigo’s sudden move from a small village to the city of Berlin was a shock. He didn’t know the German language or culture. Living with migrant parents in the inner city, he encountered the youth culture of 1980s Berlin. Thankfully, this included breaking, which became his passport through the city. In 1993, he founded the internationally acclaimed Hip Hop dance crew, Flying Steps, with Vartan Bassil, which won several world breaking championships. Amigo made his name with this crew and established his place in the Hip Hop scene in Berlin. However, he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to express himself fully as a creative artist. When he happened to meet the widely-acclaimed German dancer and choreographer, Pina Bausch, at a dance event in the mid-1990s, she encouraged him to become a choreographer. “What’s a choreographer?” Amigo remembers asking her. When he realized that he could pursue this new path, he left Flying Steps to focus on developing his own style.

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Amigo describes himself as an “urban nomad” who collects gestures and sounds everywhere he goes. Tapping into his Anatolian roots, Amigo became the first Berlin Hip Hop artist to combine breaking with other elements and create a fusion style called Zeybreak. This style brings breaking together with Zeybek, a folk dance from western Turkey. In both forms, the dancer responds to the music, so this provides the basis for the synthesis. (Amigo further explains his background and artistic process here and here). Amigo went on to direct Anadolu Break, a film about three dancers who go on a journey to Anatolia to discover regional dances. He also experiments with putting calligraphy and graffiti art into conversation.

 

Both Zeybreak and Anadolu Break were about cultural and artistic exchange, which define Amigo’s philosophy as an artist. Although both were well-received internationally, some folk dancers in Turkey criticized Amigo’s fusion style for threatening the conservation of traditional dances. As an artist, Amigo rejects these kinds of boundaries. His work has always questioned the lines between genres, styles, and identities. “Hip Hop is magic,” Amigo told us. “It is universal – dance doesn’t need a label.” For Amigo, Hip Hop allows many things in, and it can engage in several directions to bring different people and forms together. “I want depth in my work.” The way to go deeper, for Amigo, is to be formless. He can be a bear, a mime, an aggressor, a teacher, a facilitator, a performer, an artist. Blurring the lines between social categories gives Amigo the freedom to express his own experiences as a migrant from Turkey to Germany, an experience that many people in Germany can relate to (according to the 2011 census, there are 2.7 million people in Germany with a migration background from Turkey).

 

Amigo has inspired many young dancers with his courage and creativity. Saman Sebastian Hamdi, who was influenced by Amigo at the beginning of his own Hip Hop career, is a dancer, teacher, scholar, and activist based in Berlin. As the son of a German mother and Kurdish father, he acutely experienced the internal conflicts of a binary identity. Like Amigo, Hip Hop provided Saman with a home outside of national boundaries. The cypher became a place where he could connect directly to people without labels. “The shared craft, practice, and dedication to breaking is all that the dancers need to come together.” For Saman, the cypher is the purest space. While commercialized events overemphasize competition, underground-oriented practitioners continue to organize cyphers where dancers can freestyle. Saman is concerned that the pressure of mainstream culture is overwhelming Hip Hop, but, like Emre, he finds hope in counter movements that retain the political and social salience of Hip Hop culture.

 

Hip Hop provided Saman with the opportunity to travel all over the world, from Senegal to New York, to dance with artists like Amigo and to work with German and refugee youth. Like Asil and Zen-G in Istanbul, Saman has used Hip Hop as a tool for community engagement and the empowerment of young people. His father’s experiences with political asylum inspired him to work with refugee kids, as he recognizes their need for a home outside of national affiliations. “Hip Hop opens the door to what it means to be human – to sing and dance together, to be together in the moment, to really see each other.” Hip Hop has also provided Saman with a creative way to fight for families’ right to stay in Germany.

 

In recent years, Saman organized an international, week-long film festival in Germany called “Hollyhood - Hip Hop and Social Justice” with artists from Senegal, NYC, and Germany. He has also employed Hip Hop in anti-racist initiatives and social projects, such as the Knochenbrecher Crew in Berlin, in which German youth and kids from asylum-seeking families learned to dance as a path to their structural and social inclusion. Saman finds that rap and breaking are often familiar to young people as popular culture, so they provide a ready ‘in’ to discuss issues like racism, gender exclusion, and nationalism. He has used this potential in workshops in East Germany and Berlin as well as within university seminars. For Saman, recognizing Hip Hop’s African American history means recognizing its origins in a culture of resistance. But he believes that Hip Hop’s universality overcomes national and other boundaries and provides the tools for reaching displaced people and giving them a home in the Hip Hop culture and community. Breaking brings together practitioners from all over the world and the only thing that matters is their skills on the dance floor.

 

However, Saman is concerned that nationalism is encroaching on Hip Hop, especially with the recent inclusion of breaking as a sport in the Olympics. While he believes it is good news that breaking is now permitted in places like Iran, he worries that the divisions that Hip Hop has worked so hard to overcome are threatening to return. Nazi Hip Hop and Turkish nationalist rap in Germany are cases in point. For Saman, these do not live up to the ideals of Hip Hop. “Why Hip Hop Nation?” he asks. “How about a global Hip Hop culture?”