Lords of The Land IV - (Intl. Hip Hop & Street Dance Festival & Championship)

Presented by 10K Movement, the fourth annual Lords of The Land (LoTL) is a weekend-long international summer festival bringing authentic Hip Hop culture to Cleveland, Ohio and the surrounding region. The main day will be hosted at Severance Hall on Saturday, July 27th and will feature three Hip Hop & Street Dance battle tournaments in three distinct Street dance genres - Popping, Hip Hop & Breaking.

LoTL IV highlights the excellence, athleticism and artistry of the dancers in these American folk genres, providing local dancers an international platform to showcase their skills, hard work & individual flavor. Dancers compete for $3000 of cash prizes on the line for the coveted LoTL championship title.  

The festivities are open to the general public, and include: 

• Main Event: Three 1v1 dance battle championship tournaments ($1000 prize x 3)]
• Dance workshops/classes  (Thursday, July 25th & Friday, July 26th)
• Dance performance showcases from local dance groups
• Open Dance cyphers (standing room & seating available)

LoTL IV provides firsthand access to these dance forms for the local youth, aspiring young professionals, and the larger community. This culminating summer event is part of 10K Movement’s larger work addressing the need for a more equitable infrastructure for dancers & artists. 

• Launch marketing plan
• Sponsorship outreach 
• Vendor outreach (food & beverage) outreach
• Local Black-owned businesses and organization outreach
• Tournament judges, performance group & artist services outreach
• Secure & finalize venue
• Secure event equipment (dance floor/stage, audio & lighting)
• Social media and print marketing materials
• Order apparel
• Finalize vendors and sponsors
• Finalize judges, guest groups and artist services 
• Final marketing push, news/press outlet outreach

The core 10K team fell in love with Hip Hop [music/culture] for different reasons—its wordplay, story-telling capacity, and social justice imperatives to name a few. When we began to learn different forms of Street dance, which are all improvisational by nature, dance quickly became more than just a hobby. It became a personal practice, a creative playground, a vocation, and a viable discipline requiring hours upon hours (10,000 to be exact) to hone. 

Generally defined by its four main elements of MCing, DJing, Breaking (dance), and Graffiti, as well as its five values of Peace, Love, Unity, Having Fun & Knowledge—Hip Hop is the most impactful folk culture on the planet. LoTL provides a firsthand example for how Hip Hop creates an environment of organic exchange, conversation, and connection between people of all backgrounds through the music and culture. 

LoTL exists firstly for the dancers, but all are welcome and encouraged to attend in order to experience Hop culture's five values in action. We want new audiences to walk away from the weekend with a fresh outlook on Hip Hop, tor their personal dance, and a renewed sense of connection with one another. LoTL IV will continue to create awareness of these American folk genres in our community, open doors for partnerships & collaboration, and paid jobs for dancers & artists in the Greater Cleveland community.  

The broader needs that LoTL address are as follows:

• Preserve - Access to knowledge & education -  Street Dance styles face a threat of cultural erasure. We work to ensure access to the knowledge, to ensure the context, history, and nuances of the dances are maintained and become more prevalent. The threat is familiar, of having the art form’s true origins extracted from the original narrative, as happened with Rock N’ Roll, for example, or vernacular Jazz Dance.
• Present - Hip Hop & Street Dance on our own terms - After years of Street Dance pioneers being flown and hosted abroad to share their dance innovations, overseas organizers in Asia and Europe have been heavily mobilized since the late 80’s. Meanwhile in the U.S. where all of these styles were created, the infrastructure and support lags behind due to various socioeconomic inequities.
• Cultivate - the ecosystem and regard for these American folk forms - Highly touted and exploited for their entertainment value, but often not truly valued in practice, Street Dance artists are generally the lowest paid artists. Their rates are often not honored, and commonly offered a promise of “exposure” over true pay for their work.

We likewise want our home city to be considered seriously as a major hub for the Street dance community, and recognized as such in the broader arts world. Having contributed to these cultural inventions all throughout their creation, and evolution, Cleveland & Northeast Ohio hosts an entire community and sub communities who practice, cultivate, and evolve these Black and Latino American art forms.