Have Dance Floor, Will Travel: D.O.A. Crew Raise Money for Battle

Later this month Lowcountry breakdancers D.O.A. Crew will be facing off with crews from all over the country in Orlando at the Free Style Session USA Finals, but first they need to fund the trip down to the competition.

So Friday several members of the crew carried an old-school boom-box manufactured sometime in the mid 80s, a sheet of linoleum flooring, some duct tape to anchor the linoleum in place and a couple of buckets out to Marion Square and spent the day trying out new moves and refining their repertoire hoping to collect a few dollars from the passing King Street shoppers.  

In fact the crew hits Marion Square most weekends, at least when they aren't battling other crews out of town (they recently returned from Miami) or performing locally. D.O.A. has performed at the Children's Museum and with DanceFX.

The 11 members of D.O.A. Crew range in age from 11 to 25.

"We all taught each other sort of," D.O.A. President, 17-year-old Devante "B-Boy Burn-n" Burn Powell said. "Having older people that have already been doing it teach us, we just watched something, we copied it and then we made it our own, like we changed it and tried to make it our own style."

"It's like a family too," Jordan "BboySinobi" Peck, 24 and one of the 'old men' of the crew, said. "We've got the OGs and the new generation, so the OGs can teach the new generation and the new generation can also teach the OGs, like (Powell) teaches me, I'll be learning something from him every day. We all learn from each other to make ourselves better."

D.O.A. Crew will take to the floor at a session competition in Goose Creek at the Goose Creek Recreation Center from 4 - 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 22. The Free Style finals in Orlando are the following weekend on June 29-30.