At the top of August, Full Circle performed a dance piece at the Jackie Robinson Bandshell for Arts Roots Rhythm festival including one of Rokafella's newest songs Venus Is Running! Thank you to Henry Chop and G I Jane for joining us. We later performed that same program for Dancing in the Streets-Casita Maria's Block party and enjoyed Riku Monsoon's presence in our set as well!


Rokafella celebrated her birthday at Behind The Groove along with many friends who showed up to party. Two cakes and lots of pretty faces made up the evening of funk and soul in honor of 4 decades of Leo love!
Big shout to Yvone Chow and Nay Marie also celebrating birthdays!



Although Hurricane Irene delayed our company's arrival for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show and Mixing Texts program, we still got there and hit the floor running. We were happy to know it was Jerry "Sole Junky" Valme's first trip outside of NYC. First we worked on mapping out Innaviews-a duet written by Kwikstep and Rokafella, to see all its elements and arc. Then we worked on How To Break written by Aaron Jeffaris and directed by Cristopher Edwards to also figure out what works and what needs to be added. Sole Junky and Lady Beast joined our crew. Spex and Rafael Xavier who made their second appearance with Full Circle gave their feedback and support for the process of reworking a script for a play. A midday panel discussion was also on the list of activies for the mixing texts group which also included Adam Matta as the vocal percussionist-- beat boxer and Roberta Burke as an actress/singer--both whom are part of the How To Break cast. Thank you to Claudia Alick for organizing this lab ( and for re organizing after hurricane/airport problems ) and to Lue Douthit who helped ask the right questions and give us great feedback.

Spexx, Lady Beast and Rafael taught dance workshops open to the public and the OSF company who may have not ever taken a hip-hop dance class before this one.

Full Circle brought back the Afro Latin piece from last year's show and Rafael Xavier shared a new spoken word/monologue piece accompanied with movement done by Sole Junky. FC presented a popping piece entitled "Kickin it to the Klassix" which had a fusion of Bach's piano concerto piece mixed with Popping music- mixed by Kwikstep. This peice was first done live in 2007 at Central Park Summerstage. "Live" meaning concert pianist Cristina Altamura and Beatbox-er Baba Israel provided the soundscape while we did the choreography. Budgets have impeded us from doing it like that since but thank god for technology!!!
Thank you to Jess Carr, Cassie and Frederico and the support team on the bricks!!

All in all it was a great experience to be in a small town with a big heart and deep passion for art. It was another chance to share our passion and exchange with a community that would otherwise be distant to us. Shakepeare and Hip-hop are similar in that they are both languages used for storytelling within a time period. The party at Vinyl for Soul Sundays was great--thank you to Peter Macon!! We loved the plays--Ceasar, Measure for Measure and African Company Does Richard III ! We missed you Bill!!

Kwikstep returned from Oregon and DJ'ed with Grand Wizard Theodore for the September Behind The Groove and then for NYC Deep's party in Brooklyn for Peven Everett's performance. Rokafella is looking forward to screening All The Ladies Say at Chicago's Hip-hop for Social Justice event at Northeastern Illinios University with Lady Champ and Aiko. www.alltheladiessay.com Kwikstep will begin to teach at Central H.S. in Newark til November. If you are a NYC teen and wish to train in breakin' feel free to come to the Door teen center near Canal Street in MAnhattan --Mondays 4-6pm, Wednesdays 6-8pm and Thursdays 5-8pm.. Free with registration/membership.
call 212 941 9090 log onto www.door.org
If you are interested in donating your services or funds to our non profit organization please reach out to us at fullcirclesoul@hotmail.com .