Act Out! A Whacking Battle: Pride Edition

Join us for Ottawa's first edition of Act Out, a free dance battle, party, and celebration of 2SLGBTQI+ creativity centred on street dance known as whacking/waacking.

Exhilarating exchanges, fabulous outfits, gender savagery, dramatic posing, music, storytelling... we are pulling out all the magic and you won't want to miss it.

Guests are welcome to join as spectators or enter into the battle as participants. The dress code is PRIDE, so we invite attendees to have fun with your outfits and express yourself however you like! (Hint: there is a prize for Best Dressed that could go to anyone at the event, so don't be afraid to go all out!)

For battlers, we are thrilled to be offering a CASH PRIZE of $200 to the winner, courtesy of House of PainT Festival.

In addition to enjoying local talent and guest artists from Montreal and Toronto during the battle, there will also be the opportunity to get down for some fun casual dancing and channel the spirit of the clubs from which this dance form evolved.

So what exactly is whacking?

Whacking (also known as waacking) is a queer, afro-descendant street dance that evolved from a style called punking, which emerged in the underground LGBTQ clubs of Los Angeles in the 1970s by a group of young BIPOC gay men. Today, whacking communities exist all around the world.

The theme this year for House of PainT Festival is Deconstructed. And whacking, since its origins, has provided an outlet for dancers of all backgrounds to deconstruct gender stereotypes and turn pain and oppression into beauty and self-expression. In Act Out, we are also deconstructing the barriers between art forms and will be drawing from multiple artistic disciplines as the night unfolds.

The purpose of the battle is to highlight the dramatic aspect of whacking and its influence from actors and actresses, as well as how some of the music we have inspires us to be expressive in this regard (literally, this song makes me want to “act out”). This encounter between prompts, music and dancing with other people creates truly magical moments, as you can see in the Act Out Volume 1 recap from Montreal.

Special thanks to House of PainT and the National Arts Centre.