It’s always interesting when you open your e-mail news alerts to see a familiar b-boy face. In this case, the New York Times prominently displayed a picture of France’s Junior here.

The story is in response to productions at Sadler’s Wells that include Breakin’ Convention, a poorly-named but interesting enough hip-hop dance theatre festival held in London. This year’s event featured a personal performance from Junior, about which the author wrote the following:

On May 4 at the Baylis Studio, Junior, a powerfully built young French Congolese man, gave a one-man show in which his feet often never met the ground. He specializes in off-kilter handstands; he can run on his hands; once he skittered across the stage by hopping in triplets — on alternate hands. At first I assumed he was never going to stand upright.

But later his feet played their part, memorably: he walks with a limp, and he turned this into a rhythmic dance virtue. He also talked about identity: having left Congo at 5, he can no longer speak his first language and has few memories of his native land. But “I dance, therefore I am,” he said; thanks to dance, he “became someone.”

The transition from cypher to stage isn’t always so pretty, but it seems like Junior has a pretty neat story to tell–not to mention a memorable way of telling it. You can watch a snippet of the performance here.

Even more impressive is the all-star roster the event pulls, including big names like Ken Swift.

Considering how dope the footage and the guests seem to be from the videos, it’s surprising that this event doesn’t get more shine from the b-boy community at large. Maybe it’s because b-boys are too b-boy to fit in well at a “dance theatre” event.