Montreal's Urban Culture Festival Is Bringing Breakdance & Basketball All Summer

Montreal's Quartier des Spectacles will come alive this summer with breakdance and basketball. From September 1 to 3, you can catch free hip hop performances and live street art creation downtown at DISTRIX. But you can start immersing yourself in urban culture and sport as early as May.

The festival will host breakdance battles and basketball competitions with some of the world’s best athletes competing ahead of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.

"In order to give these increasingly popular disciplines and world athletes a place to shine, we’ve decided to bring the DISTRIX experience to people year-round by creating different events for the public," said Jo-Annie Charbonneau, Head of Public Revenue, Sports and Development at Productions Podium.

DISTRIX will host the "WDSF Breaking for Gold" at Théâtre Maisonneuve on June 3 and 4, which will serve as the only North American qualifier for this year's Olympic breaking category. The event will bring together the most talented dancers from all over the world, including B-Boy El Nino (USA), B-Boy Poter (Israel), B-Girl Snap1 (USA), and the exceptional 16-year-old B-Boy Hiro10 (Japan).

The competition will also showcase two Québecois dancers, Mathieu Mad Track Nadeau from Sherbrooke, who has been a member of the national team since 2022, and Samuel Mass Cyr from Montreal, a finalist in the 2019 show Révolution. Tickets are yet to go on sale.

A few days earlier, on May 27, the Quebec breakdancers will gather at Théâtre Corona for the Championnat Breaking Québec finale and a chance to move on to the Canadian Championships. It's the first time all provinces will be competing on the same circuit (Breaking Canada). Tickets are available online, starting at $32.

From August 18 to 20, the Quebec City Old Port Agora will host two world tournaments: a Women's Series and a men's 3x3 Challenger, with over 100 athletes competing. The event will be broadcast globally in nearly 100 countries.

The following month you can catch similar basketball tournaments, along with breakdance, street art and rap shows, at the free festival in downtown Montreal. Keep your eyes peeled for the full festival program release later this summer.