Sashe Mishur knew nothing about hip hop.
She and her partner Kate Moran were at the 2008 Triangle Fest when Moran persuaded her to stop by a performance by Rene Avila, better known as TurboRoc, a breakdancer well known in Milwaukee and Madison. Mishur, 70 at the time, was impressed.
“I said, ‘Oh. My. God. What is this that I have been missing?’” she recalls. “So we got involved.”
Mishur, a longtime volunteer at the East Madison Community Center, invited local teens and adults to gather and dance. No instructors, no formal lessons … just people who wanted to dance.
“The first series of workshops, we had 80 people,” Mishur says. “They were teaching each other. We were really doing the ‘each one, teach one.’ Everybody’s got a move. If you knew something, you taught it to someone else. That’s how it’s grown.”
Now, the Madison Breakers, as they’ve come to be known, come from as far away as Verona to Madison’s far east side, 20 to 60 teens and young adults, twice a week to teach and learn and try new moves. The program has recently expanded to start gender-specific groups for boys and girls, and Mishur hopes to start a new group soon dedicated to the specific form of break dancing known as “popping.”
The Community Center — which has “one of the best stages in Madison,” Mishur says — also hosts five or six “jams” each year — good-natured competitions between individuals and small groups. Until recently, they’ve hired DJs and MCs to produce these events, but just this past weekend the Breakers enjoyed their first entirely self-produced jam.
“We said, ‘We know enough. Lets run our own jam.’ So we did, and it was great,” she says, with 60 people in attendance.
None of the dance workshops or jams cost a penny, Mishur says. “I don’t know of anywhere else in Madison that offers completely free dance lessons. That’s why we’re broke all the time,” she adds with a laugh. And that’s why support from partner organizations like United Community Arts Network and the Madison Hip Hop Awards is so important.
Half of the proceeds of this weekend’s MHHA ceremony and performance will be donated to the EMCC in support of the Madison Breakers. The Seventh Annual Madison Hip Hop Awards takes place this Saturday at 8 pm at the Barrymore Theater.
“The spirit of the Madison Hip-Hop Awards is to shine a spotlight on effort that support talent in Madison,” says Karen Reece of UCAN. “The East Madison Community Center’s break dancing program fits perfectly in that vision. The EMCC’s program is a grassroots, organically created and grown program that provides an artistic outlet for kids in the community that are not often represented in other community programs. The kids come to the center, organize themselves and work very hard for the love of their art, and they are extremely talented. Sashe Mishur is a true blessing,and an unsung hero, that makes sure these kids get a good meal and that the doors are always open. They run things on a shoestring budget and deserve all the support we can give them.”
As with many programs in community centers throughout the city, the Madison Breakers is about more than dance. At this past weekend’s jam, for example, the group also gave out an Academic Warrior award.
“There are many ways to be a warrior,” Mishur says. “Being the best dancer on the floor is one of them. But doing well at school so you can protect yourself in this crazy world is another.”
It’s also about heart and spirit and community.
“I’m a 78 year old white woman who really has been schooled for the last eight years by these very kind and tolrant people of color,” Mishur says. “It’s been quite a ride. It certainly shows the good heart and good spirit of many people.”
