Mini BREAKS was created by Fides “Anna Banana Freeze” Mabanta upon the opening of The Beacon, Massive Monkees’ Seattle dance studio, in the beginning of 2013.
Anna Banana Freeze, along with crew mate Jenna Hikida (Vivid Vixens crew), first began to develop a curriculum for an ages 1-7 break dance class when called upon to instruct a thriving play group facilitated by Mayet Dalila in 2007. The first and following classes were a huge success, and ABF went on to do similar classes for Seattle Parks & Recreation, the Seattle Children’s Museum, as well as for the award-winning, nationally-recognized non-profit organization, Arts Corps.
In January 2013, ABF jumped at the chance to teach her specialty class on a regular basis when the dream of opening up a dance studio by her group, Massive Monkees, suddenly became reality. Although it had been almost six years since the young children’s breaking/hip-hop class was conceived, it still was not offered regularly anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, and Mini BREAKS was born.
ABF strongly believes in building community, especially so in the power and positivity of the hip-hop community. She is very grateful to be able to teach her breaking/hip-hop class on her own terms, and to a population (toddlers and preschoolers) who usually don’t have many hip-hop related classes available to them. ABF seeks to fill that need.
She knows that toddler/preschool children are hungry to move, explore and create – it is in their very nature to do so, it is how they process the world around them. ABF finds boundless joy in figuring out age-appropriate ways of sharing hip-hop and breaking to young children. She loves hip-hop so much and believes passionately in empowerment for all ages that she wants to share it with everyone, especially with toddlers and preschoolers, as well as the adults that bring them to class. Through Mini BREAKS, Anna Banana Freeze invites students and their families to stretch and explore their identities, while creating a safe space to build community.
ANNA BANANA FREEZE
Anna Banana Freeze (they/them) is a community-taught, Filipino immigrant dance and teaching artist living on Duwamish land. They are a member of the Massive Monkees crew and the creator of Mini BREAKS. Anna Banana Freeze loves sharing the moves and ideas they learn from hip-hop and breaking, passing along the connection, empowerment and community they experience to others.
Anna Banana Freeze’s artist statement:
“I began learning how to break in 1998 after I saw a girl dancing with the usual group of b-boys who practiced after school. I had always ignored the dancers who blocked the hallways until I saw her that day, confident and charismatic as she executed moves I suddenly found myself curious to try. Seeing her, I thought – maybe I can do that, too.
After 20+ years of training, competing, performing and teaching, I still find myself curious. I am no longer interested in proving myself relevant to male counterparts or supreme to other b-girls. Instead, I am now curious about reclaiming the freedom I had consistently felt in the first few years of my breaking journey. I continue to dance because I yearn to once again be myself, to be embodied when I move, and eventually open up to feeling fully once more. I am curious and after so long, I am hopeful. Hopeful to dream and help create safer, supportive spaces for myself and for others – as artists and as humans.”
