By 6:30 p.m. Saturday, the line to the box office was spilling out the door and into the streets to see an event that featured artists that were still in the course of finishing their high school diplomas.
People waited anxiously for a ticket to The Neutral Zone-sponsored Breakin’ Curfew — and for good reason. Tickets to the event go fast every year, and 2010 was no exception: Ann Arbor’s Power Center was completely sold out less than an hour after the box office opened.
Charlie Held, who was a production manager for the event and performed with the group Echoes, saw the demand first hand.
“A lot of people were turned away,” Held said. “This is the fastest it has ever sold out.”
Breakin’ Curfew is an event started in 2003 by The Neutral Zone, the teen center located at 310 E. Washington St. in Ann Arbor. The completely teen-run performance showcased 23 local acts that mostly hailed from Washtenaw County. Curators chose bands based upon acts that they are interested in seeing themselves. The show in the past has featured local acts such as The Ninjas, True Funk Soldiers and The Skafia.
Saturday’s performances ranged from the pop-punk sound of Echoes to the intense modern-dance performance of the Cass Tech Dance Workshop, a group of top dance students from all over Detroit.
The show also included slam poets, jazz bands and the Washtenaw County Rugby Football Club, who performed a traditional dance adapted to be a pre-game ritual called the “Haka.”
For a decade, The Neutral Zone has been committed to helping teens in the Washtenaw County area develop as artists and as people. The teen center runs concerts nearly every weekend during the school year and offers students low or no cost courses in music, art, leadership and college preparation.
“We teach teens how to operate as their own organization,” Neutral Zone Art Director Trevor Stone said. “We train them to be our bosses, so when they lead, they can organize other groups of people autonomously to operate to do social programs, to start music programs or community projects.”
Starting in August, teen curators from all over the Ann Arbor area began putting together what would become Breakin’ Curfew 2010.
The show took nine months for the students to organize, which involved weekly meetings which prepared the teens for aspects of the show including promoting the show and finding the acts to play. For some of the curators, the show didn’t seem completely planned until the first curtain on the stage opened.
“Some things didn’t get finalized until today,” production manager Meghna Rao Said. “I definitely spent plenty of nights working all night to get things done, but it’s worth it. On this night you see everything come together and everything always works out somehow.”
Outside of Breakin’ Curfew, many of these acts are still very prominent in the local scene. Echoes often plays at the Neutral Zone and the 734, Ypsilanti’s new all-ages venue, located on 1846, Michigan Ave. in Ypsilanti; Most of the slam poets and MCs can be seen at The Neutral Zone.
Breakin’ Curfew is also known for the energy of the audience. The auditorium becomes undeniably loud at the beginning of the event and doesn’t end until the curtain closes, pausing only to quiet down for the acts themselves.
“When the acts end, you can hear it go bananas.” Stone said. “You can hear screaming and yelling, so I love that, and I know a lot of the teens are involved in this production, it really brings a lot of people together.”
Held had similar feelings about his band’s set at Breakin’ Curfew.
“I can’t compare it to any other time” he said. “It sold out and obviously people wanted to be there, and there were a lot of people in the front, so it means they cared.”
