Absolut Vodka boasts a remarkable back catalogue of culturally on-point ad campaigns and talent hook-ups, having partnered with the likes of Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Damien Hirst, Spike Jonze and Lenny Kravitz over the years. Following on in this (ahem) spirit, the premium Swedish brand launched their Born To Mix campaign series in 2022 (via a film narrated by actor Rami Malek) with the intention of heroing signature Absolut cocktails—such as the Cosmopolitan, Espresso Martini and Bloody Mary—as well as reaffirming the brand’s affinity for topical culture engagement.
The latest iteration of their Born To Mix series has just dropped, and leads with a mini film that celebrates ‘movement and mixing freely’ through the medium of the dance battle (watch below). Directed by music video director Henry Scholfield, choreographed by Shay Latukolan and featuring an exclusive soundtrack by Compton-born rapper and producer Channel Tres (reworking En Vogue’s 1992 R&B banger, “Free Your Mind”), it stars a global line-up of dancers whose credits range from P.T. Barnum biopic The Greatest Showman to Jungle’s viral dance video “Back to 74”. Cast into separate crews, each crew takes part in the high energy dance battle in a colour-coordinated look, while repping and interpreting a signature Absolut cocktail—for Bloody Mary think voguing, head-to-toe in red, for example.
In taking inspiration from dance battles, the campaign is tapping into a culture with an incredibly rich history and one that is also riding a wave around the world right now. “Dance battle culture is bigger than ever,” says Kloé Dean, acclaimed choreographer, dancer and movement director who’s worked with the likes of Wizkid, Ghetts and Ezra Collective. And she should know, as taking part in dance battles has been a massive part of her life and career since her early teens, from performing on stage at Breakin’ Convention in 2007 through to curating an epic dance battle as part of last month’s Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre in collaboration with her long-term creative partner, Little Simz.
With the rise of high-profile, stadium-scale international competitions and Olympic involvement adding to more frequent appearances in music videos and shows, on stage and screen and a street corner near you—all supercharged through social media—dance battle culture is “more visible, more supported than ever,” says Kloé, “which means more people are wanting to get involved.”
We caught up with Kloé to take a closer look at the Absolut campaign and get a deeper understanding of the dance battle culture that inspired it.
COMPLEX: You’ve been taking part in dance battles for most of your career, both as a performer and someone who organises and curates them. How do you feel about dance battle culture showing up and inspiring wider culture, such as the new Absolut Born To Mix campaign?
Kloé Dean: For me the Absolut film is a positive nod to the culture and its growth, and I love to see that.
Do you think Absolut’s Born To Mix campaign captures the vibe of a dance battle?
It definitely captures the energy of crew battles. I also like the way the dancers being in a circle gives it that cypher feel. There are lots of different formats that dance battles can take, but for me, that’s always the most culturally authentic way to do a battle: in the round, surrounded by the audience.
Battle events traditionally have set styles per battle, but more recently battles have evolved so they’re more open to ‘all styles’, where dancers bring different styles to clash with each other. A positive of this approach is that it’s generally more inclusive and allows more people to take part. Both can still be great though. So, for example, Summer Dance Forever—a battle that’s going on in Amsterdam right now—does set funk styles, which would make it a more ‘traditional’ approach, whereas the ‘Born To Mix’ idea fits well with an ‘all styles’ type battle, which is what is featured in the film.
What different dance styles can you see in it?
For me, I can see elements of waacking, vogueing, hip-hop, there’s some waving in there—which is part of the popping family—and threading too.
What influence have different dance styles and scenes had on the evolution of dance battles?
Each style brings its own energy, rules, culture and origins. Every dance style typically has its own unique origin story, too. For example, the Vogue ball scene started to really emerge out of New York in the 1980s, and has grown to have its own balls in clubs around the world, while Krump, say, is a form of praise—‘Krump’ is known as an acronym for ‘Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise’. So they definitely all exist in their own right, but they have also influenced each other, and come together in dance battles.
Which would you say have been more influential?
For me: hip-hop, as a groundbreaking style, culture—hip-hop culture is famously built on four pillars: Breakdancing, MCing, Graffiti and DJing—and door-opener into street dance. The whole block party scene in the Bronx in the 1970s with the likes of DJ Kool Herc and the Rock Steady Crew was a big influence on dance battles, a key part of their origin story. Styles like rocking, which evolved into breaking—which, along with ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ street styles like popping, locking, house, vogue and waacking, were all pioneering street dance styles—first emerged from that scene. All are what we call ‘social dances’, which means their roots are cultural and community based, and start off being done for other people, rather than for audiences watching choreographed performances.
So what form would a dance battle take now, in 2025, here in the UK?
It would vary depending on the event and the styles involved, but typically, it would see two opposing sides—1v1, 2v2, crew vs crew—going round-for-round to see who is the best dancer. Judges—or sometimes the audience, in newer battle formats—decide the winner of each round, and you’d definitely have a DJ who can play a range of music genres and a host who can explain the rounds to the audience and the dancers. At the beginning of a battle, there can be preliminary rounds, which can be done by either each dancer performing a solo to the judges, or dancers against each other in prelim battles or in cyphers—circles where the judges move around and pick their chosen dancers to go into the battle. Key elements of a winning round include musicality, technique, battle presence, individual style, characterisation, and hunger to win. Major no-nos would be biting (stealing) someone else’s moves, touching or infiltrating another dancer’s round, crashing a move, or repeating moves.
Sounds like it’s come a long way. Taking it back for a minute, what was your first experience of dance and street dance culture?
Like a lot of people in the UK at the time, my first exposure was seeing early films and music videos from the US in whatever way we could get them, like getting really bad pirate copies of the film Breakin’ and watching the battles over and over. People started copying the style and then with the growth of MTV and artists like Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, who were also using these street styles, it started to get even more limelight on it. I know for me, personally, being a three-year-old in my frontroom watching Michael Jackson, I was like, “Oh my God! I want to be him!”
And your first IRL experiences of a dance battle?
When I went to one of the Jump Off battles. It was a crew battle, and I just thought, “Where have I been all this time? Why haven't I found this sooner?” I was so excited to have found it. I was around 15, 16, and had just started training with a few different crews. Watching music videos for me had been like a dream, and, as cheesy as it sounds, being in a dance battle was the closest thing to real life music videos.
What was the UK scene like at that time?
There were street dance competitions happening literally every week. And there was a club scene—places like Madame Jojo’s, Storm—where a lot of the dancers were basically going to train, so a lot of off-the-cuff battles and cyphers were happening. This was when films like Step Up and Street Dance 3D came out, too, which kind of added to the momentum. I would say Jump Off was the place to go and battle, and Throwdown, which happened every week at Plan B in Brixton. The dancers would be training all the time for these weekly battles as they were something to work towards. No-one was getting paid—there might be a cash prize for a battle if we were lucky—but what I loved about it was the hunger to want to be better than the next person. I feel like it built everyone’s careers because we were just constantly training all the time.
When was this?
I remember it being incredibly active from 2003 all the way up to 2015, 2016, but I also know it was happening way before I had the pleasure of witnessing the scene. As well as individual battles, we also had street dance crews that battled, so we had street dance competitions where we would choreograph performances and we got really good at creating these pieces that were battling, but on a larger scale.
There was a show called GWI—G Force Street Dance Championship—which was like a breeding ground for groups like Diversity, who became well known through Britain’s Got Talent, and Plague, which was founded by Muktar O. S. Muktar who went on to work with Cirque Du Soleil and the Beijing Olympics, and Boy Blue, which was started by Kenrick Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, and whose dancers have worked with everyone from Stormzy to Beyoncé.
These days, you do a wide range of work as a choreographer—from stage and screen to working with an amazing list of music artists. How does your experience of dance battles and dance battle culture feed into your work in other areas?
In a battle, you have to think on the spot, create under pressure, draw on any and everything that you can. That’s now so embedded in me as a creative that it’s kind of set a pace for me, both in entering battles and in my choreography work. I actually find it easier to create under pressure, when I’m given a short amount of time to create. I feel like I get something that I wouldn’t get if I just sat there and kind of procrastinated over all of my decisions. It’s just so natural and honest and so invigorating and exciting for me, I actually feel like I create my best work under those pressures.
What about stylistically? How do dance battles feed into the rest of your work?
I implement all of the dance battle styles that I’m inspired by. Hip-hop is one of my favourites and one that I’m really connected to and utilise a lot. Waacking definitely is a big part of my movement; popping, locking, too. I’ve sought out the pioneers and gone to train with different crews, so what I enjoy and attracted me in the first place is now embedded in me. One of the most ‘social dance’ elements that I’ve created would be Ezra Collective’s album cover for Dance, No One’s Watching, and that was the album cover basically encompasses what social dance is. And it’s not a battle scene, but it is like what would happen before a battle would begin. Basically, it’s like the joy and energy of people dancing together, coming together and celebrating. So I feel like that encompasses the joyful element of it. When I’m working with music artists, I also use the idea of getting them to perform at the camera as if it’s a thing they could be battling, but I haven’t ever used the format of a battle—like in the Absolut ad—within a piece yet.
You’ve worked with Little Simz as a choreographer for a long time, and when she was invited to curate this year’s Meltdown Festival, she asked you to curate a dance battle as part of the programme. How was that?
It was really exciting. We worked on it together and, as far as I know, it was the first time there’s been a collaboration with a music artist and a dance battle. Simz used to be a dancer herself—we first crossed paths in the competition and battle scene growing up, when she was nine and I was a teenager, although she was mainly competing as a rapper and I was competing as a dancer. So she understands dance firsthand and just wanted it to encompass that rawness and the realness of the dance culture that we’ve come from.
So how did it go down?
It was called the ‘Bodied: Dance Battle’, and it was themed around Simz tracks, because for me, a lot of her tracks are fuelled with that kind of competitive energy. So the first round was “Might Bang, Might Not”, then we had “Free”, then “I Love You, I Hate You” and “Point & Kill”, then “No Merci” for the semi’s and “Venom” for the final. Each round raised the stakes higher in terms of creative challenge, by adding extra opponents, narratives and props. The crowd was made up of Simz fans, dance fans, random public people at the Southbank, and everyone that was watching had such good energy and gave it a great response—it was incredible. The final was an all style battle, set to Simz tracks. A guy called VI (Vihirokinasu), who is an incredible dancer, won but we had so many different styles, so many different abilities involved, it was a really beautiful event where everyone was included. That was, for me, the best thing about it because it just brought back to why I wanted to be a part of the dance scene in the first place. It gives people a family, a home, and a place of belonging.
How do you see dance battle culture evolving?
I think the global growth will continue; there are so many competitions around the world now. I would love to see the dancers who battle being taken more seriously as athletes in the future, too. For that, I think we need better documentation of the performances, so people can really see what is involved, as I do think that because dance is seen as entertaining, some people think it’s physically easier than it is.
Hopefully it will continue to inspire wider culture too, like it has done with this Absolut campaign. And stylistically, there will always be new dances, as literally every music genre that evolves brings a new dance with it. A good example is Afrobeats, which has brought along the visibility and evolution of Afro dance, which has now become a key style within the dance battle world because of its energy and it’s just a great social dance that brings people together. We even had one that happened sporadically after our battle at Southbank. We had an afterparty for everyone to dance together, then out of nowhere, the Afro dancers that had actually entered the battle started a battle in the middle of the crowd and it lasted half an hour. The guys against the girls. It was incredible and just natural. It’s a trend—everyone’s following it. A very powerful style that is going to continue to grow.
To learn more, visit the Absolut Born To Mix website.