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Read the press release here.

'Battle for the Eagle' Begins 30-Year Tradition With Fundraiser

By Darryl Holliday | July 24, 2014 5:29am
Battle for the Eagle
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Bboy B

LOGAN SQUARE — A championship battle passed down through generations of Logan Square dance and graffiti art crews will kick off at the neighborhood’s namesake park this summer.

An Indiegogo campaign to help fund “Battle for the Eagle” is up and running ahead of the nearly 30-year-old tradition aimed at bringing young artists, dancers and rappers together as “a safe place to battle” in opposition to the neighborhood’s gang and street life. 

The competition will take over the Logan Square monument on Aug. 3, but a fundraiser will help the all-volunteer crew of organizers provide sound equipment, wood canvases, a professional DJ and four “Battle for the Eagle” trophies for each competition set.

 A Logan Square battle passed through generations of artists will take to the monument in August.
A Logan Square battle passed through generations of artists will take to the monument in August.
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Bboy b

The battle was started by the Artistic Bombing Crew, one of the city’s oldest graffiti groups that began with a group of friends hanging out at the monument in the early 1980s, said Bboy B, a Logan Square native.

The crew recently finished a mural for house legend Frankie Knuckles visible from the Blue Line in Logan Square.

“We would gravitate toward the eagle — that was an ABC spot,” he said. “We started noting that kids from all over the city started hanging there because we were right outside the train. That was when it was the AB line — there were no colors for the trains back then.”

They named their Logan Square hangout “The Writer’s Bench” after a catchphrase coined during New York City’s graffiti art movement.

The crew formalized their growing scene with an annual battle in 2006 with the first eagle trophy awarded to a member of the Chicago Brickheadz. This year will be the first time Battle for the Eagle will award four winners in four separate categories. But as it has in the past, the bouts will spotlight dance, art and music skills in neighborhood teens.

Four eagle trophies will be award for breaking, popping, all-style battle and graffiti battle, with time for artists to trade “piece books,” graffiti art notebooks designed to be shared collectively, organizers said.

Though the competition has passed through several groups over the years, members of ABC will be at the helm this year with local DJs, breakdancers and artists like MozDef, Lady Champ and Breaker Ray, according to Bboy B.

“This is why we do it … to pull a couple kids toward breakdancing and art and save them from gang activity. Because when you take time to build your skills, you stay out of trouble,” he said. “If we can catch some 11- or 12-year-old kid’s eye, they’ll say ‘I can do that.’”

Battle for the Eagle's Indiegogo fundraiser can be found here.

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