The story of The Breakthrough Movement, begins, like many great stories, with an unlikely meeting….

Ahkai Franklin and Garrett “Spaghetti” Minniti, co-directors of The Breakthrough Outreach & Performance Not-for-profit Company, more commonly referred to as The Breakthrough Movement, met while dancing for Sybarite Artist Development Collective in New York City in 2006. Although they came from very different backgrounds their common passion, energy, and commitment to their art-form drew them together. The two became fast friends, and the “brothers from another mother” began choreographing together right away; fusing their styles and experiences and performing in various venues in and around NYC.

By the following year, under the name In It For Life Productions, Ahkai and Garrett produced their first Off-Broadway Showcase, committed to the idea of finding a suitable venue, specifically one with seating for their audience, and creating opportunity for themselves and the abundance of mind blowing dancers with whom they were performing with in lounges, bars, and underground clubs at the time. Dance: In It For Life posed a simple question to all in attendance: What makes you In It For Life? The answer included 24 artists, over 60 dancers from across the country (some of whom flew to New York from California, Texas, and Florida to perform), 16 students from 5 different dance studios in the tristate area; and featured styles including Tap, Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Lyrical Jazz, Hip-Hop, House, Break-Dancing, Salsa and Poetry.

In October of 2013, The Breakthrough Outreach & Performance Company was born.

The Breakthrough Movement is a community of artists committed to provoking positive change and inspiring action through culturally relevant art, dance and theatre.

We began with a group of 7 dancers of completely different backgrounds from across the United States and Canada. A group drawn together not only by their passion for dance and commitment to the art form, but by their common need to 'breakthrough' (if you will) the social, economic, and geographic barriers the place limits on outlets of opportunity. Our ‘crew’ (if you will) debuted as a part of ‘No Limits, a showcase of choreography’ at In It For Life Productions' 2nd Festival of Arts and Education at The Theatre at Saint Clement's in NYC.

In July of 2014, less than one year after our inception, The Breakthrough Movement grew from 7 to 31 dancers and apprentices now from 3 Canadian Provinces and 9 United States.  

Twenty-one of these young artists met in New York City for the first time to workshop the Breakthrough's 1st original production, a classic NYC story of unexpected meetings while waiting for the subway. Similar to what you might see on reality TV, ‘Real World’ style (if you will), for three weeks this eclectic collection of aspiring dancers lived and danced together, laughed and cried together, and pushed their physical, mental and spiritual capacity beyond where they believed it to be.

On top of creating the first 20-minutes of the show and performing the workshop production, the group learned perhaps the most intricate piece of choreography The Breakthrough Movement has produced to date, Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore and flash mobbed it ALL over mid-town manhattan, most infamously in the middle of Times Square as you can see in the video below! This particular shot almost got us arrested. For future reference, it is ILLEGAL to play amplified music in Times Square. I DO NOT recommend you trying this on your next trip to the city.  

Up to this point, we had only been able to work with dancers in their late teens and early 20’s - old enough to travel to New York on their own. Although Garrett and Ahkai had been producing workshops at various dance studios throughout the tristate area for several years by this point, the time had come to incorporate the idea of an official apprenticeship program into the company vision, one that provides similar opportunities to younger dancers.

In July of 2015….

The Breakthrough Movement began the online aspect of our apprenticeship in New Orleans, LA. The Big Easy is the area with the largest concentration of company members and apprentices in the country, which by this time had grown to over 40. By using technology and social media to rehearse, freestyle and fellowship we are able to bypass the geographic and ultimately size restrictions of a traditional dance company.

In June of 2016, The Breakthrough Movement became the 1st US based dance company to collaborate and perform with one from the beautiful country of Guatemala, Espiral Dance of Guatemala City!

This Collaboration TOUR included a week of Hip Hop, Jazz, Contemporary, Musical Theatre & Tap classes at Dance Studio Guatemala. The students started with a master class, gaining a deeper understanding of the various styles, along with a number of elective styles and Q&a sessions. In addition to the choreography provided for the studio's end of year showcase, we endeavored to expand their general understanding of how multi-faceted the world of dance really is. The experience ended with an in-house showcase for the parents and extended faculty and allowed the students to show off some of the new found ideas and techniques, culminating in a freestyle session from the members of the touring company.

While finishing with the workshops and Dance Studio Guatemala we also had the opportunity to work with Rotary Club Guatemala's 'Pretty Stove' Project. As a company, we raised funds for, and assisted in building, two modernized stoves which provide healthier and more efficient means of heating and cooking for families living rural communities outside of the city.

Throughout the month we also worked with Espiral Dance company on a show that combined influences from the United States and Guatemala City. Sinistecia (‘Synethesia’ in english) combined dance and poetry to explore various aspects of both cultures, speaking to differences and similarities in a celebration of our common humanity.

‘It is our hope and prayer that the seeds planted in Guatemala will grow into something, many things actually, beautiful and strong; artwork and network that will stand for change and progress; opportunities that will continue to grow, unstopping in their expansion beyond boundaries; educational opportunities that we can all latch onto and learn from; art that will be around long after we are all gone.’

-The Breakthrough Movement

2017 marks the debut of 'The Breakthrough Experience' workshop…

at Studio G in Slidell, LA - which happens to be owned by 2 of our #Original7 dancers: Ector and Carmen Gutierrez! Over 30 dancers participated in the 2-day workshop experience where you trade 1-day of service towards a community project (In Studio G's case, a canned food drive) in exchange for 1-day dance workshop and music video shoot! The canned goods (and other donations) that were collected the week leading up to the workshop were donated to a local family in need.

Also in 2017, The Breakthrough Movement officially launched a funding campaign on Patreon, a membership platform which makes it very easy for us to connect with the community who wants to support the movement financially in exchange for a number of ‘perks,’ including access to exclusive behind the scenes content, and an intimate look into what it take to create a movement.

2018 brought two new additions to the Breakthrough Movement family.

The first, was the largest addition of company members an apprentices in 4 years, from the very far northeast town of Portland, ME!

The second, the beginning of development for The Breakthrough App; the NEW central place for The Breakthrough Movement, a community of artists who live all over the world, interact from any device, anytime, anywhere!

The Breakthrough App is in it’s final stages of development and will be available SOON in both the iOS and Android stores!!!

Which leads us to 2020.

Now, more than ever, we believe that drawing our communities closer together is essential to our survival, let alone professional or artistic achievement. We are living in a time of social distancing and self isolation; a time of derision, divisiveness, and division. We believe that artistic expression plays a vital role in forcing social introspection, provoking change and the releasing of ideas that are damaging to or no longer of service to the greater good of our global community and collective humanity.  We believe that artistic expression is an essential part our healing process and a gateway to finding common ground so that we can move forward together.  

In the wake of recent current events, including the emergence of Covid-19 global pandemic and even more recent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis City police officer Derek Chauvin, we here at The Breakthrough Movement, like everyone across the world, have taken a step back to evaluate the aspects of life that are truly important. We have taken time to be thoughtful with how we want to use our talents, and more importantly our voice, moving forward. Beyond creating art, we have already began conducting interviews and forums discussing some of these issues in an attempt to provide additional resources and perspective to contribute to the movement. We understand that these are uncomfortable discussions to have, however we must wade our way through them on the journey forward, and beyond that in the interest of finding healing, justice, and change.