In two cavernous film studios in Acton, west London, Nike is shooting one of its tent-pole summer advertising campaigns. Everything about the production is outsize: the white-walled main stage is populated by around 200 extras, young and lithe, dressed in cropped sweatshirts and joggers, wearing Air Force 1 and Dunk Low sneakers. Costume designers and makeup artists swarm around, adjusting this, refreshing that, while the same few seconds of a dance music track plays on a loop through booming speakers. Meanwhile, a camera on a dolly sweeps through the crowd to reveal the two stars of the show.
You would expect the pair to be athletes, household names probably. But it’s not quite that straightforward. Let’s start with the “athlete” part: Karam Singh and India Sardjoe are breakers, or breakdancers if you want to show your age, better-known as 25-year-old B-boy Kid Karam and B-girl India, 16. Sardjoe, who represents the Netherlands, is the reigning world and European champion. Singh is the first breaker to earn a place on Team GB and is currently ranked No 6 in the world. But even they struggle to put a label on what they do. “It’s very physically demanding,” says Singh, during his lunch break on the shoot. “A guy called Menno from Holland calls us ‘artletes’. But, for me, it’s just a mix of everything.”
