Magic Moments/Dept. Culture

In 2007 artists all over the world found wings to take them to greater creative heights. Some used moves to enchant the crowds, others found rhymes – and some used their talent to create fascinating works of art out of empty Red Bull cans.

The B-Boy formation Flying Steps created magic moments in the literal sense on April 7 in London. They reenacted classic fairy tales to mystical music with breakdance moves and thus secured the Red Bull Beat Battle title for the second time in a row. At Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos the duels weren’t danced but rapped. On October 27 a 25-year-old Puerto Rican was elected as the world’s best Spanish-language rapper. Link-One, aka Emmanuel Merced Soto, beat Jay-Co from the Dominican Republic in Nuevo Circo de Caracas. A battle of a different kind was fought on June 1 by Henning Wehland, singer of the German rockband H-Blockx: In a Red Bull Air Race airplane on the official Air Race course in Istanbul he fought to keep his breakfast down and to hold himself together in general – all for the shooting of the H-Blockx single ‘Countdown To Insanity.’

Bodies coming apart at the seams rather than shaky bodily functions are what characterized the art work of Mexican artist Alma Sandoval. At the exhibition ‘Una Excursión Mexicana’ in Hangar-7, Salzburg, Austria, she used jumbled and cut-up details from porn comics in her pictures. Apart from Sandoval, six other young Mexican artists displayed their work. The artists met for the first and only time on July 7, the day before the show’s opening.

Swedish artist David Ericsson uses different raw materials to Sandoval. His sculpture christened ‘Ass kicker’ was a creation made from empty Red Bull cans. For his work of art Ericsson won first prize at Red Bull Art of the Can on January 19 in Stockholm.

Red Bull Music Academy founder Many Ameri experienced a ‘magic moment’ “each time things went ‘click’” – which meant whenever one of the participants saw the creative light or had a realization that fundamentally changed their self-image as a musician. In 2007 the Red Bull Music Academy took place from September 23 to October 26 in Toronto.