Street Chi · Hip-Hop · Anime Freestyle
FunkyAzhido.
Street Dancer · KCSD Co-Founder · Movement Artivist
Knoxville-grown street dancer Madelyn “Maddei” Collins blends bostaff, martial arts, and video game animation moves into a single evolving style she calls Street Chi. For KPC 2026, she's premiering a 4-minute solo tribute to Gachiakuta set to Luci4's Sigilkore Mix.
A Knoxville crew built her. She built the next one.
From training rooms at Dancer's Studio and RYDE to breaking circles at UTK's Volatomix crew, Maddei's street dance credits run deep in East Tennessee — and she's turned that foundation into a whole community: Knox Community Street Dance, the free-jam collective she co-founded with her partner Wes after COVID gutted the city's adult street dance scene.
She stays on stages.
Community jams, university cyphers, fellowship showcases, environmental justice conferences, and returning convention sets — Maddei's performance calendar stays busy because her practice lives everywhere movement can do work.
Street Chi, explained.
Maddei is in the middle of inventing a style. “Street Chi” mashes up the bodies of knowledge she already carries — street, hip-hop, breaking, martial arts, weapon work, anime character study, and the loops of her favorite video games — into one evolving vocabulary.
She moves with community.
Knox Community Street Dance, Volatomix at UTK, Southern Sole, OnTheOne, Calling Up Justice — Maddei's network stretches from the Bijou Theatre stage her grandmother once performed on to the environmental justice arts conferences she choreographs for today.
A lineage written in rhythm.
FunkyAzhido is the street-dance and digital-content persona of Madelyn “Maddei” Collins — a Knoxville-based performer, environmental-justice artivist, and lifelong anime obsessive. She was born in New Orleans to parents who met on a dance floor in the Navy, and was evacuated to East Tennessee as a child after Hurricane Katrina. Raised in East Knox by her grandmother Willistine West — a former lindy hopper who performed at Knoxville's Bijou Theatre — Maddei inherited a rhythmic family tradition rooted in Appalachian and Creole culture long before she ever stepped into a studio.
Maddei's dance practice grew across Knoxville's studio and crew scene — training at Dancer's Studio, RYDE, and ADU; joining regional collectives like Southern Sole and OnTheOne; and cyphering with UTK's Volatomix breaking crew during her time at the University of Tennessee. Before KCSD, she was also holding down go-go performance residencies at Knoxville venues like The International and The Concourse — building the stamina and stage presence that now define her convention sets.
In high school, Maddei co-founded and served as President of West High School's first-ever Anime Club — a formative chapter that planted the cross-cultural DNA now visible in every performance. She is an active member of the Black Anime TikTok community and has spent years weaving anime, video game aesthetics, and street dance together into a single performative language.
After COVID-19 gutted the Knoxville adult street dance scene, Maddei co-founded Knox Community Street Dance (KCSD) with her partner Wes — a free community jam series built to keep adults moving, connected, and dancing through hard seasons. She's also a Ryan Martel Fellow and a featured team member at Calling Up Justice, where she brings movement practice into environmental justice conversations across the Southeast.
For Knox Pop Con 2026, Maddei returns to the Spotlight Stage with “Trash” — a 4-minute solo tribute to the dark-fantasy anime Gachiakuta, choreographed to Luci4's Sigilkore Mix. Expect bostaff, martial arts flow, freestyle character work, video-game idle loops, and a full anime visual backdrop syncing behind her the whole time. This is what Street Chi looks like at full tilt.
A Knoxville-born performer, on a Knoxville stage, premiering a style she invented in Knoxville. This one's a hometown heater.
Four minutes. One tribute. A brand new style.
This isn't a cover and it isn't a routine — it's a world premiere. Maddei brings her own invented style to the Spotlight Stage with a Gachiakuta tribute engineered for convention energy.
Street Chi, live in Knoxville.
- World premiere of “Trash” — FunkyAzhido's 4-min Gachiakuta tribute
- Luci4 Sigilkore Mix · live anime visuals backdrop
- Bostaff + martial arts + street/hip-hop + video game moves
- Co-Founder of Knox Community Street Dance — hometown performer
- May 2, 2026 · Bridgewater Place · Knoxville, TN