At Breakin’ Convention you see acts you won’t see anywhere else. There’s a community vibe at the annual hip-hop dance festival, with often lo-fi production values alongside high skill levels. It’s genuinely inclusive: the autistic crew Atypical with Attitude impress with a tight routine they perform blindfolded. And it’s full of socially conscious artists, live and on film, who mix their politics with humour, party vibes and technical prowess.

This year’s fest is necessarily slimmed down, but the irrepressible artistic director, Jonzi D, buoys up the atmosphere. South London collective WAR (We Ain’t Regular), who danced with Stormzy at Glastonbury, open the show. Unlike the military slickness of groups such as Diversity, WAR’s looser, bouncier flow feels like a gang of friends feeding off each other’s energy in the moment. They’re the next wave.

Some pieces seem like first glimpses of ideas worth developing: Spin and SI Stature playing out two sides of a deadly dispute in Vandalo; Gemma Hoddy’s Betty’s Blues reinventing the trope of the sexy jazz siren with sharp, powerful popping. Then there’s the award-winning Family Honour, by Kwame Asafo-Adjei, a daughter chastised by her father, the two dancers’ hands making sharp moves across a table like an invisible chess game. It’s as if they’re holding the power in the air between them, physically pushing and reshaping it, shifting the balance.

Instead of the usual international contingent, this is a more local affair but the performers’ roots around the world come alive on stage, from Leeds-based Ugandan Antonio Bukhar to Michael “Bagsy” Oladele being controlled and cajoled by the beats of a Yoruban talking drum. His waacking arms fly at supersonic speed in a piece full of angst and grace: he’s at once a dancer of solid muscularity and weightlessness.

For the finale, Patience J and dancers explode on to the stage in the high-energy, Fela Kuti-fuelled Colours, using modern African dance styles, including Congolese ndombolo and Ghanaian azonto. Patience is a fierce leader at the centre, getting her troupe revved up: tongues out, eyes wide, great grins. Thighs shake, hips roll, feet pummel the floor; everything’s vibrating with love, light, power and joy. That’s something you’ll want to see again.

• Breakin’ Convention 2021 is at Sadler’s Wells, London, until 4 July.