Breakdancing

Breakdancing: A Style of Street Dance

• Breakdancing is a style of street dance that originated in the African American community in the United States and consists of four main movements: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes.

• It is typically set to music containing drum breaks, mostly in hip-hop, funk, soul, and breakbeat music, but can be adapted to various music genres.

• Breaking is closely attributed to the birth of hip-hop, and has since expanded globally with various organizations and independent competitions supporting its growth.

• Breaking will make its debut as an Olympic sport in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

• A practitioner of breakdancing is called a b-boy, b-girl, breakdancer, or breaker, although the latter three are preferred by the pioneers and notable practitioners.

• The term "breakdance" is often used to refer to the dance in popular culture, but "b-boying" and "breaking" were the original terms.

• Breaking began to take form in the early 1970s at parties featuring DJs and instrumental records, where DJ Kool Herc developed rhythmic breakdown sections by switching between two copies of the same record, creating “breaks”.

• Breaking prompted dance battles and dance sessions known as cyphers, competitive circles in which participants took turns dancing while surrounded by onlookers.

• Breaking started as toprock, footwork-oriented dance moves performed standing up, but as dance crews began to experiment, a separate dance form known as uprock further influenced breaking.

• Breakdancing has expanded worldwide, with countries such as Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, France, Japan, and South Korea having their own unique breakdancing communities and styles.

• In South Korea, breakdancing has been promoted by the government alongside Korean culture, and R-16 Korea is the most well-known government-sponsored breakdancing event.

• The Soviet Union also had its own breakdancing community during the 1980s, with Soviet people learning about the new fashion trends emerging from the Western Bloc.Breakdancing: History, Elements, Styles, Music, Competitions, Female Presence, and Media Exposure

• Breakdancing gained popularity in the US in the 1970s and spread to other countries with some delay, including the Soviet Union in 1984.

• In the USSR, breakdancing became popular in big cities through unofficially imported videotapes and was initially viewed negatively by authorities.

• In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika policy led to the legalization of breakdancing in the Soviet Union, and festivals were held in various Soviet republics.

• Breakdancing is popular in China, despite being an underground culture due to restrictions, and has been growing since 2013.

• The four primary elements of breakdancing are toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes.

• Breakdancing has many individual styles influenced by a dancer's region of origin.

• The musical selection for breakdancing is not restricted to hip-hop music, and remixing allows for adaptation to different genres.

• Major breakdancing competitions include Red Bull BC One, UK B-Boy Championships, and Battle of the Year.

• Female breakers, or b-girls, have been present since the inception of breakdancing, but there is a lack of promotion and representation in the scene.

• Breakdancing has been depicted in various films, TV shows, and commercials, and there have been few video games created that focus on breakdancing.