Breakdance
hip hop element
breakdancing, B-Boy
Hip Hop Dance

Breakdancing, also known as "B-boying" or "B-girling" by its practitioners and followers, is a dynamic style of dance that is part of Hip Hop culture and emerged out of the Hip-Hop movement in the South Bronx of New York City during the late 20th century. Breakdancing is one of the many elements of Hip Hop culture. The unique form of dancing is very acrobatic and creative. Breakdance has been performed in countless shows, music videos on MTV and at dance clubs.

Etymology of Breakdancing
Breakdancing was never an actual term used by the original practitioners. It was a term coined in the 80’s when it became more of a media phenomenon. David Toop (1991) describes breakdancing as being an adaptation of the Break, a dance popular before being replaced by the Freak, fueled by Chic’s "Le Freak" in 1978, but that was revived by Crazy Legs, Frosty Freeze, and the Rock Steady Crew. He also explains, ""the word break or breaking is a music and dance term (as well as a proverb) that goes back a long way. Some tunes, like "Buck Dancer’s Lament" from early this century, featured a two-bar silence in every eight bars for the break - a quick showcase of improvised dance steps." However, in the documentary "The Freshest Kids" hip hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc insists that the name breaking originated in the slang term "break", meaning someone going "off" or crazy, just as the dancers seemed to do when driven by the right beat. Others claim the term originates in the break of the song, which is the best part to dance to.

In New York, DJ Kool Herc was the first person to coin the term ’b-boy’ in 1969. During performances where Herc would be DJing, he would yell out "b-boys go down !" which cued the dancers to begin breakdancing. 1969 was also the year that James Brown recorded "Get on the Good Foot," a song that promoted high-energy, acrobatic dancing and that Afrika Bambaataa claims led to break dancing (Toop, 1991). Many oldschool breakdancers prefer to be referred to as b-boys. "B-boy" was the original term for urban style dancers, while "breakdancer" is better known as it has been used more commonly by the media. The ’B’ in b-boy doesn’t correspond to a specific word, but most likely means "Boogie", "Bronx" or "Break." Today, the term ’B-Girl’ is used as well.

The "b" in b-boying probably DOES NOT mean "Boogaloo". Boogaloo was a style developed in the West Coast and pertains more to the general Funk styles dance scene than to the b-boying and Hip Hop scene although those two cultures did end up intermingling. Funk styling, or Popping, is an entirely different dance with origins in California and the funk scene, not New York and the Hip Hop scene.

Hip Hop Dance
In its early form, breakdancing was divided into three distinct forms : Breaking, dancing and Popping. Breakdance is commonly associated with, but distinct from, Popping which is one element of the Funk styles that evolved independently in California during the late 20th century. Today, each body movement has been classified into a distinct style, technique or genre of breaking and is similar in principle to others but characteristically different. Other styles of dance associated with breakdancing include Uprock, Locking, Tutting, Boogaloo and Liquiding. However, these are not the same as breakdancing, although often are incorporated. Breakdance is too new to be considered a folk dance. In particular, street dances are living and evolving dance forms, while folk dances are to a significant degree bound by tradition. Breakdance was in the beginning a social dance but in the later years, mostly beacause of media and television, its goal has been as a performance dance.

Breakdancers often call any dancing that takes place on the ground ’downrock’ as opposed to ’uprock’ or ’toprock’. The rest of the dance is founded around these basic moves. Dancers usually begin by toprocking, and then continue by going down to the floor and performing a ’6-step’ or similar that may be heavily variated. Certain power moves can then be formed with combinations. After performing the techniques, the breakdancer will usually end the dance with a ’freeze’ which is when he contorts his body to a strange position and literally freezes, stopping all dance motion.

Much of being a successful breakdancer is about having style. The constant debate between b-boys is a debate of who has the most style. Since anyone can learn to breakdance, the dancers must deviate from the set dances slightly to use their own style. In this way they can show-up other breakdancers during battles, thus winning the battle.

Breakdancing battles
Breakdancing battles were very common. A breakdancing battle is when dancers ’fight’ against each other on the dance floor without contact. They form a circle and take turns trying to show each other up through either better style, more complex move combinations, or tougher moves. Usually, breakdancing battles would take place between two opposing breakdancing crews. Some of the major crews are the Zulu Nation, Rock Steady Crew (RSC), Style Elements, Furious Styles Crew, Ichigeki, Team OHH, Fireworks, Havikoro, The Furious Five and Airforce Crew.

Today serious battles are usually held at organized breakdance events. The battles are usually part of a tournament style competition with cash prizes, or they are featured showcase battles, where each crew is paid to dance. It’s not uncommon that spontaneous battles will happen at events as well, when rival crews show up with most of their members.

The largest competition each year is probably Battle of the Year (BOTY), held in Germany since 1990, and featuring crews from around the world. Despite its name, BOTY focuses on choreographed routines. After judges rate the routines, the final winner, and de facto world champion crew, is decided in a final battle (along with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places). Recent winners have been from France, Korea, Germany, and Hungary. While crews from the USA have won in the past, the claim is that they are not often winners of BOTY, because competitions in the USA are almost exclusively battles, rather than dance routine competitions as are common in the rest of the world. Nonetheless, this is a good indicator of how widespread the practice and high ability level of this American folk artform has become.