Break dancing is a popular street dance brought to the mainstream through urban neighborhoods known for its acrobatic movements, freestyle sequences, and gymnastic nature. Modern break dancing, also known as b-boying, was born out of the hip-hop movement. Though the most widely accepted birthplace for this dance form is the Bronx, New York, many believe it was also emerging simultaneously on streets across the country in Los Angeles. Break dancing has many influences ranging from urban street jazz to kung fu movies, and martial arts to Afro-Brazilian culture.
Early Roots
The roots of break dancing can be traced back more than five centuries to the Brazilian Frevo, a Russian folk-dance intermingled with traces of martial arts. Farther back still, many believe break dancing originated prior to the frevo, but with an African slave dance called the capoeira, which is still popular today. The capoeira is the first dance to fuse upright fighting and shadow-boxing with footwork and ground work.
Original Movements
In 1967, the beginnings of what is typically known as break dancing emerge. Uprock or rocking, an urban street dance, became popular with many of the movements we are accustomed to seeing in break dancing today such as burns (aggressive hand thrusts) and martial-arts-inspired body movements called jerks. This style became the basis for the top rock movement, which fused uprock with transition steps called a six-step and added ground work.
American Beginning
The original break dancers in American culture were typically male, of a lower socioeconomic class, and of African-American or Hispanic descent. America's era of break dancing hit the mainstream in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it attempted to take the place of weapons in the street wars between gangs in the Bronx, New York, and replace them with dance battling. Afrika Bambaataa, who was a DJ, record producer, and gang leader, brought about this change in the street battles. The dance became a popular form of competition both on the streets as well as in dance clubs. The coming years developed more intricate leg movements and ground work such as floor-downs and down-rocks. Many moves and steps fell in and out of popularity over the coming years.
Innovators
Breaking groups such as Rock Steady Crew and the Electronic Boogaloo Lockers, or as they were later known the Electric Boogaloos, drastically impacted the break dancing scene in New York by introducing moves such as hand-gliding, back-spinning, windmilling, and head spinning. It is these steps, tricks, and moves that have become the recognizable trademarks of break dancing.
Mainstream Break Dancing
Break dancing continues to remain popular today, and new moves and tricks are still emerging. Break dancing can be seen on street corners, in clubs, and on popular television shows such as Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" and MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew." Richie Colon, also known as b-boy Crazy Legs, one of the original innovators of break dancing, was the double during the finale dance sequence of the hit movie "Flashdance." Dancers today are from every class, race, and gender. Break dancing has become a pinnacle of the hip-hop culture.
