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To many people, breakdancing seemed to come out of nowhere. But like
everything else, it had its origins in the cultural melting pot. In 1969,
when soul superstar James Brown was getting down with his big hit 'Get on
the Good Foot', he accompanied it with the acrobatic, high energy moves
that later inspired many a funky break party. As the 'good foot' became
the new dance style, the tradition of dance battle was established: dancers
would gather at places like Harlem World on 116th Street in New York and do
battle, dance-wise.
The 'good foot' was soon to evolve into B-boy and, before long,
breakdancing, but it was very different to the breaking we see today. In
some ways it was simpler. Old-style breaking consisted solely of floor
work, or floor rock, and was in some ways more complex than modern
breaking: floor rock is very fast, and can involve some extremely
complicated leg moves.
Old-style breaking was especially popular among many of the youths and
street gangs that roamed the south Bronx, and it was on those streets that
breakdancing really started. Often, the best breakers in opposing gangs
would dance against each other rather than fighting. Though they could
sometimes be the cause of increased friction, breaking battles to a large
extent replaced inter-gang fighting in the Bronx. As a result, many
breakdancing crews - groups of dancers who perform and practice together -
were formed by gang members.
And then came Afrika Bambatta, the legendary grandmaster DJ who was largely
responsible for the establishment and growth of what at first seemed to be
a passing craze. The leader of the powerful Zulu Nation gang, Bambatta saw
the potential of breakdancing and started one of the first crews, the Zulu
Kings. Winning dance battles and performing in various New York clubs,
they won a lot of adherents to the Zulu Nation.
Old-style breaking seemed to fizzle out in the late Seventies, but around
the turn of the decade a new breakdance group - the Rock Steady Crew -
began to emerge. Bambatta took them under his wing and they were soon
performing at various punk rock clubs around New York. People started
taking them seriously and suddenly breakdancing was born again.
The Rock Steady Crew added a lot of acrobatic moves to the old-style
breaking, incorporating not only floor rock but headspins, backspins,
hanglides and windmills. In 1981, Charles Ayearn made the legendary hip hop
movie Wild Style, a raw vision of rap, graffiti art, scratching and
breaking in the Bronx. With the Rock Steady Crew featuring prominently in
the movie, they soon became the pre-eminent crew, and new-style
breakdancing became ever more popular. The Roxy, a former roller skating
rink in New York, soon became the centre of the hip hop universe, a place
where DJs, rappers and breakdancers would perform and hang out.
As the hip hop message spread beyond the Bronx streets that gave it birth,
so breakdancing began to take on a wider significance, with people from all
over the world becoming involved in the phenomenon.
© ukhh.com 2000
Introduction to Breaking
added 20.04.00 words 2-hip
