B-boying AKA Breakdancing

B-boying or breaking, also called breakdancing, is a style of street dance that originated primarily among African American and Puerto Rican youth, many former members of the Black Spades, the Young Spades, and the Baby Spades, during the mid 1970s. The dance spread worldwide due to popularity in the media, especially in regions such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Russia, and South Korea. While diverse in the amount of variation available in the dance, b-boying consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. B-boying is typically danced to hip-hop, funk music, and especially breakbeats, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns.

A practitioner of this dance is called a b-boy, b-girl, or breaker. Although the term "breakdance" is frequently used to refer to the dance in popular culture and in the mainstream entertainment industry, "b-boying" and "breaking" are the original terms. These terms are preferred by the majority of the pioneers and most notable practitioners.

HISTORY

Many elements of b-boying can be seen in other antecedent cultures prior to the 1970s. B-boy pioneers Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon and Kenneth "Ken Swift" Gabbert, both of Rock Steady Crew, cite James Brown and Kung Fu films as influences to b-boying.

Many of b-boying's acrobatic moves, such as theflare, show clear connections to gymnastics. A young street dancer performing acrobatic headspins was recorded by Thomas Edison in 1898.

However, it was not until the 1970s that b-boying developed as a defined dance style in the United States.

Beginning with DJ Kool Herc, Bronx-based DJs would take the rhythmic breakdown sections (also known as the "breaks") of dance records and prolong them by looping them successively.

The breakbeat provided a rhythmic base that allowed dancers to display their improvisational skills during the duration of the break. This led to the first battles—turn-based dance competitions between two individuals or dance crews judged with respect to creativity, skill, and musicality. 

These battles occurred in cyphers—circles of people gathered around the breakers. 

Though at its inception the earliest b-boys were "close to 90 percent African-American", dance crews such as "SalSoul" and "Rockwell Association" were populated almost entirely by Puerto Rican-Americans.

Uprock

A separate but related dance form which influenced b-boying is uprock also called rocking or Brooklyn rock. Uprock is an aggressive dance that involves two dancers mimicking ways of fighting each other using mimed weaponry
in rhythm with the music. 

Uprock as a dance style of its own never gained the same widespread popularity as b-boying, except for some very specific moves adopted
by breakers who use it as a variation for their toprock. 

When used in a b-boy battle, opponents often respond by performing similar uprock moves, supposedly creating a short uprock battle. Some b-boys argue that because uprock was originally a separate dance style it should never be mixed with b-boying and that the uprock moves performed by breakers today are not the original moves but imitations that only show a small part of the original uprock style.

It has been stated that b-boying replaced fighting between street gangs.
On the contrary, some believe it a misconception that b-boying ever played a part in mediating gang rivalry. Both viewpoints have some truth. Uprock has its roots in gangs. Whenever there was an issue over turf, the two warlords of the feuding gangs would uprock. Whoever won this preliminary battle would decide where the real fight would be


Worldwide expansion

• Brazil

Ismael Toledo was one of the first b-boys in Brazil. In 1984, he moved to
the United States to study dance. While in the U.S. he discovered
b-boying and ended up meeting b-boy Crazy Legs who personally mentored him for the four years that followed.
After becoming proficient in b-boying, he moved back to São Paulo and started to organize b-boys crews and enter international competitions.
He eventually opened a hip-hop dance studio called the Hip-Hop Street College.

• South Korea

B-boying was first introduced to South Korea by American soldiers shortly after its surge of popularity in the U.S. during the 1980s, but it was not until the late 1990s that the culture and dance really took hold. 1997 is known as the "Year Zero of Korean breaking". A Korean-American hip hop promoter named John Jay Chon was visiting his family in Seoul and while he was there, he met a crew named Expression Crew in a club. He gave them a VHS tape of a Los Angeles b-boying competition called Radiotron. A year later when he returned, Chon found that his video and others like his had been copied and dubbed numerous times, and were feeding an ever-growing b-boy community.

In 2002, Korea's Expression Crew won the prestigious international b-boying competition Battle of the Year, exposing the skill of the country's b-boys to the rest of the world. Since then, the Korean government has capitalized on the popularity of the dance and has promoted it alongside Korean culture. R-16 Korea is the most well-known government-sponsored b-boy event, and is hosted by theKorean Tourism Organization and supported by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

• France

B-boying took off in France in the early 1980s with the creation of groups such as the Paris City Breakers (who styled themselves after the well-known New York City Breakers). In 1984, France became the first country in the world to have a regularly and nationally broadcast television show about Hip Hop—hosted by Sidney Duteil—with a focus on Hip Hop dance. This show led to the explosion of Hip Hop dance in France, with many new crews appearing on the scene.

• Japan

Shortly after the Rock Steady Crew came to Japan, b-boying within Japan began to thrive. Each Sunday b-boys would perform b-boying in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park. One of the first and most influential Japanese breakers was Crazy-A, who is now the leader of the Tokyo chapter of Rock Steady Crew. He also organizes the yearly B-Boy Park which draws upwards of 10,000 fans a year and attempts to expose a wider audience to the culture.

• Cambodia

Born in Thailand and raised in the United States, Tuy "KK" Sobil started a community center called Tiny Toones in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2005 where he uses b-boying, hip-hop music, and art to teach Cambodian youth language skills, computer skills, and life skills (hygiene, sex education, counseling). His organization helps roughly 5,000 youths a year. One of these youths include Diamond, who is regarded as Cambodia's first b-girl.

• Canada

There are several ways Breaking came to Canada. During the late 70's and early 80's, films like Breakin' (1984), Beat Street (1984), and the overall influence of Hip-Hop culture brought many people over from Chicago, New York, Detroit, Seattle, Los Angeles, which in the process, brought over their style from the U.S.. Before we knew it, crews were growing in almost every city. Breaking expanded in Canada from there, with crews like Canadian Floormasters taking over the 80's scene, and from Montreal New Energy opened for James Brown in 1984 at the Paladium. Leading into the 90's, crews like Bag of Trix, Rakunz, Intrikit, Contents Under Pressure, Supernaturalz, Boogie Brats and Red Power Squad, led the scene throughout the rest of the past two decades and counting.