Wu-tang

Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (when performed by women), is a style of street dance developed by African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx borough of New York City. Breakdancing consists mainly of four kinds of movement—toprock, footwork, power moves, and freezes—and is typically set to songs containing drum breaks, especially in funk, soul, and hip-hop. Its modern dance elements originated among the poor youth of New York during the 1970s and early 1980s. It is tied to the birth of hip-hop, whose DJs played songs featuring rhythmic breaks for dancers. The dance form has expanded globally, with an array of organizations and independent competitions supporting its growth. Breaking became an Olympic sport at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, as per a December 7, 2020 decision by the International Olympic Committee, after a proposal by the World DanceSport Federation.¶

Terminology

Breaking has interchangeably been called "breaking", "b-boying", "b-girling", and "breakdancing", but many in the culture prefer not to use "breakdancing." They argue that the original practitioners of the dance used breaking, and that breakdancing was used by the media to commercialize the dance. However, many still use "breakdancing" due to its popularity. Breakdancing is also inaccurately used as an umbrella term to describe other funk styles like popping or locking. Major competitions like The Olympics, Red Bull BC One, and World Breaking Classic use the term "breaking". There are several contradictory explanations of where the term "breaking" came from. One of the most common is that it refers to the drum "breaks" in songs that are commonly looped in breaking music. However, early practitioners say that 'breaking' came from a slang term used by African Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In The Freshest Kids, DJ Kool Herc says:¶

"It didn't come from 'breaks' on the record. It came from, this man 'broke'. He went to ... the breaking point. You understand? So, we just used that exaggeration of that term to the dancing." Several other original breakers support this origin of the term. The terms "b-boy" and "b-girl" were coined by DJ Kool Herc to describe dancers who came to his parties. These terms that would later spread to describe breakers in general and eventually to describe people influenced by hip hop culture.¶

Influences

Many elements developed into breaking long before the 1970s. Michael Holman writes that West African dances performed by slaves, such as Juba, introduced the cipher — a circle of dancers where each dancer takes a turn to dance — and an enduring element of competition into early African American dance. After Irish immigrants started arriving in the United States in the 1850s, African Americans combined Juba dance with the Irish Jig to develop Tap Dance. According to Holman, Tap dance has "connections with all the other dances that eventually did evolve into breaking." According to dance researcher Harri Heinilä, "It has been clear that the 'Breakdance' and other Hip Hop-related dances at the very least resemble or even were inherited from earlier African American dances, which have been collectively called jazz dance" The jazz/tap connection is corroborated by The Legendary Twins, early breakers who directly cite jazz dance figures like the Nicholas Brothers as inspiration for their developments and popularized jazz movements like the sweep. When many of the early Bronx breakers were asked to name the first bboy, they responded with "James Brown" Brown's music and dance were the embodiment of black pride, self-expression, and individuality which stood out to pioneers like Kool Herc. In interviews, Herc said "I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown, " Capoeira and breaking share several moves. Some claim that capoeira and breaking share a common African origin, while others claim a direct connection. However, several early breakers deny the possibility of direct influence.¶

Kool Herc and Early Breaking

Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell is often credited as the founder of hip hop, and while people were breaking before his parties, he was a central figure in the early development of the dance, and he is credited with taking breaking out of the underground and into public spaces. Before Kool Herc was a DJ he regularly went dancing at local clubs, house parties, and community centers in the Bronx that were predominantly attended by African American teens. One of the most popular of these clubs was the Plaza Tunnel, in the basement of the Concourse Plaza Hotel. Young dancers would dance irreverently at parties like these in ways that were called "freestyling", "going off", "burning", or "breaking". These parties also introduced key breaking moves like the "pin drop" or "knee drop", and emphasized core values of uniqueness and individuality that are still prized in breaking. They included burning, a competitive dance that both males and females would take part in where they acted out insults or attacks towards each other. This part of the dance would later be known as battling. Herc's approach to DJing was based in his background as a dancer at these parties. He wanted to improve upon the mixes other DJ's would play in ways that would make people more excited to dance. This commitment to playing music for breakers spawned innovations in music choice and turntable techniques that would make his events popular. On August 11, 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back to school party to raise money to buy schoolclothes. She asked Kool Herc, her older brother, to DJ.¶

Cultural Expansion, Rock Steady Crew, and Mainstream Adoption

In the late 1970s, DJs like Grandmaster Flash had begun looping just the breaks in the songs, spurring a new style of breaking where dancers emphasized more acrobatic moves and extended floor work as top rocking became less important and receded into the background. It was around this time when Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans, started learning the dance from its African American practitioners after breaking parties started being held outside. At this time, a lot of the original African American practitioners were ageing out of the dance or moving onto other dances. The formation of Rock Steady Crew was a good example of the racial integration and generational changes of this era. It formed when Jimmy Dee, an African American bboy, and Jimmy Lee, a Latino bboy formed a crew to keep the Rock (the dance) steady (alive). Rock Steady Crew was soon passed down to Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon, who moved to Manhattan and expanded the crew by battling others in the area. Rock Steady Crew met photographer Henry Chalfant, who was interested in breaking through its connections to graffiti.¶

Return to the Underground and International Resurgence

Breaking was considered a fad and by 1986, breaking had largely faded from public consciousness as many dancers quit or moved on. However the dance spread internationally to countries like Japan, Germany, France and Canada through movies featuring breaking and breakers from New York touring internationally.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Wu-tang (dance)”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Wu-tang is form of hip-hop dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶