B-boyin' and B-girlin'
1st Element to go global / mass
commodified by screen industries!
Potential Influences

James Brown (Kool Herc, Bronx!)

Kung-Fu movies (Bronx!)
•
Lindy Hop
–
Hellzapoppin' (1941) scene
•
Charleston
•
Sammy Davis Jr. “Boogie Woogie”
•
Capoeira, Brazilian self-defense dance
•
Gymnastics
The Freshest Kids (2002)
•
Breaking as industry
•
Recuperation!!!!
•
Bboying as a response to the music, the break
•
1975, bboying hit streets and Puerto Ricans
pick it up
•
1979, disco killed bboying (DJ couldn't cut
breaks) and the dance had died off.
•
1981 “breakdancing” erupts (Lincoln Center),
dies by '86
Popmaster Fabel
•
Physical graffiti, channeled aggression
•
B-boying, uprocking, West Coast “funk”=
“breakdancing” by media
•
Kool Herc, “break boy” (b-boy) and “break girl”
(b-girl)
•
Style= builds upon prior forms and structures
and is an individual's conscious/subconscious
flavor added
•
Competition and battling CENTRAL to
“progression”...testing styles
Popmaster Fabel Cont'd
•
Toprock
•
Down rock, floor rock or footwork
•
Power moves (1980s, spinning became a
focus of the media)
•
Freezes
•
Transitions
•
Rocking or uprocking, about humiliation and
acting out violence w/out touching
•
Cypher battle vs. Judge battle; Style heads vs.
Power heads
West Coast “Funk”
•
Popularized in early 1980s
•
Grounded in locking
•
Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force's
“Planet Rock” (1982)
–
Ali G Indahouse(2002) scene
Banes (2004 [1984])
•
Newsweek cover in 1984
•
Breaking has two eras:
–
1. Before Media
–
2. After Media ( a. amateur and b. professional)
•
Breaking was frozen and legitimated by media
(homogenized)
•
It is a way to (re)claim the streets (physical
graffiti)
•
Naming moves=common law copyright
•
Sally Banes, "Physical Graffiti: Breaking Is
B-Girls