Spinning Misconceptions

A Look into Break Dancing

Joseph Cheng

  The music pounded loudly on the dance floor as people stood in a circle. Nodding my head to the beat, I stepped out and did a few dance steps before I went down to the ground. On my hands and legs, I began walking rounds to the beat, throwing in a little bit of flare to it all, as much flare as I could think of. A few moments into the step, I jumped onto my hands and twisted my legs in the air. Freeze! So far, the crowd seemed silent; they just casually watched me mess around as if I was making a fool of myself, for it looked so simple to them. After some more dance steps, I jumped onto my right forearm and split my legs in the air above my head. Freeze number two! The hard-to-please crowd gave little response. I find it very difficult to dance to a crowd who shows such little response: neither positive nor negative feedback. So I jumped into the move that they gave their attention to see. I did a windmill: I rolled around on the floor as I swung my legs around in the air. The crowd finally gave me cheers of satisfaction.

  From the few years I learned about the break-dancing culture, I discovered a drastic difference between the popular view of the dance and an actual break-dancer’s view. Most misperceive the dance to be a bag of fancy aerobic tricks; however, the dance is more than that, for it includes the profound creative expression that makes it a unique portion of the hip hop culture.

  The first response I notice from people when I say that I break-dance is the emphasis on spinning on the head or just plain old spinning around. Flares (a gymnastic move where the dancer swings his legs around with only arms as support), head-spins, and other flashy moves are the main thing people associate with break dancing. “What, break-dance? What, you can spin on your head?” is an extremely common response. When people watch any type of breaking, they anticipate the showy stuff. Most have a superficial view of the dance and lack the profound appreciation for the art and culture.

  I find that people unconsciously categorize the dance into two parts: moves they think they can do, and moves they wished they could do. The first category, with the moves they think they can do, includes all the dance steps with the different styles. They see a breaker (one who break-dances) “run around on their hands and knees,” as some would put it, and just pause in a “weird and uncomfortable positions.” However, there is a skill involved in doing these dance moves. It took me a while to master them, and every time I try to teach them, the learner has difficulty getting the basic steps down well enough to even begin making it look decently smooth. The same universal truth that applies to other activities applies here: the general public cannot fully appreciate, fully understand the skill involved in the dance if they have not attempted the moves themselves. Things look much easier done by an experienced person than they actually are. This fact makes the stylistic side of break dancing much harder to appreciate. Ironically, that stylistic side separates a good dancer from a mediocre dancer, especially among the break-dance community. If I did my flashiest move, the general crowd would be pleased, but those who break-dance would be a little bit annoyed by the lack of style. Breakers in the hip hop community value individual style more and want to see a breaker’s creativity and other things that make break-dance more of an art form than a sport.

  The second category of moves includes the moves that people wish they could do. These are the moves that seem too hard to try, and people are too afraid to try them. The reason I was attracted to the whole breaking culture was because of the aerobic dance moves. These moves attract the crowd and leave a lasting impression upon them. I could do the worst footwork anyone has every seen, and as long as I did my spinning around, the crowd would love it, and that is what I did when I first started. Yes, these moves require skill, time, and lots of energy to perform. However, they are not essential for break dancing. In the early 1980’s when break dancing first became mainstream, it included mainly very intricate dance moves that required a lot of body coordination. You see people of the 80’s doing the robot, doing the arm wave, and doing other highly skilled dance moves that required little aerobic skills. Popular culture focuses primarily upon the aerobic flashy moves and names that break-dancing. Take a look at a recent Sketcher’s sneakers commercial with breaking in it. The main thing you see in the advertisement is people spinning on their heads in a head stand pose, as if that is what breaking is all about. The actual art form is the integration of the two categories of moves, style (the fancy dance steps and poses that require mainly individuality and creativity) and power (the flashy moves that rely heavily on aerobic skills).

  After a couple of years of practice, breaking becomes more than just a bag of tricks. Break-dance is an exercise both for my creativity and for my physical body. It is like a sport, much like gymnastics, especially when I get into the more aerobic moves. Break-dance is also a form of expression that allows me to have a creative outlet. The flashy moves become outweighed by the stylistic moves that are unique to every dancer who comes along, for those moves separate a good dancer from a mediocre dancer. Break dancing gives me a creative outlet, just as painting and drawing do for artists and writing for poets. It becomes a part of my daily life as I immerse myself in that hip hop culture. I have practiced so much and watched others so much that I have acquired a bit of that hip hop culture. I attend dances and break-dancing battles that showcase each dancer’s best, most stylistic moves to outdo the other dancers. Break-dance is a way of life. The people that are genuinely interested are interested in the daily practices, the battles, and everything else that comes with the dance. There’s the hip hop attitude, the clothes, the DJ-ing; however, break-dance could stand by itself from the hip hop culture with its free form of creative expression.

  The same concept of looking beyond the superficial could be applied throughout the entire popular culture movement. Take a look at the pop music stars Britney Spears and N’Sync, who wrote like only two of their 50 songs, who are all pretty faces, pretty voices. Popular culture initially goes for these superficial level arts, because they are so accessible, so flashy, so easy to like, since the only thing they are there for is to please the general public. People need to look beyond those superficial appearances and the surface level moves, and they need to look at the creativity and expression that the breakers put their entire hearts into. Those are the things that make performance special, worthwhile and profound.

  As I set out to one of my weekly break-dance practices, I bump into one of my friends. “C’mon, man, I wanna see your windmills, man. Can you do a flare? Huh? I wanna see,” he says. I just smile and tell him maybe next time. For him and for popular culture, break-dance is only a bag of tricks. However, in truth, break-dance is full of dedication, skill, creativity, and life that are often overshadowed by the layers of flashy moves.