It all started in a brown brick house at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx. Right here, in a kind of youth club, DJ Kool Herc put on the first hip-hop songs in 1973. It was the world’s first hip hop party. Since then, New York City has been the mecca for hip-hop – and breakdance, the dance style that grew out of it.
Almost 50 years later we return to this place. Hip-hop has long been mainstream – and breakdance is no longer just a subculture, but will even be an Olympic discipline from Paris 2024. The Red Bull BC One World Final in the Big Apple gives a taste of what’s to come and just how professionally Breaking (the correct name) has become.
The Story of Breaking
It all started with DJ Kool Herc. It was August 11, 1973, Herc’s sister’s birthday. The setting: probably a bit like most youth centers. The furniture is made of plastic and formica, the floor is laminate and in the back of the mini-kitchen someone is sure to put a pizza in there.
It’s always the people, never just the environment, that create special moments. And that night it was DJ Kool Herc, 18, who had come to the Bronx from Jamaica six years earlier, who always played two records side by side – funk, soul, rock, R’n’B – who left out the instrumental parts and only those Beat and percussion parts, called “breaks”, lined up – ultra danceable.
The suppression or omission of music “leaves a hunger in the body that can only be satisfied by filling the stillness with movement”, the American culture critic and dancer Barbara Browning would write years later in her book “Samba – Resistance in Motion”. . Different dance, same principle. Kool Herc used it for the first time in the brown brick house at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue and not only threw what was to be called a “block party” from then on, but also unleashed a dynamic that could no longer be stopped by anything.
Hip-hop was born – a quadruple of deejaying, rap, graffiti and, of course, breaking. It wasn’t just the bands anymore who packed their stories into music. DJs like Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash or Afrika Bambaataa created beats to which the b-girls and b-boys of the Bronx wrapped their stories in dance at block parties or in the notorious Poe Park.
Alien Ness, scene legend and former president of the Mighty ZuluKingz crew, described the dynamics of this time in an interview. He said: “The DJs brought the parties. The partys gave people an escape from the madness of the Bronx. If it was a good DJ, it would attract B-Boys.” The Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s: frustration – escapism – partying – b-boys.
The breaking hype was fueled in the 1980s by films like “Wild Style!” (1983), “Beat Street” (1984) and “Breakin” 1984). And so “breakdance” – a term that incidentally comes from the media, the scene speaks of “breaking” – became a global phenomenon.
The most famous hip hop ambassadors were Public Enemy, Run-DMC and Busta Rhymes. In the mid-1980s, the hip-hop wave also swept over to Germany. In 1984 the first Breakdance World Championships were held in Munich. The magazine “Bravo” published an article with tips and tricks on the subject in the same year. In the summer of 1985 one of the first German breaker groups was founded in Dessau.
For many dancers, breaking is no longer just an art form and attitude to life, but also a profession. Street battles have turned into professional competitions. The biggest of all is the Red Bull BC One World Final. It has been held for 20 years. Most recently in November last year in New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, an opera hall across from Madison Square Garden.
Stars like David Bowie, Rammstein and Bob Dylan have performed here. However, unlike the dancers at the BC One World Final, they knew in advance which songs would be played. Breaker, on the other hand, improvise, fully immersing themselves in the beat and rhythm. The spectators don’t sit in front of the stage, but around the circular dance floor. This allows fans and dancers to interact. And this is the only way to create the unique battle feeling. A taste of the Bronx in Manhattan’s venerable Hammerstein Ballroom.
Sedgwick Avenue in the northeast of the city – where it all began – is now nicknamed “Hip-Hop Boulevard”. Completely official. And the US Senate decided in 2021 to officially designate August 11, the birthday of DJ Kool Herc’s sister, as “Hip Hop Celebration Day”.
Breaking at the Olympics – Does it work?
At the 2024 Olympia in Paris, Breaking will celebrate its premiere on the Place de la Concorde. The French Organizing Committee came up with the idea of including it in the Olympic program, wanting to give the Summer Games a “more urban dimension”.
Conversely, however, Olympia also gives the breaking a touch of “establishment”. Breakers become athletes at the Olympics, and many of them don’t want to be like that. The problem: Breaking in its original form is considered an art form. Breakers see themselves primarily as artists and dancers.
So does it make sense to transform the original art form of breaking into the formalities of the IOC? How far will the dancers follow this path?
Many protagonists in the breaking scene fear alienation from the core of the original DNA through the influence of IOC officials from outside the scene. That means: Only if the IOC and breakers manage to sit down and organize the event together will we see authentic competitions that take the art form of breaking into account on the Place de la Concorde. Only then will the inclusion of breaking in the canon of Olympic competitions have the effect that the IOC desires: namely, to bind a younger audience to the Olympics.
To qualify as a b-boy or b-girl for the Olympics, there are three options: the 2023 World Cup, the continental championships and the Olympic qualifying series. So the two world champions are directly qualified. There are also five winners of the continental championships. A further 14 starting places will be awarded in the Olympic qualifying series from March to June 2024. As hosts, France gets two of the remaining six places. Four more Olympic tickets (two each for the men’s and women’s competitions) will be awarded by a commission. For this, the dancers have to be in the top 32 of the Olympic qualifying competition.
Two medal decisions are planned for Paris 2024 – one for men and one for women. The winners are determined in one-on-one battles. A total of 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls compete in solo battles. During the battles, the dancers take turns in “Throw Downs” of around 60 seconds each. During this time, the breakers have to convince the jury with their spectacular dance performances. During the battles, the jury assigns percentage ratings via fader and decides who has won. Six criteria play a role here: technique, versatility, creativity, personality, presentation skills and musicality.
The jury pays particular attention to the style and difficulty of the dance. The breakers use various elements from the categories top rock (dancing while standing), down rock (fast step combinations with hands and feet on the ground), freezes (long held, exhausting positions) and power moves (difficult acrobatics such as “headspins” or “windmills”. ) a.
Who are the best German breakers?
Since it has become clear that Breaking will become an Olympic event, the otherwise individualistic dancers have also conformed to association structures. The German Dance Sport Association is in charge, national coach Marco Baaden looks after the most talented German breakers in the national squad. Every three months, he calls his best together for a management course.
The best-known breakers include Jilou Rasul from Berlin and Pauline Nettersheim from Düsseldorf, as well as the B-Girl Jojo from Freiburg. She was at the Red Bull BC One World Final in New York in 2022, but was eliminated in the preliminary round. B-Boy Chau-Lin from Karlsruhe competed in the men’s competition, but he didn’t make it to the final round either. Both dream of participating in the Olympics next year.
“Breaking has changed completely. It’s become much more professional,” says B-Girl Jojo in New York. “I train up to two hours every day to get even better.” Her early departure hurts her. “If you allow yourself to make a mistake, you’re already out. You plan more. It’s not as much freestyle as it used to be.”
The jury’s assessment of breaking is always subjective, even though breaking is now Olympic. “A lot depends on who evaluates you. All breakers have experienced that before,” says Jojo, who finished third at the German Breaking Championships 2022 in Dessau and is coached by former breakdance world champion “Lil Amok”.
When it comes to B-Boys, Chau-Lin belongs alongside Dennis Dressel from Fürth to the crème de la crème in Germany. Together with Jojo, he triumphed at the Red Bull BC One Cypher Germany in Dresden last year and danced his way to the World Final in New York.
“Hip-hop was invented in New York,” says Chau-Lin. “Dancing here is something very special for every breaker. This city is an incredible inspiration for all dancers.” He wants to be back at the next BC One World Final in Paris in October – if he qualifies for it. But Chau-Lin’s big dream is the 2024 Olympics: “If I give everything, I can hopefully achieve this goal,” says the 30-year-old. At least as important: “I think it’s good that our sport is at the Olympics. As long as the breaking culture is preserved.”
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