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 Hard to Do", Village Voice, April 23, 1981.

B-Girls