breakdancing / breaking

Breaking began in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. The word comes from 'break' — the instrumental section of a funk or soul record where the melody dropped out and the rhythm was exposed. DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican-born Bronx DJ, extended these breaks by using two copies of the same record, switching between them to loop the break indefinitely. The dancers who moved during these breaks were b-boys and b-girls. The dance was breaking. The 'break' was always musical before it was physical.

Breaking was competitive from the start. Crews — the Rock Steady Crew, the New York City Breakers, the Dynamic Rockers — battled for reputation. The vocabulary was athletic: toprock (standing moves), downrock (floorwork), power moves (spins on the head, back, or hands), and freezes (held poses). The style drew from capoeira, kung fu films, gymnastics, and the simple physics of what a human body can do on a piece of cardboard. The dancers were teenagers, mostly Black and Puerto Rican, and the dance was free to learn if you could handle the pavement.

In 1981, the Village Voice ran a story about 'breakdancing,' and the media term took hold. Hollywood made Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo in 1984. The word breakdancing appeared on magazine covers and news segments worldwide. The dancers hated it. 'Breakdancing' was a media invention that flattened the culture — it ignored the DJs, the MCs, the graffiti writers, and the entire hip-hop ecosystem that breaking belonged to. The word the media chose was not the word the practitioners used.

In 2024, breaking entered the Paris Olympics as a competitive event. The International Olympic Committee used 'breaking,' not 'breakdancing,' at the insistence of the community. Fifty years after DJ Kool Herc looped a break in the Bronx, the dance reached the world's largest sporting stage. The b-boys and b-girls got the name right, even if it took half a century.