Welcome to the 218th insertion of DEMUR®, an analytical series highlighting the intricacies of the artistic world and the minutiae lying within. In this episode, we uncover the origin of ‘breaking’ through the eyes of Michael Holam, understanding how b-boys became a truce for gang-related bloodshed.
Break dancing, also known as breaking or b-boying, is a form of dance rooted in the streets of New York City. Closely related to the birth of hip-hop, the name takes from that of DJ Kool Herc’s ‘breakbeats’ which were predominately used as the movement’s foundation in the early 1970s. Characterized by high-energy, expressive gestures, many of break dancing’s intricacies can be accredited to gymnastics, Kung-Fu and acrobatics, and was often practiced on large sheets of cardboard to reduce concrete-related injuries.
While much disputed, the history of breaking dancing can be pinpointed to an alternative style of dance, known as ‘toprock’. The footwork-oriented genre would spawn a series of experimental variations like ‘Brooklyn Uprock’, in which two partners perform aggressive moves and hit-like motions, almost mimicking a fight. Emerging in the side streets of NYC, the dance combat hybrid would spring a shift in violent turf-centric gang tensions, providing a less-lethal out for disputes that had been boiling for decades.
As told by Michael Holam, a hip-hop pioneer, “There were the Ghetto Brothers and the Black Spades, the Savage Nomads, and the Savage Skulls. And they'd been bloodletting for years: breaking heads, killing, stabbing each other,". But, in 1971, Yellow Benjy, the Ghetto Brother’s leader, would establish a truce to allow rival members to party and resolve previously deadly altercations through battles of steez and movement.
This blend between uprock and what was now considered break dancing would provide an expressive outlet and sense of community for outcasted youth. To reduce unnecessary carnage, gangs would host dance battles in the street to settle disputes, the winner choosing the location of a future competition while maintaining a vague sense of peace.
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