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Victor Montalvo will compete for Team USA in the breaking division at the Paris Summer Olympics.
Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images
In the early 1970s, hip-hop dancers at New York City's block parties began adding movements from gymnastics, martial arts, and other elements to their repertoire. They called their new improvisational style “Be-Boy”. Today, it is commonly referred to as “breakdancing,” although dancers specializing in this genre prefer the term “breaking.”
Now, more than 50 years later, Breaking is set to appear on the biggest stage in history: the Paris Summer Olympics.
Breaking will be featured for the first time at this year's Olympics, which will be held from July 26 to August 11, making it the first dance sport to be included in the Olympics. This summer, a total of 32 athletes (referred to as B-) will participate from all over the world, 16 men and 16 women. Boys and B girls compete for gold, silver and bronze at Place de la Concorde in Paris.
While the DJ spins the track, the dancers improvise a variety of moves, including intricate footwork, twists, spins, and “freezes” that involve balancing on the hands and head. The judges will score the entries in six categories: creativity, individuality, technique, diversity, playability, and musicality.
So far, the United States has selected two players, 35-year-old Sunny Choi from New York and 29-year-old Victor Montalvo, who is based in Florida. According to NBC News' Rebecca Cohen, the team still has two spots available.
The sport debuted at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and quickly gained popularity. According to NBC News, more than 1 million people watched the competition. Now they hope to repeat that success at the Summer Olympics.
“What is braking? [International Olympic Committee] To reconnect with young people, the 15- to 25-year-old generation,” said Jean, former senior manager of the commission and former CEO of the World Dancesport Federation, the international governing body for breaking. Laurent Bourquin said: athleticLucas Weese.
Meanwhile, athletes hope the unprecedented visibility will attract new people to breaking.
“The Olympics are a huge platform for us to share what we do and bring people into the community who might not have known that Breakeven existed without the Olympics,” he said to the U.S. team. Vicky Chan, 33, who hopes to compete in the Olympics, tells NBC Olympics' Sam Brief.
Some onlookers question whether breaking deserves to be an Olympic sport, while others argue it should be seen as an art rather than a sport. Breaking, on the other hand, is “not that different from other Olympic judged events, such as figure skating or gymnastics,” which combines artistry and athleticism. washington postRick Mace wrote in 2021: Additionally, breakers train and prepare like athletes participating in other Olympic sports.
“Braking has got to be one of the hardest things in the world,” says David “Kid David” Shribman, a 35-year-old breaker and competition commentator from Los Angeles. rolling stoneBrandon Sneed. “You need the athleticism of a professional athlete, but you also need to be an artist, and you need to be able to dance. It's like asking Picasso to climb a mountain. That's what makes breaking difficult, you need to be creative. However, we need people with the highest athletic ability.”
According to Team USA, breaking began in the summer of 1973 in the Bronx when a DJ named Kool Herc began experimenting at parties. At other events, Herc noticed that people danced more during breaks in songs' percussive instruments, and to keep people moving he used two turntables to extend the breaks. I devised this.
Over time, people began to participate in dance-offs with each other and new styles were born. Breaking is one of his four pillars of hip-hop, along with graffiti, DJing, and rapping.
Interest in Breaking has waxed and waned over the years, and is considered by many to have peaked in the mid-1980s, when it was featured in films such as: beat street (1984) and flashdance (1983). Its popularity waned over the next few years. Lately, it's been making a comeback, and the Summer Olympics will definitely accelerate that momentum.
If you decide to watch it during the Olympics this summer, a word of advice: Don't call it “breakdancing.” These days, the term is outdated and a little offensive to beginners.
“We're not 14-year-old kids,” says Kevin Gopy, aka DJ Renegade. time The magazine's Sean Gregory added, “If you call it breakdancing, you're not a breaker.”
