What is Breakdancing?

Breakdance (media coined phrase), also known as breaking, b-girling or b-boying, is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement that originated among African American and Latin American youths in the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. It is arguably the best known of all hip hop dance styles. A breakdancer is also known as a breaker, B-boy or B-girl.



This is a modern day competition, how many hours of practice before you could show off like this?

After 30 years, Breakdancing has evolved to a highly acrobatic dance as demonstrated by  B-Boy Alcolil From Russia

There are many styles to Breakdancing, in fact you are suppose to make your own! Our aim is to entertain, therefore no single move or style represents Breakdancing, b-boys tend to copy and improve upon many dance forms and acrobatic skills in addition to making up their own moves. Some B-boys are actually trained gymnasts, while others just train like them. There tend to be a few predominant B-boy styles currently. Lets start with the most common to general audiences. Powermoves are all the highly acrobatic moves B-boys do, flips, headspins, windmills, flares, airflares... etcetera. They are fast, furious and very cool to watch, one problem though they can get repetitive. Here is one master powermover showing how well he can keep the momentum going, watch how his feet never touch the ground.

 Brazilian B-boy Powerhead

B-boys that only do powermoves are called powerheads, they tend to lack in the creativity and dancing part but excel in performing all of the difficult and complicated tricks of the dance. On the other extreme are the styleheads. These dancers cant or refuse to do powermoves, they only do moves that create and are unique to them. They tend to feel that performing tricks is better saved for a gymnastic meet than a dance floor.

B-boy Machine showing that style is power!