The hip-hop dance style of “breaking” didn’t die in the ‘80s;

it went global, capturing the imaginations of people of varied backgrounds, including this Korean American writer and practicing “b-girl.” She explores the soulful appeal of this dance style that, in recent years, has been dominated by “The Koreans,” who are winning international competitions and respect in a scene created by African American youth in the Bronx.

 

Breaking refers to a hip-hop dance style that originated in the Bronx of New York City in the 1970s and is usually performed during the “breaks” in the music, which is often remixed to prolong these breaks. Most people unschooled in hip-hop culture know it as “breakdancing,” a term coined by the media when the dance style first attracted mass popularity in the 1980s. In recent decades, the dance style has been embraced by young men and women across the globe, with South Koreans emerging as some of the best in the world. Those who practice breaking are referred to as “b-boys” and “b-girls.”

 

JohnJay Chon (left) and Charlie Shin are credited with building the b-boy scene in Korea. They are pictured here at Battle of the Year 2006, an annual b-boy competition.

TOP: The writer performing a freeze. • ABOVE: Fox Force Five at Freestyle Session 10 in Los Angeles in August. Crew members: Peppa, Paulito, Seoulsonyk, Suprema, Ideal and Bounce (clockwise from upper left).

 

I have always loved hip-hop — at least, what I got out in the mostly white Jersey ‘burbs where I grew up. I listened to Hot 97 and watched MTV and BET religiously, pretending to be the lone Asian dancer as I mimicked the choreography in the music videos I saw. Every time I heard Rob Base’s demand to “Hit it!” nothing could stop me from bum-rushing my middle school’s cafeteria floor as the hip-hop dance track, “It Takes Two,” blared through the speakers during seventh-grade dances. My classmates didn’t know what to make of this suddenly crazed Korean doing the Roger Rabbit and Cabbage Patch with complete abandon.

I couldn’t explain my reaction nor did I care to. I never really vibed with the people I grew up with, and dancing my heart out to those beats in the center of that circle was the only time that I felt free from all my adolescent concerns about fitting in.

It would take 10 years, but I would recapture that same sense of exhilaration and liberation when I stumbled upon a dance style that most people, including myself, thought died out in the 1980s along with big hair and shoulder pads. Now breaking — more commonly known as “breakdancing” to those unschooled in hip-hop culture — has become my life. Luckily for me, this dance style that was created mainly by black teenage boys in the Bronx and embraced by Latino kids in the outer boroughs of New York City in the 1970s and ‘80s, continued to be practiced and developed as an art form throughout the 1990s.