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Abstract
Breaking prioritizes the value of respect, which is connected to the physical movements of the dance practice. However, despite promoting this value, Breaking faces a threat from within: unaddressed and continued sexual harassment and assault. In response to the misogyny and disregard that women have experienced, I argue that Breaking communities need to develop a practice of listening and attuning to feminists and what they are saying with their dancing and words.
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges scholars who contributed to this article's thinking, writing, and editing: Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, Dr. Olive Demar, Dr. Cindy Garcia, and Dr. Yan Pang. This article is a culmination of discussions about shared humanity, readings from leading scholars in the field, and witnessing several Ananya Dance Theatre performances.
Notes
1 Helen Simard, “Is She B-Boying or B-Girling? Understanding How B-Girls Negotiate Gender and Belonging,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, ed. Mary Fogarty and Imani Kai Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
2 Ananya Chatterjea, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance: South-South Choreographies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); Cindy Garcia, Salsa Crossings: Dancing Latinidad in Los Angeles (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012); Priya Srinivasan, Sweating Saris: Indian Dance as Transnational Labor (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2012).
3 Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 49.
4 Rose, Black Noise, 49.
5 Rose, Black Noise, 48-49.
6 Nancy Guevara, “Women Writin’, Rappin’, Breakin’,” in Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 51.
7 Serouj Aprahamian, “‘There Were Females that Danced Too’: Uncovering the Role of Women in Breaking History,” Dance Research Journal 58, no. 2 (2020): 41-58, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767720000169.
8 Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón, Graffiti Grrlz: Performing Feminism in the Hip Hop Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2018); Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
9 Aprahamian, “‘There Were Females that Danced Too,’” 47.
10 Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1996), 2-3.
11 Aprahamian, “‘There Were Females that Danced Too,’” 42.
12 Gwendolyn Pough, Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2004), 77.
13 Imani Kai Johnson, “From Blues to B-Girls: Performing Badass Femininity,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 24, no. 1 (2014): 20.
14 MiRi Park, “Learn Your History: Using Academic Oral Histories of NYC B-Girls in the 1990s to Broaden Hip Hop Scholarship,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, ed. Mary Fogarty and Imani Kai Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 141.
15 Joseph Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and New York City Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 64.
16 Simard, “Is She B-Boying or B-Girling?,” 326-344.
17 Simard, “Is She B-Boying or B-Girling?,” 328.
18 Simard, “Is She B-Boying or B-Girling?,” 330.
19 Simard, “Is She B-Boying or B-Girling?,” 333.
20 Rachael Gunn, “Where the #bgirls at? Politics of (In)Visibility in Breaking Culture,” Feminist Media Studies 22, no. 6 (2021): 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2021.1890182.
21 Srinivasan, Sweating Saris, 8-9.
22 Garcia, Salsa Crossings, xvii.
23 Chatterjea, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance, 5.
24 Susan Leigh Foster, “Choreographies of Writing,” Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, March 22, 2011, video, 1:22:09, https://hdl.handle.net/2333.1/3r22846r.
25 “B-Girl Macca”, B-Girl Macca, accessed January 20, 2023, https://bgirlmacca.com/.
26 BBoy Network, “Sunny Vs. Macca - B-Girl Finals - Red Bull BC One USA Camp 2019,” YouTube, May 18, 2019, video, 4:27, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIdoM0urUXo.
27 Rachael Gunn, “Re-Articulating Gender Norms Through Breakdancing,” NEO: Journal for Higher Degree Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities 5 (2012): 6.
28 Red Bull BC One, “● Replay: @Red Bull BC One World Final 2022 🗽 New York,” YouTube, November 12, 2022, video, 3:57:43, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKDJjoYdWdQ.
29 Red Bull BC One, “Kill vs Ayumi | Top 16 | Red Bull BC One World Finals,” YouTube, November 5, 2017, video, 5:02, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMwRrrpSDVw.
30 BeastModeCrew India, “BGirl Jilou vs BBoy Wildchild | Undisputed 2019 | Top 16 | Haulien BBoy City,” YouTube, December 20, 2019, video, 3:26, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCHFi7zGr4s&t=60s.
31 “B-Girl Macca,” https://bgirlmacca.com/.
32 GIRL ILLA Tactics, “Bring the Love 2017,” YouTube, June 12, 2017, video, 4:14, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWv71BbTHuY.
33 Aprahamian, “‘There Were Females,’” 47.
34 Aprahamian, “‘There Were Females,’” 44.
35 HipHopDX, “Rock Steady Crew Legend Crazy Legs Responds to Sexual Assault Allegations,” YouTube, December 19, 2020, video, 3:31, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiB_5IiyViw.
36 Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz, “Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz - Episode 14 | B-Girl Macca,” YouTube, April 26, 2021, video, 1:31:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IofzCaWzO1s&t=4612s.
37 Stance, “Legacy of Womxn in Street Club Dance ft. Rokafella and Jojo Diggs // Stance,” YouTube, October 10, 2020, video, 52:01, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_jpNGZtYLw&list=PLWgJZd8EXqrf0qJO81gzkBjTiBrb8x9fx&index=6&t=2685s.
Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz, “Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz - Episode 14 | B-Girl Macca.”
Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz, “Beyond the Cypher with Illskillz | Rock Lobzter on Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Assault in Breakin’ P4,” YouTube, November 1, 2020, video, 17:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf6ycN9MtEE&list=PLWgJZd8EXqrf0qJO81gzkBjTiBrb8x9fx&index=56.
Wild Style Collective, “Bboy Bgirl Summit 2022 Discussion Panel,” YouTube, July 18, 2022, video, 28:55, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iNw6JQ8JXY.
38 “About,” Full Circle Souljahs, accessed January 27, 2023, https://www.fullcirclesouljahs.com/about/.
39 Marsha Badger, “Red Bull B-Girls Discuss Challenges of Breakingancing in a Male Dominated Field,” Hello Beautiful, August 16, 2022, https://hellobeautiful.com/3668983/redbull-bc-one-cypher/.
40 Jilou, “Raising Awareness: Sexual Harassment in the Breaking Scene,” Just Jilou (anonymous comment on blog), May 17, 2020, https://justjilou.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/raising-awareness-sexual-harassment/.
41 N’tegrity Quinones, “The Breakin Community is Healing and Looking Forward to a Safer and More Inclusive Future,” Going Places (blog), Ntegrity in Motion, April 1, 2022, https://www.ntegrityinmotion.com/blog.
42 Quinones, “The Breakin Community is Healing,” https://www.ntegrityinmotion.com/blog.
43 Badger, “Red Bull B-Girls,” https://hellobeautiful.com/3668983/redbull-bc-one-cypher/.
1 I capitalize Breaking to highlight the important role it plays in generating Hip Hop culture and history: it IS history and deserves the respect of formal names or “proper nouns” that require an initial capital. Second, for many years, historians footnoted Breaking in Hip Hop history, stereotyping it as a hyper-masculine dance practice and glossing over the contributions of B-Girls. This article seeks to address these misrepresentations and redefine the term. Third, academic institutions and dance studies have only recently begun to recognize Breaking (and Hip Hop and Street dance) as an art form worthy of analysis. I capitalize Breaking to provoke discussion about this dance practice, its treatment in the past, and where it is now.
2 A B-Boy, B-Girl, or B-Person is an individual who has a history of practicing Breaking and has earned their place in a community of Breakers.
3 E-Boy is an insult that refers to B-Boys who comment on videos as if they can perform at the same levels as professional Breakers.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jason “J-Sun” Noer
JASON “J-SUN” NOER is a practitioner of Street and Hip Hop Dance forms which he teaches, choreographs, and performs. He is a member of Battlecats (MN), Rock Lordz (MN), and West Coast Rockers (CA). He is also the artistic director of the MIXTAPE, a group of Hip Hop choreographers, musical artists, and videographers. MIXTAPE’s mission is to serve the Twin Cities Hip Hop Dance scene by breaking down barriers to resources, helping to cultivate an artistic ecosystem. J-Sun is the Disciplinary Head of the Hip Hop Dance track at the University of Minnesota. His scholarship includes Music, Moves, and Mind-Sets: Theorizing Hip Hop History and Pedagogy Through Break(danc)ing (2018), Towards a Computational Music Theory of Everything: Shaping Future Music with Big Science (2020), Creative Musicianship (2022), and “Hip Hop Dance and the Circulation of Breaking Footage” (in process).