Breakdancing

Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Puerto Ricans in The Bronx borough of New York City.

Breakdancing consists mainly of four kinds of movement—toprock, footwork, power moves, and freezes—and is typically set to songs containing drum breaks, especially in funk, soul, and hip-hop. Its modern dance elements originated among the poor youth of New York during the 1970s and early 1980s. It is tied to the birth of hip-hop, whose DJs played songs featuring rhythmic breaks for dancers.

The dance form has expanded globally, with an array of organizations and independent competitions supporting its growth. Breaking became an Olympic sport at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, as per a December 7, 2020 decision by the International Olympic Committee, after a proposal by the World DanceSport Federation.

Breaking has interchangeably been called "breaking", "b-boying", "b-girling", and "breakdancing", but many in the culture prefer not to use "breakdancing." They argue that the original practitioners of the dance used breaking, and that breakdancing was used by the media to commercialize the dance. Breakdancing is also inaccurately used as an umbrella term to describe other funk styles like popping or locking. Major competitions like The Olympics, Red Bull BC One, and World Breaking Classic use the term "breaking".

Some enthusiasts consider breakdancing to be an ignorant, and even pejorative, term. Others use it to derogatorily refer to studio-trained dancers who can perform the moves but who do not live a "b-boy lifestyle" or to disparage those who learn the dance for personal gain rather than for commitment to the culture.Many accuse the media of presenting a simplified version of the dance that focuses on "tricks" instead of culture. However, many still use the term "breakdancing" due to its popularity.

There are several contradictory explanations of where the term "breaking" came from. One of the most common is that it refers to the drum "breaks" in songs that are commonly looped in breaking music. However, early practitioners say that 'breaking' came from a slang term used by African Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In The Freshest Kids, DJ Kool Herc says:

"It didn't come from 'breaks' on the record. It came from, this man 'broke'. He went to ... the breaking point. You understand? So, we just used that exaggeration of that term to the dancing."

Several other original breakers support this origin of the term.