By: Melissa Zhao
In 2024, breakdancing has finally it into the Olympic Games, feeding the eager spectators with a show full of mind-blowing poses, eye-popping movements, and spinning on heads as fast as possible. The world’s best breakdancers have gathered together in Paris, the City of Light, to prove that they have what it takes to win gold .
Breakdancing is a style of dance that is usually performed with music that has a strong rhythm, like hip-hop. The emphasis of this dance style is on energy, movement, creativity, humor, and an element of danger coming with each new move. It originated in New York City as a style of street dance in the early 1970s, and after its success at competitions and the 2018 Youth Olympics, it was added to the 2024 Paris Olympics. Along with some other sports, like surfing and skateboarding, breakdancing is one of the new sports added to the Olympics.
Crazy Legs, an American breakdancer, said, “If you’re not messing up every now and then at practice, you’re not doing anything above your ability to progress.”
The professional breakdancers are powerful as they display their skill and impressive physics honed after years and years of training. Gravity, while it pulls the spectators down to their seats, keeping them watching with eager eyes, has no hold over the breakdancers as they spin on their heads, turn circles using one hand, and dance in a way no one has ever seen before.
One of the most amazing things about breakdancing is how breakdancers can freeze mid-movement in amazing, extremely hard poses. Balancing on their heads, their hand, or anything, the breakdancers are determined to bust out their best moves to earn that gold medal that all Olympians yearn for.
Breakdancing is finally now a competitive art form, with many competitions hosted for the sport, where dancers break out moves and deliver an epic show for spectators, who get glued to their seats, watching with wide eyes and slack jaws at the gravity defying moves that the breakdancers display. Team USA’s Jeffrey Louis, known as B-boy Jeffro, breaks down how it’s judged and why he says it’s a form of self-expression: “It’s a dance, it’s an art, it’s a sport.”
Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/05/arts/dance/breaking-paris-olympics.html