Breakdancing cleared its final hurdle to feature in the Paris 2024 Games on Monday, bringing the wholly original, electric art form to sport’s biggest stage.
Considered one of the pillars of hip-hop culture, breaking, as participants prefer to call it, originated in New York in the 1970s and has spread globally, enjoying enormous popularity beyond the United States and particularly across Europe and Asia.
A 2019 Olympic Programme Commission Report estimated there were roughly one million participants in breaking worldwide and the 2019 Red Bull BC One World Final in Mumbai racked up more than 50 million views across streaming platforms including Facebook and YouTube.
“It can resonate with a lot of people because hip-hop culture resonates with a lot of people, hip-hop music resonates with a lot of people,” Logan Edra, an American dancer who goes by the performance name Logistx and has performed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, said.
Key elements in breaking include top rocks — typically a competitor’s introductory dance moves — footwork, power moves and freezes. Power moves are explosive displays such as spins, while freezes are when a performer sticks a pose.
In a blend of artistry and athleticism, competitors — known as “b-boys” and “b-girls” — are evaluated not only on technical skill but also creativity and style, with strength, speed, rhythm and agility providing an edge.
Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon, one of the pioneers during his upbringing in the Bronx in the 1970s, said he applauded breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics but wanted to ensure its cultural core remained intact.
“This is true folk art from the music to the dance, to the DJ to the rapper,” said Colon, who appeared in dance films of the 1980s including Beat Street and Flashdance. The Olympic competition will take place in the heart of Paris, on the Place de la Concorde, at the bottom of the famed Champs-Elysees.
“It will be a fascinating mix of sports and culture at an iconic site,” Paris 2024 sports director Jean-Philippe Gatien told reporters on Monday.
“We’re expecting it to be a phenomenal success.”
