‘People don’t understand how hard breaking is, it’s gymnastics on steroids, it’s crazy, next level,” says David Russell, aka Footloose, as he watches a group of breakers (the proper term for breakdancers) warming up. They’re not in a club, or on a street corner, but in a science lab. Which is the kind of thing that happens when your passion becomes an Olympic sport.
Breaking will feature in the Olympics for the first time at the Paris games in 2024, following other urban sports such as skateboarding. It’s a leap from breaking’s origins in the emerging hip-hop culture of the Bronx in the late 1970s. To get the “Is it sport or is it art?” question out of the way, there’s no reason breaking can’t be both, and as art forms go, competition is built into breaking’s battle format – B-Boys face off against each other with moves including headspins, flares and windmills – and it already has an established international competition circuit.
