The year was 1987. It was a Friday night and my mother and I decided to rent some movies. I excitedly walked into the video store with the intentions of renting Return to Oz for the twentieth time, but that day, I happened upon something else.
There on one of the dusty shelves, in a brightly colored box with ’80s hipsters executing dance moves frozen in midair, was Breakin’, a movie which at the age of 5, became one of my favorite movies of all time. I rented it so much, my mother finally purchased it, and later on bought the sequel, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Unknowingly, I grew up watching two of the most important films documenting breakdance culture ever made.
Breakin’, the first installment, is truly amazing, but it’s really Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo that hit at the heart of my being. Nothing can prepare you for it, and no description gives it justice.
In Breakin’ 2, Kelly, Ozone and Turbo pick up where they left off in the original Breakin’ – with lots of breakdancing. However, this time around they attempt to save a community center called Miracles, an East L.A. hangout where locals lock, pop, and break, from the clutches of evil businessmen who want to tear it down and build a shopping center.
Although I never noticed it as a child, I can now see by watching the movie that Kelly, Ozone and Turbo seem to live in an alternate universe where breakdancing can solve all of society’s ills. In all of its 94 minutes, breakdancing stops bulldozers, stops gang wars, pays bills, and even cures the ill and infirm. It is one massive dance party throughout, held by people who dance, dance again, and then dance some more with two very special cameos by Ice-T.
The film is a beautiful nod to the booty shaking human spirit triumphing over “wack” upper middle class government bigwigs, in the end saving the one place where kids off the street can truly express themselves and … dance. It’s hard to hold back the tears, I know.
Breakdancing as we know it today started out with dancers gathering at places like Harlem World on 116th Street in Harlem to do battle – dancewise. The dance was well suited to competition, and appealed to athletic young men. Old-style breaking consisted of mainly floorwork that was much more complex than modern breaking. Although people in different parts of New York caught on to the craze, it was on the streets of the South Bronx that breakdancing really began. Often the best breakers in opposing gangs would have dance battles instead of physically fighting over things like turf and power. Breakdancing crews developed and formed their own routines. In 1981 the dancing started to include headspins, backspins, handglides and windmills.
The form of dance that originated so many years ago in New York has caught on, surprisingly enough, here at ETSU. Sophomore Brenden Bohannon, the man many students have seen breakin’ it down in front of the Sherrod Library like it ain’t nobody’s business has been breakdancing for a year and a half. “For me, breakdancing is an important form of expression, and a very liberating experience,” he said.
Bohannen saw someone breakdancing at a nightclub one night and he thought he’d give it a try. He now teaches classes on the subject. “I teach private lessons to anyone who wants to learn,” he said, “including battle-style and competition breaks.”
Like any b-boy, if Bohannen were stranded on a island, with only a piece of cardboard and a 20-pound boom-box, he would need the greatest breaking song the world has ever known to get him through it. For him, that song would be “Planet Rock,” from the widely celebrated masters of funk Afrika Bambaataa.
Fittingly, no situation such as that would be complete without the right ensemble. “My favorite is my red and white Puma outfit and Adidas shoes,” he said. “For breakdancing, shell toes are a must.”
In the way that movies like Breakin’ 2 inadvertently portray breakdancing as something that can be used to solve societal problems, Bohannen feels that it can. “Any kind of physical activity that takes creativity and individuality will create free thinkers and will influence the way they look at the world,” he explained. Maybe then they will want to change things.”
If only we just could have danced instead of go to war with Afghanistan, with the al-Qaeda busting out some phat moves that rivaled the U.S. military’s windmills, backspins and hand glides. I can see President Bush now, all pimped out in his Adidas windbreakers, kangol cap and “fly kicks,” doing the moonwalk around Osama bin Laden and finishing it off with a headspin for ultimate victory against terrorism.
It’s worth a try. Instead of arguing with your girlfriend, simply say nothing and do a couple of elbow spins. She’ll realize that you were right all along. In debating a grade with a professor, bust out a six-step and backflip. They’ll definitely raise your grade a letter or two.
Rent some great dance films like Flashdance, Fame, Beat Street, Wild Style, and the Breakin’ movies and put those stiff joints to good use in trying to mimic the moves you see on the television screen. Also, never forget the words of the legendary Afrika Bambaataa. “Party people, party people, can ya’ll get funky?”
I think you can.

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