Breakdancing, also known as breaking, b-boying, or B-girling by its practitioners and followers, is a dynamic style of dance. The term "B-boy" originates from the dancers at DJ Kool Herc's parties, who saved their best dance moves for the break section of the song, getting in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive, frenetic style. Hence the "B" stands for break-boy (or girl). According to the documentary film The Freshest Kids, a history of the b-boy; DJ Kool Herc describes the b in b-boy as short for breaking which at the time was slang for "going off" also one of the original names for the dance. However early on the dance was known as the "boiong" (the sound a spring makes).
B-boying is one of the major elements of hip hop culture, commonly associated with, but distinct from, "popping", "locking", "hitting", "ticking", "boogaloo", and other funk styles that evolved independently during the late 1960's in California. It was common during the 1980s to see a group of people with a radio on a playground, basketball court, or sidewalk performing a breakdancing show for a large audience. Breaking began to take form in the South Bronx alongside the other elements of hip hop. A "burn" is when you humiliate your opponent. The name of the first B-Boy crew was The Zulu Kings.
"Hip-hop" as a form of dance is becoming more popular. Hip hop dance comes from breakdancing, but does not consist wholly of breakdancing moves. Unlike most other forms of dance, which are often at least moderately structured, hip hop dance has few (if any) limitations on positions or steps.
Old school hip hop dances are those styles that evolved in the seventies and were primarily danced to funk and old school hip hop music. Breakdancing is the best known of all hip hop dance styles, and is considered a corner stone of hip hop culture itself. In the 1980s, many funk dance styles that originally evolved separated from hip hop, such as popping and locking, started to be incorporated with the hip hop culture as well, and could be seen danced together with breakdancing.
In the 1990s, as hip hop music evolved and grew further away from funk, it got slower, heavier and more aggressive. This modern hip hop music has given birth to new styles of hip hop dancing partly inspired by the old school styles, many of them focusing on upright dancing as opposed to breakdancing which is better known for its floor-oriented movements. Some more specific styles of new school hip hop are krump,harlem shake, Chicken Noodle Soup, c-walk, Jigging, tone wop, freaking and hyphy.
Classifying these newer hip hop styles as a unique dance style of its own has grown common with larger street dance competitions such as Juste Debout, which includes new style as a separate category for people to compete in. Many of the newer styles of hip hop are a common sight in today's music videos on television channels such as MTV.
Today, many dance studios offer hip hop classes of some sort. They might focus on a specific style such as breakdancing or combine elements of various street dance styles. As hip hop dancing is such a broad genre, the teacher has much freedom and room for personal interpretation, and often mixes various styles freely, even mixing them with other dance forms such as jazz.
Some criticize this type of teaching as being too strict and too choreographed, losing important elements such as improvisation and personal interpretation on the students' side. Because of this, some dislike labeling these dance classes as "hip hop" as it might not actually include all aspects of the traditional hip hop dances, especially when the teacher mixes it with dance styles not originally related to hip hop.
However, despite the controversy, studio-choreographed hip hop is still widely accepted today, especially by the younger youth group.
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