Noun

Singular breakdancing

Plural uncountable

breakdancing (uncountable)

1. An urban style of acrobatic dance that was part of the hip hop culture of New York City in the late 20th century

Break-dance, breaking, b-boying is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement among African American and Puerto Rican youths in Manhattan and the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. It is normally danced to electro or hip hop music, often remixed to prolong the breaks, and is a well-known hip hop dance style. Break-dancing involves the dance elements of toprock, downrock, freezes, and power moves. A break-dancer, breaker, b-boy or b-girl refers to a person who practices break-dancing.

However, referring to the terms "breakdancer" and "breakdancing," hip-hop scholar Joseph Schloss (in the book "Foundation: B-boys, B-girls, And Hip-Hop Culture In New York") states - "the term breakdancing connotes exploitation and disregard for the dance's roots in hip-hop culture", "most feel that the term was part of a larger attempt by the mass media to recast their raw street dance as a nonthreatening form of musical acrobatics," "one of the first things that beginning b-boys or b-girls learn from their peers is not to refer to the practice as "breakdancing," and "those who are unfamiliar with the culture may be surprised at the vehemence of b-boys' feelings about the term: "I don't use the term 'breakdance'. It's an ignorant word".

Schloss also states that, "the term is also problematic on a practical level... breakdancing is often used as an umbrella term that includes not only b-boying, but popping, locking, boogalooing, and other so-called funk-style dances that originated in California", and says that the term "breakdancer" is often used disparagingly - "a breakdancer is someone who has learned the dance for mercenary reasons, while a b-boy has learned it through a commitment to the culture".

B-boying may have begun as a building, productive, and a constructive youth culture alternative to the violence of urban street gangs. Today, b-boying culture is a discipline somewhere between those of dancers and athletes. Since acceptance and involvement centers on dance abilities, b-boying culture is often free of the common race and gender boundaries of a subculture and has been accepted worldwide.