Breakdance after the Paris Games and the glow that hangs over art

VENICE BEACH, Calif. — “I still consider breaking through as a limit.”

Reggie Noble talks on the roof of a loft gallery on Windward Avenue, across from the centerpiece of the Venice Beach Boardwalk, one in all the most famous boardwalks in Southern California. There are murals on the wall depicting Gang Starr’s 1998 album, and the one actually visible from the street depicts Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson from their cult film set on this very place.

You probably know him as Redman, the rapper who rose to fame as an EPMD acolyte in the early ’90s, grew up as a solo artist, and teamed up with Method Man to form one in all the best duos the game has ever seen. The 4 pillars of hip-hop: breakdancing, graffiti, DJing and MCing are still very near his heart.

He opens the proceedings with a performance at the Red Bull BC One competition, during which the best US breakdance champions are chosen, who will then play in the finals in Brazil in December. Downstairs, b-boys and girls of all types are milling around the gallery, enthusiastic about the afternoon ahead.

“There’s still a strong element of hacking everywhere, especially on the East Coast and overseas, right? And when you have one of the elements of hip-hop that’s been brought to where kids want to do it, it’s just like rap. It’s no different from rap,” he said. “Like everyone else, he wants to be a rapper. There are many people who want to breakdance, who want to dance, who just want to make a living dancing. They don’t care about money. They want to do something that will make them feel good.”

16 dancers of each sexes participate in the competition called Cypher. This is a single-elimination event and judging is easy. Judges raise their hands a method or the other to vote. There is not any one who can be embarrassed by a low and even non-existent result.

Why does all this matter? Because the weight of what Rachael Gunn completed at the Paris Olympics still hangs over the world of breakdancing, whether anyone likes it or not. As a lifelong fan of hip-hop and its culture, there was nothing funny about the sight of a white woman named “Raygun” jumping, jumping and jumping around the Olympic stage, causing laughter around the world.

When rumors emerged that she hadn’t exactly “cheated” her strategy to the Olympics, but had taken advantage of a shady system – which one way or the other involved her husband – it felt like a kick to the gut. Let’s just ignore the fact that there have been apparently few blacks in the Paris competition, and next to “Nicki” was a Lithuanian woman in a durag.

“Honestly, I looked at it as if it was a privileged move. He must be someone important. Australia is, is a serious country. It’s not just a city, it’s a country,” Redman said with an incredulous laugh. “So you’re trying to tell me that the whole country said, ‘Yes, she’s going to represent us there,’ I don’t think that’s what happened.”

The event was a reminder of how great this whole idea might have been if the International Olympic Committee had waited to host the competition in the country where breaking was invented, quite than a half-hearted effort that seemed designed to undermine it. Add to that the fact that Gunn played in our faces and made a reputation for herself by desecrating this art form.

It was pretty clear: breakdancing must have made its debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and where everyone was standing can be the perfect place to host it. Besides, you do not have to arrange entire competitions to see people dancing in the streets on a given weekend.

How an energy drink like Red Bull became the sport’s final frontier isn’t the point, but it surely definitely seems essential. Some of us won’t ever forgive the Olympics for botching a culture’s entry into the global arena. However, this didn’t make it difficult to make use of this feature. The crowd was stuffed with semi-celebrities, but mostly families and other crowd pleasers who just desired to be an element of the event.

The winners were Vicki Chang, aka La Vix, of San Jose and Jeremy Viray, aka Icey Ives, of Anchorage, Alaska. Additionally, Victor Montalvo, medalist of the Paris Games, was honored by the city of Los Angeles.

The sights and sounds of real hip-hop don’t at all times outshine the antics of faux imitations, backed by “scholarship” or not. Which was a shame, because as the sun set over the Pacific and various other groundbreaking codes entered the crowd – together with young children imitating what they saw and just doing something between tumbling and dancing on the makeshift linoleum – you may feel the purpose and camaraderie in the air.

“I’ll admit I laughed at the Australian girl, but it surely began to trouble me in a short time, yes, because I felt it was only a distraction from what she really was, and because my first exposure to hip-hop culture was, it was attempting to be a b-boy trying out pop and lock,” said DJ Babu, member of the world famous Beat Junkies and Dilated Peoples. “So this (Red Bull BC One) is about seeing this dream come true and turn out to be a reality, I give it some thought emotionally and then I reduce it to memes and jokes… that really bothered me. I didn’t even like talking about it.

“But what a milestone for hip-hop and culture generally, to have it legitimized on arguably the biggest stage one could ever perform on. Overall I used to be really completely happy and proud. Recognizing any element at the next level is amazing, but it surely’s not perfect. This was the first yr and it’s just disappointing that I believe it won’t come back.

On December 7, the best breakers in the world will compete in Rio de Janeiro. What happened in Paris this summer was NOT this. When they arrive in Brazil, there will likely be no drug tests, PhDs or governing bodies that will spoil the viability of the genre created by black and Latino kids in New York in the Seventies.

“We can avoid this if we have communication and we have to educate ourselves,” Redman told the crowd. “So I salute Red Bull for taking this culture seriously and organizing events like this so that we can all learn from it.”

People was once afraid that corporate greed and interests would spoil the soul of culture. Now not less than one corporation is keeping the art alive.

“It’s a bit tricky because, like anything else, everything takes time to develop and refine, and mistakes need to be fixed and lessons learned from them. It’s almost like a big mockery, especially since I’m here in Los Angeles and the Olympics are coming here. I can only imagine what b-boying would look like at the next Olympics after his first attack,” DJ Babu said.

“I used to be unfortunately dissatisfied to listen to that it would not be coming back to Los Angeles. I mean, I hope that’s the case in the future, but a part of me tends to feel that b-boying will likely be effective with or without the Olympics should you come from that culture and realize it.