EAST PEORIA (25News Now) – From the streets to the world stage: Breaking will soon make its Olympic debut at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
It’s a new opportunity for a dance style that’s over 50 years old, and on August 9 and 10, 32 of the world’s best athletes, known as B-Boys and B-Girls, will compete for gold.
For young dancers, the newest Olympic discipline is a glimmer of hope and a source of inspiration regarding the different possibilities it can open up for future generations of dancers and young talent.
“(I) hope it can change people’s minds that dancing is not a sport, because it really is,” says Kali McVey, who has been dancing since she was two years old.
McVey added that her community is long overdue for yoga to be made an Olympic sport.
“It’s a little bit amazing; we never see anything like this in competitions; that’s why we mix breakdancing with our hip hop,” said Shannon Huggins, co-owner and instructor at Creations Dance Studio in East Peoria.
The style is commonly known as breakdancing, but is professionally called break dancing. It gained popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, originating on the streets of New York and becoming a central element of hip hop culture.
However, this is not as common in today’s dance world as it once was, but Coach Huggins makes sure her students have the foundation to become great dancers.
“They’re tricks and stunts that defy gravity and override the body’s natural abilities. My kids have been training for years; my daughter has been training for 10 years and is just starting to learn some of the tricks we saw at the Olympic qualifiers,” Huggins said.
Dancer Olivia Seifert of Creations Dance Studio said that seeing the world’s best athletes showcase the dance form to a global audience inspires her to one day step onto the Olympic stage.
“It’s fun to watch people doing something I do and like, and I can learn from them (so I can) get better,” Seifert said.
According to Olympia, the competitions will take place on August 9 and 10 at the Place de la Concorde. The women will compete on Friday and the men on Saturday.
The judges evaluate the breakers on musicality, vocabulary, originality, technique and execution. Since the battles consist of three rounds, each athlete has 60 seconds to complete a routine in a battle.
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