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ESPN Daily

Breakdancing’s Path From the Streets of the Bronx to the Olympics

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.63.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's been a minute since breakdancing hit mainstream culture in the early 1980s, but this summer, it’s evolving to another level with breaking, a competitive version of this art form, making its Olympic debut at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. 16 men and 16 women will compete for the first-ever breaking medals on August 9th and 10th. Today, Clover Gold introduces us to one of America’s top B-girls, Sunny Choi, and reflects on what breakdancing’s rise to the Olympics says about the impact and evolution of hip hop culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Breakdancing is coming to the Olympics apahili coming up here. What comes to your mind though,

0:07.0

Clover in general, like from a visual standpoint when you think about breakdancing just in your head?

0:14.0

I think, well for me it's kind of the spinning.

0:17.0

This idea of being upside down, you know, like in space, they're just kind of like defying gravity,

0:27.0

just images of almost like boundless energy, you're just kind of a non-stop movement.

0:33.2

I'll bet you can guess which movie my mind goes to when I think about breakdancing.

0:37.0

Right, yes, yes.

0:39.0

Breaking in two, Electric Boogaloo.

0:41.0

Hey Kelly Kay, once you come this way,

0:44.0

we're going to take it to the place where we all stay,

0:46.0

we're going to take you to the place where we all go

0:48.0

and we call this place the miracle.

0:51.0

Well, it's a better title, yeah.

0:53.0

Yes, way better title.

0:55.0

No, it's, uh, it is one of those things that when I say the word breakdancing, my mind goes to a certain place in that movie,

1:01.0

and of course, Wild Style are at the top of the list.

1:04.0

Yeah those were early 80s kind of introduction of breaking to the masses like people were

1:08.5

able to actually see it because in the 70s if you weren't in the streets of the Bronx or New York Boroughs, you weren't actually scene breaking happening.

1:17.0

You know, wasn't on TV like that, you know, wasn't like a kind of coded social media to kind of like watch Tikic-Tock flips so you know like it's a very different

1:27.2

atmosphere and those movies were probably a lot of people's first introductions to it. It's been a minute since breakdancing hit the mainstream.

1:49.0

But this summer, it's evolving to another level with breaking making its debut at the Olympics in the

1:56.0

2024 summer games in Paris.

...

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