As ‘breaking’ makes it’s Olympic debut, we look at its history in the Twin Cities

CATHY WURZER: We're going to steer away from politics for the rest of the show. And right now, we're going to talk about a brand new Olympic event that debuts tomorrow in Paris. You may know it as break dancing, but in the professional world, it's known as breaking. It's a form of hip hop dance cultivated by young people in the 1970s Bronx.

BBoys Jeffrey Louis and Victor Montalvo, along with BGirls Sunny Choi and Logan Edra will represent the United States in the event. You may not know that the Twin Cities were, and still are, a hotspot for breaking throughout its history. Jay-Son was part of the Twin Cities breaking scene from the very beginning. He's been working on a project to gather an enormous archive of footage of people in Minnesota breaking, through the program called Mixtape Dance. He's here to talk about his history of the art.

Jason, it's a pleasure. It's a real honor. Thanks for taking time to talk with us.

JAY-SON: Thank you, Cathy. Thanks for letting me talk about it.

CATHY WURZER: I know you're a choreographer, so help me out here. How do you describe breaking to folks who don't really know much about it?

JAY-SON: I would say that it is a dance form that focuses on dynamic floor movement, but is musicality-oriented and has some basic categories of movement that we work in. Top rocking is when we stand up. Then we have ways to go down to the floor called Godowns, Footwork, power moves, freezes, spins, and then getting up. The get up is also very important as well. So dynamic floor movement is probably the best way.

CATHY WURZER: It's a lot of physical movement, obviously. So it makes sense to you that breaking's in the Olympics?

JAY-SON: Yes. We've been skirting that categorization for many, many years by the form itself being changed by competition. And so it's not a surprise or really, you know, we were talking about this many, many, many, many years ago in the culture, about having it be in the Olympics and the sort of hurdles that would have to be confronted to make that happen.

CATHY WURZER: It sounds like you're maybe not terribly excited that it's in the Olympics?

JAY-SON: I'm very excited.

CATHY WURZER: OK.

JAY-SON: It creates so many opportunities, especially for local studios like Cypher Side Dance School and House of Dance and any other studio that features breaking in its class offerings. So I'm very excited for that. I'm very excited to cheer on the United States, as well as other countries, because we are a global brotherhood, sisterhood, connected community. And so it's very exciting to see everyone be part of this.

CATHY WURZER: Again, because you have such deep knowledge, I'm curious about the judging that will go on in the Olympics.

JAY-SON: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: I mean, how are these battles, dances judged?

JAY-SON: Well, they have a criteria. I believe it's like five different criteria that they have, originality, musicality, execution, musicality, and I think there's one more. But those are the important ones.

And they came up with a system. They vetted it through several different well-known breakers. And then they had a whole year long program to understand how to get this judging done and what it would encompass and had lots of input from the community.

So while there's always going to be disagreements with the judging, I think that they've done the best they can. And if it comes back, ever, although that's kind of up in the air, it doesn't seem like it will come back, but if it does, it's going to go through different iterations. And we'll see it get better and better and better. Each one of these sports that's in the Olympics now didn't just come in and be perfect. And so I think that that's something to keep in mind as we watch this first time for breaking.

CATHY WURZER: So let me ask you about the history of breaking in Minnesota. Gosh, I'm going to date myself here. But I think it was [? Camo ?] [? J? ?]

JAY-SON: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: OK, good., in the '90s, so I'm not completely off. There was a show. And I remember listening, going what is this? Because you heard about this in New York City and Chicago, right? So I mean, that's where some of the stronger roots are. Tell me a little bit about the beginnings here in Minnesota.

JAY-SON: Well, the beginnings here really come from-- it's not as if it just came from one direction. I think there are people that had cousins and uncles and family that were in New York and in different places that were getting these tapes of this music. And they would share it and share the culture that they had seen in these different places. One of the people that we always talk about in Minnesota is Travitron, who lived in New York and then came here and brought his ideas and the hip hop culture from his point of view here.

It's also important to remember that it's not like this was a cultural wasteland for Black folks. This was a rich and continues to be a cultural space for BIPOC folks as well as the Black history of music here. We all know about Prince, but it does go further back than that with soul and funk. And it's always been here in some form or another.

But I would say where we get breaking probably starts in the early '80s, and maybe '84, '85 is when we're seeing here in the Twin Cities. But sometimes, it's even earlier. I think one of the videos we have might be from '83. So it spread very quickly. And hip hop culture spread through the dance initially. Even though we're talking about mixed tapes, the dance is really what spread it through the movies that came out in '84 and '85.

CATHY WURZER: OK. That makes sense, yes. I'm wondering about the tapes that you're seeing, some of these early tapes, especially. I'm going to imagine that the style probably has changed a little bit over time?

JAY-SON: It's changed a lot. I mean, groups like the Minneapolis Body Breakers, The Saint Paul BBoy Association, The Breaking Angels, there's so many groups from the Twin Cities that deserve to be mentioned and seen. And we're looking for those tapes, if anybody hears me and wants to contact me, mixtapedance.org is the website.

But what we're seeing is the music has really changed the dance in a lot of ways. As it becomes more competitive, the songs aren't as long in some ways or oriented around rap. It becomes more about these instrumentals that focus on some kind of explosive movement happening that coincides with the music, which you'll see in the Olympics.

The great thing about the Olympics is that you're going to see some of the original music that we danced to, the canon of breaking has been cleared to be part of these. And it's going to be played by DJ FLEG, who's a world-renowned DJ. And so to be able to hear the music that we danced to traditionally and then see the movement and how it's changed over time.

But I would say these people from the first generation in Minnesota, they were part of a group that was setting the tone for breaking, which we see that comes from New York, that comes from Black communities, and then moves into Brown communities. By that I mean Puerto Rican, Dominican, these groups that were in New York.

And then when we get it to Minnesota, it's definitely within the Black community. And you're seeing a lot of power footwork, dancing. It just gets more intricate and longer. And the things that you might have thought were never possible, even from my generation, are now becoming common. So a lot of the movement you'll see, and I think the really surprising thing that you're going to see in the Olympics is how the women are able to keep up with the power moves, especially, the things that were not really happening as often 20 years ago.

I'm still very active. I still compete. There are battles all the time in Minnesota.

There's one tomorrow at Cypher Side Dance School. If anybody's interested, you go to Cypher Side Dance School on Facebook or their website. And there's a huge one-- I'm sorry, that's Saturday. Tomorrow is just kind of a community celebration at the Public Functionary from 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM. It's just like an open cypher where everybody dances.

But on August 17, House of Dance has their 10 year anniversary. They're the first hip hop dance studio in the Twin cities. And it's their 10 year anniversary. It's a gigantic battle. I'm actually coming back for that. And we're just really excited about that. So we have a very strong community in the Twin Cities that's kept going. And we have a great history, which is why we're doing this digital preservation project through Mixtape Dance.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Wow, that's a lot. And thank you for telling us about it, Jay-Son, thank you.

JAY-SON: Yes, of course.

CATHY WURZER: Jay-Son's a dancer, choreographer, hip hop scholar with Mixtape Dance. Mixtapedance.org for information.