page_title: History of hip hop dance
section_title: Capoeira debate
hierarchical_section_title: History of hip hop dance / Beginning of breaking / Capoeira debate
caption_attribution_description: This file was uploaded with Commonist. Hrvatski: Capoeira u Rijeci
context_page_description: The History of Hip-Hop dances encompasses the people and events since the late 1960s that have contributed to the development of early hip-hop dance styles, such as uprock, breaking, locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping. African Americans and Latino Americans created uprock and breaking in New York City. African Americans in California created locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping—collectively referred to as the funk styles. All of these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their street origins and in their improvisational nature.
  More than 50 years old, hip-hop dance became widely known after the first professional street-based dance crews formed in the 1970s in the United States. The most influential groups were Rock Steady Crew, The Lockers, and The Electric Boogaloos who are responsible for the spread of breaking, locking, and popping respectively. The Brooklyn-based dance style uprock influenced breaking early in its development. Boogaloo gained more exposure because it is the namesake of the Electric Boogaloos crew.
context_section_description: Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art, described by Pabon as "a form of self defense disguised as a dance." Its influence on breaking is disputed and debated; one side believes that breaking came from capoeira, while the other side denies this. Capoeira is hundreds of years older than breaking, and uprock is similar in purpose to capoeira in that both translate aggressive combat movements into stylized dance. Both breaking and capoeira are performed to music and, since both art forms are acrobatic, some moves look similar to each other. However, capoeira is more rule-oriented. One rule in capoeira is that a capoeirista's back can never touch the ground. In contrast, a breaker's back is almost always on the ground, and the only rule in breaking is that you do not touch your opponent during a battle.
  Jelon Vieira and Loremil Machado brought capoeira to the United States in 1975. Throughout this decade Vieira taught capoeira workshops in New York City and started a capoeira performance company called Dance Brazil that toured across the United States. In Gerard Taylor's Capoeira: The Jogo de Angola from Luanda to Cyberspace (2005), master capoeira teacher Mestre Acordeon is quoted as saying: "Demonstrations by Mestre Jelon [Vieira] and Loremil Machado are considered by many to be responsible for the incorporation of capoeira movements into breakdancing." Former Village Voice reporter Sally Banes and her colleague, photographer Martha Cooper, witnessed breaking in 1980 while covering Henry Chalfant's photography exhibit of subway graffiti. She wrote of the dance: "Its spatial level called to mind capoeira, the spectacular Brazilian dance cum martial art form that incorporates kartwheels, kicks, and feints low to the ground, but the two were dissimilar enough in shape and timing that capoeira seemed at most only a distant relative, and certainly one the breakdancers weren't acquainted with—at least on a conscious level." In his book Hip Hop Had a Dream (2008), Damien Morgan states: "Breakdancing can have its origins in capoeira, because it does not focus on injuring the opponent; it rather emphasizes skill towards your opponent, to express yourself away from violence... in most cases, it is blatantly obvious to see some of Breakdancing's foundations in Capoeira."
   
  Several breaking practitioners and pioneers tend to side with the camp that does not believe breaking came from capoeira. B-boy Crazy Legs states: "We didn't know what the f-ck no capoeira was, man. We were in the ghetto!" According to Pabon, "Unlike the popularity of the martial arts films, capoeira was not seen in the Bronx jams until the 1990s. Top rockin' seems to have developed gradually and unintentionally, leaving space for growth and new additions, until it evolved into a codified form." B-boy crew Spartanic Rockers adds: "Despite of [sic] many rumours and opinions Breaking didn't originate from Capoeira but during the last few years many moves, steps and freezes of this Brazilian (fight-) dance have inspired more and more B-Girls and B-Boys who integrated them into their dance." B-boy Ken Swift was breaking long before he saw capoeira: "In '78 I started [breaking] and I didn't see it [capoeira] til '92 ... I was around, too—I was in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, I went around and I didn't see it. What we saw was Kung Fu—we saw Kung Fu from the 42nd Street theaters. So those were our inspirations... when we did the Kung Fu sh-t we switched it up and we put this B-boy flavor into it..."
caption: Two capoeiristas dance-fighting in Rijeka, Croatia.
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