On December 7, 2020, the IOC Executive Board held a meeting and agreed to add four major events in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, including breaking, skateboarding, surfing and rock climbing. Among them, break dance belongs to "sports dance", and was soon included in the schedule of the National Games and Asian Games.
At the 14th National Games in September this year, the champion of the historical "dance" was born: Wang Wenlu of the Shanghai team won the men's break dance event, and Liu Qingyi of the Henan team won the gold medal in the women's group. According to the regulations, they will be automatically selected for the national team in preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics. This competition is not only a thorough assessment of Chinese break dancers, but also helps the public to further understand this dance genre, which can be described as a "good start".
On September 25, 2021, the 14th National Games Breakdancing Women's Championship was held at the Lishui Extreme Sports Hall in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. The picture shows Henan's Liu Qingyi in the competition. Photo / China News Service reporter Yang Bo
However, in the comment area of related topics, there is a strange phenomenon of "crooked buildings": everyone chats and chats, and they can't help but mention "that man" - Sun Honglei, either shouting him to hurry up and master the move, or lamenting that he is not in time and misses the gold medal.
Sun Honglei was mentioned in the comments section. Source/Sina Weibo
"Northeast Dance King" Sun Honglei
A lukewarm knowledge: before becoming the "King of Yan", Sun Honglei was actually the "King of Dance".
Turning back the clock to the autumn of 1970, the old Sun family in Harbin welcomed their third son. As a philosophy teacher, his father gave his younger son a very unproteitary name, Sun Honglei.
Perhaps influenced by his name, the child not only failed to inherit his father's intellectual temperament, but also became obsessed with breakdancing. In middle school, Sun Honglei often skipped class to go to the local youth palace to "steal dance art".
Unexpectedly, this tall man who looked a bit "stunned" really had a talent in dance, and he could become a talent by self-study alone. With excellent physical coordination and the courage of "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers", Sun Honglei has made a name for himself in the breakdancing world.
The first time he officially stepped onto the stage and won the grand prize was at a break dance competition called the Great Wall Cup, which was also the largest break dance competition organized in Harbin at that time. In 1987, it was at this competition that the unknown break dance dancer Sun Honglei became famous in one battle, won the crown, and was known as the "King of Northeast Dance".
A year later, Sun Honglei left his hometown and went south to Chongqing to participate in the second national break dance competition, winning the runner-up in one fell swoop - the prize was a refrigerator, which was sold for 700 yuan to subsidize the family. This year, Sun Honglei was only 18 years old.
Sun Honglei when he was young. Source/Network
Later stories we all know: with the decline of break dancing, under the advice of friends, Sun Honglei changed his career to apply for the Central Academy of Drama, becoming Liu Huaqiang in "Conquest", Yu Zecheng in "Latent", Li Chengyang in "Sweeping Black Storm"...
Source/Screenshot of the TV series Conquest
The Dance King is no longer in the jianghu, but the legend of the dancing king is still circulating in the jianghu. To this day, videos of Sun Honglei's breakdancing can still be found on the Internet. One of the most classic is the 1996 Heilongjiang Spring Festival Gala stage: Sun Honglei, dressed in a loose suit and painting heavy eyeshadow, danced and sang, dashing and flowing - dynamic and full of magic dance, which is very different from the "big brother" image he played on the screen, showing a different kind of handsomeness, of course, in exchange for the applause of the audience.
Sun Honglei at the local Spring Festival Gala. Source/Network
Breakdancing's past and present lives
In the late 1980s, when Sun Honglei became famous, breakdancing had swept the country and become the collective memory of a generation. The uncle and aunt who dance square dance today are likely to be the breakdancing "dance kings" and "dance queens" who swayed on the dance floor that year.
What kind of dance is breakdancing? And why is it so popular in China?
Judging from the time of birth, breakdancing is one of the earliest dance types of street dance. The movement creativity of this dance can be traced all the way back to West Africa, including ancient traditional dances in Mali, the Gambia and Senegal.
In the late 1960s (near 1968), many professional Dancers from West Africa came to the United States and moved to the South Bronx district of New York City, where they would teach traditional African dance to some of the local professional dance companies in New York; at the same time, many American dance troupes would also go to Africa to study.
A clip from the American film Breakdancing
As time went on, new dances emerged that incorporated African dance materials – a passionate and rhythmic dance that was very contagious and quickly gained popularity with audiences, including many teenagers.
The Bronx wasn't peaceful at the time, and many teenage gangs fought over turf, even during the truce, with symbolically difficult action competitions. When skillful African dances appeared and became popular in New York, they interspersed a large number of African dance moves in the competition. The fierce collision of the dance system coupled with the ornate action design like juggling, the prototype of break dance is revealed.
The currently recognized "breakdancing grandfather" is an American singer named James Brown. When he sings songs, he always accompanies a very personal "weird" dance, allowing his body to writhe with the music. In 1969, during the musical television performance of "Dancing with Good Feet", James Brown's unique dance style caused a sensation in the United States, and breakdancing immediately became the most popular fashion sport for the young generation in the United States.
James Brown's unique dancing style. Source/Network
At about the same time, also in the United States, the famous musician Afrika Bambaataa saw the potential of breakdancing and personally organized the breakdanc dancers in the Bronx to form the nation's first breakdancing group, the "King zulu". This later famous group also became the first "missionary" to promote breakdancing.
1983 was an important turning point in the history of breakdancing. This year, the United States launched a movie called "Lightning Dance", which grossed nearly $40 million, which was one of the highest-grossing movies in the United States at that time. The biggest highlight of this film is the 90-minute breakdancing performance. Under the influence of the film, many television stations began to record hip-hop programs, and hip-hop clubs, clubs and troupes sprung up.
Screenshot of the movie "Lightning Dance"
In 1984, another big event occurred in the break dance circle, at the closing ceremony of the 23rd Los Angeles Olympic Games, more than 200 dancers collectively danced "break dance" under the gaze of tens of thousands of live audiences and the world. It is said that then-US President Ronald Reagan was also a fan of breakdancing performances.
Lionel Richie's performance at the closing ceremony of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Source/Network
Break dancing took off china a little later — a craze sparked by a movie. Also in 1984, mgm in the United States made a song and dance movie called "Breakin". After being introduced to China in 1987, it was translated into Break Dance. I have to say that the use of "thunderbolt" to describe the free-spirited, enthusiastic and dynamic dance in the film is quite ingenious - this unprecedented entertainment method has brought a huge impact on the people of the time, no less than "strong thunder".
Broom dance. Source/Breakdancing clip from the movie
The story told in this film is relatively thin: a pair of black brothers who live on the streets usually take pleasure in dancing the "break dance", and their dance style impresses the heroine who received traditional dance education, and the three people who feel sorry for each other finally make break dance on the official stage through their efforts and win the recognition of the judges.
After the film was broadcast, many "motors" and "whirlwinds" (the two protagonists in "BreakDancing") appeared all over the street with flowered cloths and pedal pull-back sneakers. Young people will suddenly "convulse" as they walk on the road, one will "transmit electricity", one will "wipe the glass", and the other will take the "space step".
The performance program must come to the "space step". Source/Network
According to incomplete statistics, in tianjin alone, there were 70 or 80 dance halls in 1988, and nearly half of them were running breakdancing training classes. It can be said that in that restless era, breakdancing took the lead in satisfying people's curiosity to explore the unknown, and this modern entertainment method with urban dynamic vitality is especially loved by young people who are eager to synchronize with the world.
It is worth mentioning that there is no equivalence between the "break dance" in the 80s and the "break dance" project added to the National Games today.
The new "break dance" added to the National Games is actually "Breaking". This dance absorbs a lot of elements from different sports and art forms such as Capoeira (Brazilian war dance), gymnastics, Chinese martial arts, etc., and the movements can be basically divided into five categories: rock step (Toprock), leg movement (Footwork), overall movement (Power-move), freeze (freeze) and flip (Flip). Since many of them belong to the "floor movement", that is, the action that needs to be done close to the ground, such as handstand, head turn, hand turn, etc., "Breaking" is sometimes referred to as "floor dance". The high difficulty of the action has also created "Breaking"'s strong competitiveness and clear standards of completion - so it can beat Latin and other dances and take the lead in becoming the official competition of the Olympic Games.
"Break Dance" is actually "Break Dance", which involves the mixing of various ancient dance elements such as "Breaking", "Locking" and "Poping" (mechanical dance). For example, at that time, the action of the lock dance "point" was called "thunderbolt finger"; the action of the mechanical dance "wave" was called "current", and the sliding step was called "space step"; some of the movements of the floor dance were called "split forks" or "spring legs"...
Dance moves. Source/Network
Since the main or even only source of breakdancing was known at the time was the movie Breakdancing, it was difficult to distinguish between the genres of dance in detail — in other words, the "breakdancing" of the 80s was actually a hybrid dance, and the main movements came from the film. The media invariably translates "Breaking" as "break dance", perhaps recalling the brazen 80s, but ignoring the "time-limited" color of the word.
Thunderbolt Boy of those years
The young people of that era were always full of enthusiasm and creativity: without jeans, then wear radish pants, bodybuilding pants; if you can't afford pull-back shoes, then buy a pair of double star shoes; if you can't find half-finger leather gloves, then pair them with white gloves with cut fingers... Even if you fight from east to west, you can always have your own set of "cool" breakdancing equipment.
Unfortunately, the breakdancing craze came and went quickly.
In addition to the difficulty of practicing and the inability to make a living, the premature death of breakdancing in the 90s was actually more affected by the constraints of mainstream values. According to Break Dance, jazz dance was the dance that was considered orthodox at the time, and could be on the "Hall of Elegance"; while break dance could only be active in the streets and alleys, in the gathering area of a group of "little bastards". Fortunately, in the end, the protagonists made this dance recognized by their own efforts.
But in China, no one can justify "breakdancing." There was a popular phrase called "smoke, drink, thunderbolt" – before 2000, this was the symbol of the typical "bad boy". Because there is no relevant cultural context and accumulation, many foreign popular cultures cannot be understood, and more or less become symbols of "bad". In addition, many unemployed young people who were "mixed society" at that time also learned break dance in order to catch up with fashion, and even used this to pick quarrels and provoke trouble, which further aggravated the society's bad feelings about break dance. This kind of cultural "water and soil dissatisfaction" makes the heat of break dancing difficult to last, and gradually disappears into the torrent of the times.
Only the fashionable "negative representative" modern dance is pursued. Source/Fragment of the skit "So Packed"
A few years after the "break dance" faded out of people's sight, the new generation of "street dance culture" came strongly; in the face of the impact of this trend, domestic dancers no longer simply imitated the movements, but added many ideas derived from their own culture, forming a Unique Chinese Street Dance culture.
Source/Stills from "This Is Hip Hop 2"
Not only in China, this fire has already ignited the whole world.
The Olympic Charter stipulates that to be included in the Olympic games, there must be a recognized international basis and be widely practiced among men in at least 75 countries and 4 continents and among women in at least 40 countries and 3 continents. According to estimates, there are about 1 million breakdancing enthusiasts around the world in various countries, fully meeting the requirements of "admission to Austria".
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the performances of hundreds of break dancers shocked the world; at the 2021 China National Games, break dancing debuted for the first time; and at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, "break dancing" will be added to the schedule as an official event.
As breakdancing veteran "Crazy Leg" Charlie said, releasing the repression and passion that people produce when they struggle for life is the essence of breakdance. Looking back 40 years later, the "thunderbolt spirit" of the fathers has not been extinguished by time, but has been completely inherited by the younger generations - looking at it, it is still the same vigorous people, or the enthusiasm that has never given up the pursuit of fashion and enjoy life.