The Olympic Qualification Series Shanghai is in full swing on the banks of the Huangpu River, and the breaking event has aroused the interest of many spectators.
On 18 May, the highly-anticipated new event for the Paris Olympics will be unveiled at the Olympic Qualification Series.
Dynamic music, cool action, improvisational competition...... Compared to other sports, the presentation of breaking events is eye-catching.
As a dance genre, how exactly is break dancing scored, and how does it compete in the sports arena? What is the current level of competitive breaking in China? In an exclusive interview with the surging news reporter, senior industry insiders gave detailed answers.
Three areas and five dimensions are judged to determine the winners and losers
In people's impression, hip-hop is a free-spirited art, as one of the dances of hip-hop, break dancing has attracted many eyeballs with its dazzling cresting movements.
Expressing one's personality and imagination on stage is the goal of many dancers, but when breaking becomes a sport, it inevitably brings with it strict rules.
Previously, the Hangzhou Asian Games had already staged a break dance competition. At the upcoming Paris Olympics, breakdancing will make its Olympic debut, and the world's best players will go all out to compete for a precious Olympic ticket.
If you want to stand out in the fierce competition, whether you can adapt and understand the rules of the game is undoubtedly the key.
"Since breaking has been confirmed to be in the Olympic Games, its entire judging system has not only become more and more standardized, but also more and more rigorous." WDSF Break Dancing International Referee Wang Shenjiong (Danny) told The Paper.
In international competitions, break dancing competitions are often conducted in a two-by-two battle (duel) elimination system, and the winner is determined by the score of the on-site judges. Today's entire scoring system is very well developed and covers all aspects of a dancer's performance.
Wang Shenjiong and Wang Yibo.
"The scoring system mainly revolves around the three areas of body, mind and soul." Wang Shenjiong introduced, "Body refers to the ability to move the body, mind refers to the ability to express dance forms and narrative ideas, and soul refers to the stage artistic temperament performed by the contestants and the ability to combine it with personality. ”
Focusing on these three principles, the scoring will be based on five dimensions, namely skill, vocabulary (movement diversity), creativity (originality), execution (completion), and musicality.
The challenge for all competitors will be whether they can perform difficult movements with high quality, and whether they can extend the basic movements to their imagination and achieve smooth connections.
Players need to prepare 16 or even 20 sets of movements
The perfect scoring system has laid a solid foundation for breaking sports, but at the same time, the improvisational form of performance has added a lot of uncertainty.
Different from other scoring events such as figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics, in the break dancing competition, the music of the contestants' performances is randomly provided on the spot, and the contestants cannot prepare the whole program in advance, and must adapt to the situation, which is also a major attraction of the break dancing event.
"For example, when you hear music, you need to be able to quickly distinguish how many sounds are in it, and then be able to express it with different movements, such as choosing a soft movement or a heavy movement? Whether the movement can match the texture of the sound. Wang Shenjiong explained.
"Some scoring items may be one or two sets of movements, but break dancing may have to prepare 16 or even more than 20 sets of movements to deal with different opponents, different scenes, and different music. Uncertainty and surprise are key factors that determine the outcome of a match. ”
For ordinary enthusiasts and spectators, it is undoubtedly quite difficult to get familiar with the movement system of competitive breakdancing, and it is only a high-level judge to quickly analyze and score the various movements and overall performance of the contestants, but even so, this event is still extremely ornamental.
Dynamic music, gorgeous lights, fiery atmosphere...... As a spectator, you just need to enjoy the cool moves that the contestants show on stage. "For amateur viewers, there may be no way to quickly distinguish so many things. Therefore, we hope that everyone can be happy to watch and feel the excitement of breakdancing. Wang Shenjiong said.
Chinese breakdancing has caught up
As a new sport in the Olympic Games, breaking is still a "new birth" in the world of sports competition, but the rise and development of breaking has been around the world for about half a century.
Compared with the United States, where break dancing first originated, and the European countries that became popular later, the development and popularity of break dancing in China is much less, but now in the world arena, Chinese break dancing has become a force to be reckoned with.
As early as the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, China's Shang Xiaoyu broke into the men's quarterfinals. In 2022, Liu Qingyi won the women's championship at the Break Street Dance Competition, the first world top competition championship for a Chinese player, and then she won the World Battle 2022 at the world's top competition. At the 2022 World Breaking Championships, Liu Qingyi won the silver medal and won the first medal of the Chinese team at the World Breaking Championships. In the 2023 Outbreak tournament, Qi Xiangyu successfully won the championship, which was the first title won by a men's player in the world's top competition.
At the 2023 World Championships, Qi Xiangyu won the fourth place in the men's competition, creating the best result of a Chinese men's player in the World Championships. At last year's Hangzhou Asian Games, Qi Xiangyu won the bronze medal in the men's event, and Liu Qingyi successfully won the women's gold medal to ensure the qualification for the Olympic Games in advance.
Wang Shenjiong
In Wang Shenjiong's view, the training of Chinese break dancers is very hard, and the completion of the movements is relatively good, "We have learned about the training in the United States, Japan and some European countries, they will not be as intense as ours, in terms of serious dedication to training, we can say that we are ahead of foreign countries." ”
Through continuous learning from overseas high-level athlete coaches and their own hard work in recent years, Chinese breaking has caught up. Now, a number of Chinese break dancing masters will compete for more Olympic tickets at home in Shanghai, and Wang Shenjiong is also full of expectations. "The preparation cycle of the Chinese players started very early, the supporting facilities are very complete, the energy invested and the overall condition of the athletes are also very good, so overall there are good opportunities. Every game is going to be hard for sure, but there are chances to win because China has caught up with the world. ”
Source: The Paper