Breakdance & Street Foundations (7 - 18yrs)

with take that progress tour, touring with group Flava, live semi finalists of Britains got talent 2008. A bit of History: Breaking was created by African-American and Latino youths in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s when hip-hop culture was coming to life. A DJ called Kool Herc was throwing neighbourhood parties where he noticed young people would go off on the dance floor, moving with more sporadic and dynamic energy, whenever the break of the tracks he was playing would come in. The ‘break’ being the part of the song where all vocals and other instruments would drop out, only leaving the percussion section. Seeing this, Kool Herc started to play two copies of the same record, mixing between them on two turntables with a technique called the 'Merry-Go-Round'. This was so that he could extend the break and the dancers would have more time to showcase their moves. This is what inspired the creation of the dance of ‘breaking,’ so-called because the b-boys and b-girls would dance to the break of the track. In 1982, Rock Steady crew went on the Roxxy European Hip Hop tour, performing on stages in London and Paris. They also appeared on the popular American talkshow, Letterman, in 1983. The New City Breakers appeared on a TV show pilot called Graffiti Rock in 1984 and performed in Washington D.C. for President Ronald Reagan – during the 1984 Kennedy Center Honours – which was broadcast nationally. B-boys and b-girls also appeared in music videos and Hollywood movies, which greatly increased breaking’s exposure to the world. Classic movies people first saw breaking in were: Flashdance (1983), Breakin’ the Movie (1984) and Beat Street (1984), which opens with an iconic crew battle in the Roxxy club