Preserving the culture of breaking is what is important to James Alexander, founder and director of Flavor’d Flow Studio—the first hip-hop-culture-based dance studio in Columbus, Ohio. Alexander, a Columbus-native, remembers when breaking reemerged in the 1990s and underground hip-hop events started popping up, which is where he was first introduced to the art form. “I […]
There’s a reason Gus Solomons jr used to begin his semesters at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a “handstand day” for his contemporary students. “You’re training your body to do all it can do, upside down is just another possibility,” he says. “When you get there, you see the world differently, […]
Is dance a sport? Should it be in the Olympics? They’re complicated questions that tend to spark heated debate. But many dance fans will be excited to hear that breaking (please don’t call it breakdancing) has been provisionally added to the program for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. The announcement was made yesterday. […]
Pavan Thimmaiah casually hovers in a freeze, his weight between his head and hands on the floor, legs extending out on an upward diagonal. From this topsy-turvy position, he encourages his students to try this breaking staple. “Take a picture and make it your Facebook profile,” he jokes. Self-taught Thimmaiah founded PMT Dance Studio in […]
They’ve experienced amputation, birth defects, deafness and cancer, but the b-boys of ILL-Abilities are good. Really good. Hailing from Canada, Chile, Holland and the U.S., they’re as talented a hip-hop crew as any of their able-bodied peers in the biz, yet the ILL dancers (taking the “dis” out of “disability”) have chosen to highlight their […]
Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie might be at the top of her game—she just received two Bessie Award nominations and her company makes its Jacob’s Pillow debut next month—but she still suffers from self-doubt and perfectionism. When she began taking breaking classes from Robert “Break Easy” Santiago in Brooklyn, New York, she had to draw upon her […]