ENTERTAINMENT
The University Daily KANSAN
University Daily Kansan, March 2, 1984 Page 6
'Breakdancers take their craft from fighting to Flashdance Dance of streets finds a stage
Rv United Press International
SAN FRANCISCO — The streets of America are alive with the sound of disco and the sight of gyrating teen-agers spinning like whirling tones
From New York to San Francisco, to the blasts of giant tape decks, youngsters are dropping to the ground, kicking their feet and twirling on their tailbones, shoulders, arms, hands — and even heads — in the latest craze known as "break-dancing."
Views of this phenomenon are as diverse as the dancers' movements.
This phenomenon began heating up the streats with breakdance fever following the dance's widespread exposure and the success of the project.
Observers in the dance profession described it as a non-violent resolution to gang warfare, a reproduction of a fight dance of the Brazilian slaves and an art form that could pump "new blood" into classical ballet
Most agree that the streetside spectacle seen in parks, in front of department stores, at tourist centers, on street corners and in alleys, may be more likely to attract tourists.
Michael Smuin, San Francisco Ballet co-director, was so impressed that he planned a stunning surprise for the dance company of the dance company's 31st season.
The pristine corps of ballerinas in white tutus had pirouetted away. The final curtain had fallen. The tuxedo-clad men and bejeweled women prepared to leave — when a horde of youngsters bounded onto the stage.
the coin from ballet, but it's all dancing."
Artless, unshooped in the established sense, impatient with traditional conventions, breakdancing is the antithesis of traditional ballet — and could add "new blood" to classical舞, Smuin said.
"Things are going to happen to classical dance because of break-dance, or strutting or popping as it's sometimes called," Smain said. "In its own way, it is a fast-moving and virtuosic as a classical pas de deux."
Against a wall of graffiti, 46 mostly black and latino youths strutted their streetwise stick to the sounds of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." — bringing the glittering audience to its feet.
Another breaking talent, 10-year-old Ben Haas of San Francisco, who also studies ballet, said he preferred breakdancing to ballet.
around into several spins and then jumped up.
"My idea was to bring the street onto the stage." Smuin said. "Break-dancing is completely the other side of
However, Robert North, director of the British Rambert Bambert, sees "no great link-up between breaking and
"In ballet I feel obligated to do it, like it's not your choice. Breaking is much funner, and I do it 'cause I feel like it,' he said.
—Michael Smuin,
Breakdancing began in the U.S. about 10 years ago when gangs of black and Hispanic teen-agers in the New York ghetto decided to replace fists with feet in settling rivalries. "Break" in ghetto lingo means "get ready to fight."
- Michael Smith co-director of the San Francisco Ballet
'Things are going to happen to classical dance because of breakdance, or strutting or popping as it's sometimes called. In its own way, its as fast moving and virtuosic as classical pas de deux.'
ballet, and I don't think there will be one in the future."
North said breaking was "like rock 'n' roll or the jitterbug — just another enrichment of social dancing. He said he'd been forced to far-removed from social dancing."
But, Smuin is so convinced of breakdancing's place in ballet that he established seven scholarships for dancers.
One of those chosen, Rod "Wizard Breaker" Habibi, 15, of Hayward, Calif., said that like other breakers he knows, he would have a tough time getting to the baggy trousers he wears to breakdance — for ballet tights.
Habibi demonstrated a Helicopter Swipe by shuffling his feet in a hypeed-up Mexican hat dance. He then dropped to one hand, spinning and thrusting his legs above the floor in a sideways scissor kick.
He then rolled onto his back,
crouched in a fetal position, whipped
Each side would send out its best man to try to one-up the other in a series of moves that resembled a gymnast tumbling, gymnastics and karate.
"Instead of fighting, you'd say, 'Let's break against each other.' You'd try to make the opponent look stupid, and that would shut him up," said Jeffrey Greene, a.k.a. Doze, 18, of New York, who breakfasted the night away in the movie, "Flashdance."
North thinks breakdancing reaches much farther back to a Brazilian fighting dance called Capeira, which the slaves did to keep their owners from knowing they were fighting, North said.
"There are the same spins on the head, twirls on the shoulders, rotations on the back. The slaves began to dance with their fours, their differences in a manly fashion
without their owners knowing what they were up to." North said.
The stylized entry, and the crouched spinning and strutting exit of a soloist breaker, bear a striking resemblance to the Indian dances as well. North said.
Smuin also found a link to a 19th-century minstrel show.
"I got a hold of an old film from the 1890s of a minstrel show in Atlanta," he said. "The master of ceremonies wrote the same kind of breaking and popping."
Others think breakdancing possibly was adapted from a traditional Afro-American dance called the Breakdown.
It is anyone's guess exactly how many breakers sturt their stuff on America's streets, but enough of them exist to branch out into breakadance subgroups, each of which has its own specialized style.
The super-breakers, the ablest in the land, concentrate on rotating on their heads and doing flips and handsprings. Breaking, California-style, is more aerial with one partner spinning the other over the head. The team's ability to perform before a mirror so that it looks like shadowing.
In New York, breaking has been around so long it is no longer the newest step on the block — Webboe, the Electric Boogie and kickdancing have since emerged. But break dancing is the most popular, dancers report.
In California, the breakdancing business is booming at a time when black teen-age unemployment is at a record high. A San Francisco street artist in Illusion" said they are raking up 400 a day, seven days a week.
"We do this so we have money and stay out of trouble," said Anthony English. "So we won't be robbing nobody."
Evan Robinson, otherwise known as "Cap. Break," dives to the flat showing off a breakdance move. Robinson, 18, is part of the L.A. Poppers, an area breakdancing group sponsored by the Kansas Minority Repertory.
Robert R. Wardill/KANSAN
Bryan Ware, alias "Sir Break-A-Lot," shows off one of his dancing moves. Ware, 12, is the heartthrob of many female fans.
Robert B. Waddill/KANSAN
Dancers 'breaking' onto scene
By MELISSA BAUMAN Staff Reporter
"Break your body for me baby," a high-school girl screamed.
"Do it for me, Captain Break," another joined in.
The dancers obliged — popping and breaking to the music, and smiling at the enthusiastic girls, who were whistling wildly at the dance troupe.
The dancers are the L.A. Poppers, a break-dancing troupe not from Los Angeles, but from the Lawrence area. They were the guest performers at the Riverside Elementary School's talent show last week.
Popping involves moving the arms, legs and torso in a way that imitates an electric current going through the body.
Breaking is an acrobatic dance in which breakers spin on their shoulders, lay on the floor of bucketing their legs and lift them up into their hands and kick their feet into the air.
then take a dance.
Evan Robinson, alias Lt. Pop, said that only a few people can do both, pop and break dance.
"It's just two different dances. And when you put them together, it makes a smooth person." he said.
The three other breakers in the group, Bryan Ware, 12, David Hutchere, 16, and Maurice Kimball, 17, are
known to their adoring female fans as
"Sir Bracken-a-Lot," "Cap't Break" and
"Rainbow."
The Poppers are sponsored by the Kansas Minority Repetition, an organization run by Hasija Ali which is one of the largest minorities in the arts. Robinson said
Ali originally organized the group in January for a talent show and then encouraged them to continue, Robinson said.
said.
The Poppers said few people in Lawrence could break dance, but that it was becoming more popular.
He said that breaking was much more popular in the Kansas City area and Topeka, where several break groups existed.
The Poppers have become so popular locally that they have a contract to host a show on Sunflower Cablevision's channel 6 featuring breakers from Topeka and Kansas City in break competition, Robinson said.
The show, tentatively called "Break True," is scheduled to air March 31.
Robinson said that he learned how to pop and break in Kansas City from relatives. He said the other Poppers learned the dance technique on their own and they picked up some moves from him.
Hutcherson said that a breaker could be hurt doing the acrobatic dance, but he had gotten only a few minor burns on
his elbows from spinning on the floor.
Although break dancing has been traced to black and Hispanic neighborhoods, the Poppers said that natives would prefer it as the kind of music people listened to.
"It's mostly the beat. It's got nothing to do with color." Robinson said. "It's not even really important."
Hutcherson agreed. "It depends on who you live around. In Denver everyone who lived around us popped and broke. But, the white people live way out in the suburb neighborhood and listen to rock music all the time."
The music most commonly used with break dancing on the coasts is rap. In rap the words are spoken very quickly and are usually improvised.
The Poppers said that although they used some rap, most of their music was "electric music," with electric drums and a prominent rhythm section.
They said that the group danced to this music because it was easier to pop to. The beat is essential for popping, but not for breaking, they said.
The Poppers said that an added advantage to being breakers was the
Referring to the group of cheering young girls seated in front of the stage, Ware said, "They go everywhere we go. That's our fan club." The women are also part of the Kansas Minority Repertory.
Shann and the Scamms bring back the Motown sound
By PHIL ENGLISH Staff Reporter
During the late 1950s, Detroit was making a name as the town that spawned the Motown sound.
The rythm-and-blues styles of singers Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and James Brown helped develop an original sound that would peak in popularity in the mid-1960s.
The music is still popular today — especially in Lawrence — as Shann and the Scammms have been playing to standing-room-only crowds for the past two years.
"People recognize and like the band at first, because they think we play some great old songs," said Martin Moore, guitarist. "But, they stay because we're fun. We make the concert a party for everboy."
The band will play Wednesday night at The Pladium, 901 Mississippi St., and March 29 and 30 at the Jazzhaus Of Lawrence, 926 $ \frac{1}{2} $ Massachusetts St.
Mike Sutton, keyboard and organ player, said people were beginning to realize the impact that early Motown artists had on today's music.
The band members think that their recent surge in popularity is due to nostalgia.
early Moulton accessions. "The people are actually rediscovering this type of music that their older brothers and sisters used to listen to," he said.
A Motown revival is evident because the band continually sells out the Jazzhaus, the place that it considers home.
compared to other places we've played," Sutton said.
"Each member of the band either ties down a job or goes to school," he said. "Everyone would like to keep growing musically together, but it's hard to find a common direction to go in."
"Lawrence has a broad musical taste as
Although the band is enjoying the time of its life, Shann and the Scamms have problems with internal dissent and competing professions, Moore said.
'People recognize and like the band at first, because they think we play some great old songs. But they stay because we're fun. We make the concert a party for everybody.'
The band usually plays its own versions of
—Martin Moore, guitarist
famous Motown hits, as well as original music. Moore said that working these songs together as a band has proved to be time-consuming and disappointing.
Although the band has had some trouble introducing new material to live audiences, Sutton said that this was not a reflection on their future.
"We've been shaped into this mold and are expected to fit in it," Sutton said. "It doesn't mean we're restricted; it's just another phase to battle through."
"Playing all cover material is limiting to some extent because we depend on a lot of older songs, and because they're popular. We play the old songs we want to hear, and it's the most fun to play."
Although the band enjoys playing the standard tunes, their main emphasis is not on what type of music to play, but on how danceable the music is.
"When we first got together a few years ago, we noticed a sound that was beginning to become popular," Moore said. "A lot of bands were developing what appeared to have a strong Motown influence in their music."
Moore mentioned the band Culture Club as an example of a new artist developing the original Motown sound.
Shann and the Scamms — made up of Moore, Sutton, Shann Lewis on vocals, Barry Bunch on bass guitar and Gary Smith on drums — first organized as a group of friends with nothing to do on a weekend night.
They got together to jam in the living room of a member's house, and the music just took off from there. Sutton said.
The Motown interest was brought into the band when Lewis joined the band.
Shann and the Scams would like to be famous, but keep their touring schedule limited to the Lawrence and Kansas City areas.
"In the back of our minds, we all want to make it big," Moore said. "But, we all have different goals and different professions."
"The life of a musician in Kansas is tough enough already."
BLOOM COUNTY
BY BERKE BREATHED