The Art!!!!

B-boying or Breaking, also called Break Dancing, is a style of street dance that originated among Black and Puerto Rican youths in New York City during the early 1970s.
The dance spread worldwide due to popularity in the media, especially in regions such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Russia and South Korea. While diverse in the amount of variation available in the dance, b-boying consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. B-boying is typically danced to hip-hop, funk music, and especially breakbeats, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns. #Breaking covers both Bboying and Bgirling. In other words, bboying and bgirling make up the #Breakign pillar of hiphop culture.

 A Practitioner of this dance is called a bboy, bgal, or breaker. Although the term "breakdance" is frequently used to refer to the dance, "b-boying" and "breaking" are the original terms. These terms are preferred by the majority of the pioneers and most notable practitioners. There are many elements of b-boying that can be seen in other antecedent cultures prior to the 1970s. B-boy pioneers Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon and Kenneth "Ken Swift" Gabbert, both of Rock Steady Crew, cite James Brown and Kung Fu Films as influences to b-boying.Many of b-boying's more acrobatic moves, such as the flare, show clear connections to gymnastics. An Arab street dancer performing acrobatic headspins was recorded by Thomas Edison in 1898. However, it was not until the 1970s that b-boying developed as a defined dance style in the United States.

  There are four primary elements that form b-boying. These include top-rock, down-rock, power moves, and freezes.

Female presence.

Like the other aspects of hip-hop culture, graffiti writing, MCing, and DJing, males are generally the predominant gender within breaking. However, this is being challenged by the rapidly increasing number of b-girls. Critics argue that it is unfair to make a sweeping generalization about these inequalities because women have begun to play a larger role in the breaking scene. Despite the increasing number of female breakers in other parts of the world Africa is creating more awareness in female breaking, another possible barrier is lack of promotion. As Firefly, a full-time b-girl, says ...

"It's getting more popular. There are a lot more girls involved. The problem is few workshops and that the promoters are not putting on enough female-only battles."More people are seeking to change the traditional image of females in hip hop culture (and by extension, b-boy culture) to a more positive, empowered role in the modern hip-hop scene^. The lower exposure of female dancers is probably caused not by any conscious discrimination, but simply by the fewer number of female breakers compared to the number of male breakers. However, both males and females do practice this art form equally together and are competitively judged only by skill and personal expression, not gender.
                                                                               (Some of the info courtesy of Wikipedia).
Photos Courtesy of: Roy King, Kibuuka and Eyelense.

B-boy Harry Foundation, Compass Nella Fitness Centre, Ongata Rongai.

Email: bboyharry@live.com - Phone: +254 700 472 451.