Let's Have a Break Dance Party
- The Time Chair
- Jul 17
- 8 min read
"...I wanna spin around and roll, and give it every bit of soul, so come along... Let's have a break dance party..." Break Machine (1984).
So, you remember the moves to the Birdie Song, the Locomotion, The Conga, Agadoo, Superman and...Shakin' Stevens’ This Ole House? But what about the Caterpillar, the backwards Caterpillar (Dolphin Dive / Worm), the Crab, the Knee spin, the Windmill, the handless Windmill, the Backspin and the Body Pop? You might not remember all of these moves, but I can assure you that anyone who worked in a fracture clinic or hospital in the UK during the mid-1980s can.
I was told as a kid that the origins of breakdancing began in the New York boroughs. Towards to the end of the 1970s, places such as the Bronx and Queens had a bad reputation for gang violence and knife crime, and breakdancing came about as a means of settling scores non-violently via something called a Burnout.
Essentially, instead of fighting one another with guns and knives, gangs with conflicting viewpoints or disputes over turf would aim to settle their differences via the medium of dance, the execution of which would far-surpass that of Michael Jackson's in his Beat It video.
My first inkling that the Bronx had arrived in the inner-city parts of the UK was the appearance of Adidas tracksuits worn casually, rather than just at sporting events. There were a few other notable fashion items appearing on the market at the time including Kickers and Pod footwear, semi flares, and Kleim tracksuit tops. My grey, slip-on shoes and stretchable snake belt were beginning to look a bit outdated, and I was going to have to adjust quickly if I wanted to make it big on the Breakin’ scene.
Now there were five must-have elements if you were going to be taken seriously as a Breakdancer, or what in radical Breakin' terminology was referred to as a, ‘B-Boy.’ I'm not sure why the masculine form was used so much because where I was brought up, there were just as many B-Girls, and they were often better at it due to their flexibility.
The first requirement, was a Bronx / general New York attitude. This was difficult at first, especially if you had to take your nan to church on Sunday mornings and were an Altar Boy at the evening service. But the identity crisis could be temporarily masked by a pair of trainers with thick laces and some sort of tracksuit, and if you didn’t have a full tracksuit, then just the top or bottom half would suffice.
Next, you needed a crew, preferably with a tough reputation of some kind. There were four B-Boys in our crew, and I started the bad rep rolling by stealing some candles from church without putting any money in the collection box. I had a crack at the little round rice paper things used for Holy Communion as well, but I got caught and was handed a five-Hail Marys’ and two Our Fathers’ penance.
Another crew member chipped in by nicking the dust caps of his neighbour’s Nissan Bluebird. The two remaining members said that they’d make good in the actual burnouts and let the dancing do the talking, but one of them was quite over weight, and although he assured us he would do the Windmill if push came to shove, we suspected that he wouldn’t…because he couldn’t. The foundations of a windmill or its millstone perhaps; but not its sails.
Third on the list was a Boom box or a Ghetto Blaster. I’d seen a member of a neighbouring rival crew walk past my window on more than one occasion holding a Hitachi twin tape cassette recorder against his head playing Harold Faltermeyer’s, Axel F at high volume. It wasn’t a ghetto Blaster in the traditional sense, it was more of a Kays Catalogue affair, a 75p per week for 70-years thing. There's a slim chance he's still paying it off now, but it was better than the Panasonic mono recorder with the rotary volume dial and ‘ear’ and ‘mic’ sockets which our crew relied on.
The next requirement was about 6-square metres of Lino, but unless one of your aunts was having her kitchen floor replaced, you had to make do with four flattened out cardboard boxes and a roll of Gaffer Tape. For a brief period in the mid-80s, small groups of youths could be regularly seen carrying rolls of Lino or cardboard boxes down the street or towards the local park, their over-sized tracksuit bottoms often frayed around the hem because they had been dragged underfoot in all weather.
The final requirement was practise. Like any other world-class dance troop, choreography and practise was essential, and our go-to source of inspiration was the movie, Breakin’, which was released in the UK in May 1984.
Its soundtrack featured the song, There’s No Stopping Us by Ollie and Jerry, and followed the exploits of a young female dancer called Kelly who is introduced by her friend to two street dancers called Ozone and Turbo.
The plot of Breakin’ had some similarities with the 1983 movie, Flashdance, and the idea that street dancing should be taken just as seriously as the other long-established dance styles. The ‘Just do it your way’ phenomenon was prevalent throughout the 1980s. Even Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing uttered the words, “So I'm gonna do MY kind of dancin', with a great partner”.
Now all great dancers attract great understudies, and there were very few more dedicated than our crew when it came to studying Turbo, played by Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers, in the broom scene from Breakin’. With broom in hand and Kraftwerk’s Tour De France as his guide, Chambers executes what is often considered one of the most iconic dance routines in film history, even if you can see the wire used to create the illusion of the broom floating.
With the spirit of Turbo as our guide, early one Saturday morning our crew congregated in the local alleyway to examine a slightly damp and warped Discount Store broom handle. No one enquired as to the whereabouts of the actual broom head, but that didn’t matter. We could improvise if it came to it. On the plus side, someone had managed to record Kraftwerk’s Tour De France off the radio, and they’d managed to avoid the DJ speaking over the beginning and end of the recording which bolstered our sense of purpose.
After 10-minutes or so of our crew trying to make the broom handle stand on end, a peculiar calm ensued. The distant hum of traffic eased, and the sounds of swearing coming from open kitchen windows ceased. As the eerie calm extended into the mysterious, the silhouettes of four figures appeared at the far end of the alleyway, hands in pockets; feet shoulder-width apart. We hadn’t been expecting a visit from one of the local rival crews this early because Saturday Superstore hadn’t finished yet. But there they were, and one of them was clearly wearing a brand-new pair of Adidas Gazelle trainers.
I don’t remember my Breakin’ name, but whatever it was, it wasn’t as cool as Ozone or Turbo. It might have been something similar to my CB radio handle which was Merlin. But I do recall the name of one of the local rival crew members, although it wasn’t his official title. Officially, his street name was something devastating like, ‘Armageddon’ or ‘Apocalypse’, but because he was a bit weird-looking, we just called him, “The Ferret” or, “Da Ferret”, in recognition of the street credit that every B-Boy deserved.
Now in all fairness to Da Ferret, he did have some some slick moves, and his teeth did dutifully protrude when he body-popped. But that Saturday morning, all the signals were present and understood. There was going to be a burnout, but it wasn’t technically a turf war because most of us had the same postcode, and at least two of our mums worked at the same dog food factory. This was about reputation, and the Pedigree Chum stakes were high.
The alleyway hadn’t been tarmacked over and still had its original Victorian granite blocks as a surface. As we began to square up and form our burnout circle, we realised that we didn’t have a stage (Lino or cardboard boxes). This put our crew at a disadvantage because my signature move was the Backspin, and that required a slippery surface if I was going to go full tilt and complete six, full revolutions. Having been unable to afford a tracksuit top (or bottom for that matter), I’d had to hone my art using a £6.99 PVC Water Duck rain jacket, which kind of worked well on cardboard and Lino, and really well on the polished Parquet floor of the local youth club. But with 100-year-old granite blocks to contend with, I knew I’d have to put some serious belt into generating the initial rotation. But Hey, we’re talking ‘Street Dance’ here, not some birthday party Conga nonsense.
After cranking up the rotary volume dial on the Panasonic mono player to 10, the beat kicked in and the burnout commenced. All of the standard primary posturing played out as each crew member prepared to deliver their trademark move. Eager to impress, I decided to lead by example and go in first. After taking the largest extended step in history into the circle, I swung my right leg around with the force of a category-5 hurricane in order to compensate for the absence of a stage.
I’d gone beyond full tilt, but before I had the chance to draw my leg fully towards my torso to generate maximum spin, it hooked around Da Ferret’s ankles launching him mercilessly into the air, feet above face. So colossal was my initial momentum, that the collision didn’t prevent the backspin from continuing beyond its primary stage. I wasn’t going to complete six revolutions, but four was definitely doable.
As I tucked my knees in and the backspin accelerated towards its maximum velocity, I noticed that the friction between my PVC rain jacket and the granite blocks wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. As the spin approached its climax and I was thinking about which end pose to lock in, the cries of pain coming from Da Ferret gave way to the impossible to confuse with anything else smell of fresh dog shit. Unbeknownst to me, I had just commenced the mother of all backspins on top of a pebble-sized lump of dog turd. Having had its camouflage exposed and the seal of its outer shell broken, the ensuing filth had provided significant lubrication between my PVC rain jacket and the granite blocks of the Victorian alleyway. I didn't bother locking in an end pose.
Whilst staggering dizzily to my feet and wondering where the smell was coming from, an emergency evacuation of the burnout circle was already well-underway. Even Da Ferret was managing to slide away whilst still on his back and clearly injured. I tried my best to bring some common sense and reassurance to the situation, but my attention had been captured by a solitary, lowly granite block. For stemming from its centre, was arguably one of the most perfectly-formed, brown spirals ever created, the geometric accuracy of which would have put Michelangelo to shame.
After a good 5-seconds or so of dumbfounded admiration, it dawned on me that there would had to have been two surfaces involved in the creation of the masterpiece, and like a B-Boy on fire, I de-robed from my PVC rain jacket and threw it to the ground. As it landed, I caught a brief glimpse of its back, and on it I saw a mirror image…of arguably one of the most perfectly-formed, brown spirals ever created, the geometric accuracy of which would have put Michelangelo to shame.
Whatever my Breakin' name was at the time, it wasn't as impactful as the re-label of "Shitspin" given to me by the local rival crews. But that didn't matter. I would shortly retire from the Breakin' scene following the release of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Did you have a ‘crew’, and what was your trademark move?
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