Breakdancing B-boys pop, shuffle around campus
Throughout the halls of the Taggart Student Center on Monday and Wednesday nights, the sounds of hip-hop music echo off the walls as a troupe of breakdancers practices near the International Lounge.
These “B-boys” make a club at USU, which specializes in this popular and arguably classic American street dance.
Eston Norton, a sophomore studying international business, is the president of the club. He said the club was started by Kris “The Cat” Loken, who is an alumni and one of the more prominent breakdancers from USU.
He said there are about 20 members this year who circulate throughout practices.
Norton said the club is relaxed and has no set agenda. “It’s mostly recreational, but a lot of us take it as more of a lifestyle,” he said. “Some people take basketball as a lifestyle — they’re always constantly playing basketball — we’d always constantly be dancing.”
While the club focuses mostly on dancing and different styles of hip-hop, Norton said it also practices the philosophy of breakdancing.
“We have stories passed down from generation to generation,” Norton said, adding that some of the stories date back to the ‘80s.
Brett “Soda” George, a senior studying liberal arts, is an adviser for the club. He said the B-boy club is an open-membership club, free to anyone who wants to show off style or pick up some dance tips.
He said any style is welcome, from popping and locking to breakaway styles, such as housing and whacking, which is essentially female locking with sassy, open-hand movements.
“One thing I think a lot of people don’t realize about hip-hop culture is that it’s four elements organized around one movement — one flag,” George said. He said those four elements are graffiti, emceeing, spinning on turntables and breakdancing. “The dance of hip-hop is breaking.”
Among breaking, he said, there are several subsets such as strutting, flexing and other more specialized areas.
George said the four main groups or elements of breakdancing are top-rocking, up-rocking, floor work and freezes. He said top-rocking signals that a breakdancer is about start, with usually a lot of circling and back-and-forth movements.
Up-rocking is similar to top-rocking but more aggressive. He said up-rocking is the battle style of top-rocking.
“You are not only showing you’re coming in but also calling someone out,” George said.
George said another element most people are familiar with is floor work. He said floor work consists of six-steps, ground movements and shuffles.
Then, he said, the last element of breakdancing is freezes, which is when the dancer does a sharp movement and stops suddenly or poses.
“There’s breakdancers who gear toward more powerful moves — we call them power B-boys,” George said, referring to the various pathologies possessed by dancers. “And there’s breakdancers who gear toward more stylish, smooth moves — we call them style B-boys.”
“They found that you can’t be a truly good breakdancer unless you know them all,” he said, regarding a debate in the early 2000s over which one was better.
George said in addition to the B-boy club, there is also an organized dance crew called My Bad Crew that performs with two other USU dance troupes — Velociti and Full Circle.
He said he and brothers Joey and Mikey Geurts started My Bad Crew last year so they could leave behind a legend.
“We started in response to all the other colleges that already had … street-style crews, and so we didn’t want to be left behind,” George said.
My Bad Crew has performed alongside Velociti, a hip-hop crew, and Full Circle, a modern contemporary crew, at events like the Howl. He said the troupe now plans to do a halftime performance at one of the basketball games in January.
Danny Pond, a senior studying civil engineering, was the president of the club two years ago. He said he’s been in the club since 2004, which used to meet in the HPER Building and later began meeting in the TSC in hopes to get more exposure.
“At first it was kind of intimidating to have people watching when you’re trying out new stuff you don’t know how to do,” Pond said. “Other times it’s a lot of fun to have people watch you. It helps me pull out my better stuff.”
The club meets Mondays and Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. and sometimes Fridays. “It’s a great workout. It’s a great social life,” Norton said. “We act like a family.”
– audrey.moulton@aggiemail.usu.edu