Ken Swift, a pioneer of breaking, reflects on the dance form's journey from the streets of the Bronx to the Olympic Games in Paris. Breaking's inclusion marks a significant milestone for hip-hop, but the story of B-girl Raygun's whimsical performance, which garnered zero points, has become the lasting image of the event.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Ken Swift has never dribbled a basketball to a beat. Growing up in the Bronx, the northernmost borough of New York, he never darted for touchdowns while music thumped. Back then, in the late 1970s, sports plugged an important desire for sweat and competition.“Sports have a structure,” Swift said during a recent phone interview. “ Breaking , because it was new and just born, there was so much freedom to it.
Instead, the lasting impression of breaking’s Olympics moment came courtesy of a whimsical performance by Australia’s Rachael Gunn, known as B-girl Raygun. She flopped, jerked and sprawled during her Paris rounds. At one point, she mimicked a hopping kangaroo, creating one of the lasting images of the Games. She scored zero points.
“It was really sad how much hate that it did evoke,” she said. “And a lot of the responses is also just due to people not being very familiar with breaking and the diversity of approaches in breaking.”Michael Holman is familiar. He envisioned breaking as an Olympic sport 40 years ago. The founder of the influential New York City Breakers, he submitted a proclamation for breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics before the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
Ken Swift and Michael Holman differ on whether breaking is a sport, but share disappointment about Paris.“Imagine somebody somehow bamboozles officials, sneaks into the Olympics and gets to race at the finals of the 100-metre race of track and field and instead of running, hops in a potato sack as performance art,” Holman said.
While Swift never viewed breaking as a sport, he laments a moment lost. He mentored some of the Olympic participants. Victor Montalvo looks on as Fouad Ambelj of Morocco challenges him in the Red Bull BC One breakdancing world final in Rome.The variety and depth of talent displayed in Paris would not have been possible without the reach and expansion of hip-hop first imagined by New York kids like Swift.
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