Dance in Film · 2014
Shake the Dust (2014)
Five breaking crews in Colombia, Yemen, Uganda, and Cambodia turn bare streets, plastic-sheet floors, classrooms, and public squares into cyphers where power moves, freezes, teaching, and local music make hip-hop a portable community.
Shake the Dust is a 2014 dance documentary centred on Hip-Hop & Street Dance. For dancers, it's a chance to see the style performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.
Jump to the 7 indexed dance sequences ↓
Dance styles featured
Where to watch: Available in the United States through Arrow Video Channel subscription and rent/buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home; The Roku Channel and Fawesome free-with-ads listings were also verified on 2026-08-08. PBS's prior ALL ARTS stream expired 2026-05-01.
The dance sequences in Shake the Dust
7 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
B-Boy Suicide’s headspin cypher
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by B-Boy Suicide
B-Boy Suicide rotating on his head as spectators close around the circle.
A sustained headspin pushes breaking’s power-move vocabulary toward bodily extremity while a gathering crowd supplies the cypher’s pressure and recognition. His fearlessness turns a technically spectacular passage into a compact self-portrait.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
B-Girl Killer uses breaking as release
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by Camilla (B-Girl Killer)
Camilla disappearing into the rhythm under the battle name B-Girl Killer.
Camilla treats breaking as physical therapy for a painful history, using focus and rhythmic attack to replace narration with movement. Her sequence matters because the film briefly centers a second Colombian B-girl’s authorship rather than presenting the scene as exclusively male.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Breakdance Project Uganda cypher on a handmade floor
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by B-Boy Full Moon; Mark; Erick; Fahad; Breakdance Project Uganda
Ugandan breakers circling a plastic-sheet floor while drums replace unavailable electricity.
A plastic sheet laid over bare ground becomes a functional dance floor, and the cypher converts material scarcity into shared space. Power moves and freezes register as collective resourcefulness because the dancers build both the surface and the community that sustains them.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Erick and Fahad dance through mourning
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by Erick; Fahad
Erick staying beside Fahad, then the two finding motion together during the funeral.
The friends’ breaking at Fahad’s mother’s funeral does not erase grief; it gives the body a way to hold grief and companionship at once. Their movement makes the film’s broad claim about hip-hop as family painfully specific.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
KK teaches breaking at Tiny Toones
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by KK; Tiny Toones students
Children learning breaking from KK inside the community he built after deportation.
KK redirects experience acquired in Los Angeles into a Phnom Penh classroom where breaking is taught alongside academic skills. The sequence frames technique as infrastructure: passing down moves also creates routine, responsibility, and an alternative peer network.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Rock'n'city Crew performs in Bab Al Yemen
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by AJ; Rock'n'city Crew
Rock'n'city Crew holding its public show in the heart of Bab Al Yemen despite expecting stones, tomatoes, or police interference.
The crew carries breaking into a traditional public space where police interruption and hostile reaction are real possibilities. Performing anyway makes the cypher a negotiation with the city, not merely a display of imported vocabulary.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Tibisay and Kings of the Floor in Bogotá
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Danced by Tibisay; Kings of the Floor
Tibisay—the young B-girl called “The Experiment”—joining a culture first learned by watching her father.
Tibisay’s inherited practice turns breaking into an intergenerational language: she watches, asks to learn, and develops a style strong enough to stand within the crew. The scene lets a child’s discipline carry the film’s argument about transmission.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Poster artwork from TMDB.
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