Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)

Toprock steps into a drop, then footwork patterns like the six-step circling on hands and feet, punctuated by power moves such as windmills, headspins and flares and closed with a freeze held on a beat. Weight shifts constantly between hands, feet, back and head.

Essentially solo but never alone: dancers take turns in a cypher or trade rounds in one-on-one and crew-versus-crew battles, answering each other's material directly. Routines performed in unison by a crew are a secondary, showcase form.

Battles are the native format, judged by crowd or panel on foundation, originality, musicality and execution. Major circuits include Red Bull BC One, Battle of the Year and the Silverback Open; the WDSF governed the Olympic event at Paris 2024, where Ami Yuasa (Japan) took the first B-Girls gold on 9 August and Philip 'Phil Wizard' Kim (Canada) the B-Boys gold on 10 August.

New York foundation emphasises toprock and footwork; a power-heavy strand developed strongly in the American Midwest, South Korea and Russia; 'abstract' and threading-based approaches are associated with European and Japanese scenes.

'Breakdancing' is a media coinage from the 1980s commercial boom, not the community term — practitioners say breaking, b-boying or b-girling. It is also not a 1980s invention: the dance was already mature in the Bronx by the mid-1970s, and the 1980s films documented it rather than created it.