Breakdancing Is Making Its Olympic Debut—Here's How It's Getting Scored
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Welcome to your Olympics specialist era, the 2024 Games are officially in full swing. (Go sports!) The international extravaganza is taking place until Sunday, August 11, and while there are many time-honored traditions you’ll spot during this year’s competition (major athletes and a star-studded opening ceremony for starters), there’s one shiny new entry you should pay special attention to: the breakdancing competition, which is making its Olympics debut.
The dance style originated in The Bronx, New York, and has been around since the early ’80s, but on Friday, August 9, it’ll finally make its way to the international Olympics stage. Because it’s practically an Olympics tradition for viewers at home to become over-invested in sports (often with little-to-no knowledge about said sports before game time), we’re going to help accelerate that process for you. Cosmopolitan was on the scene at breakdancing’s *first-ever* Olympic qualifier competition this summer to get the lowdown on the category from some of its top names and judges. Read on for a full education on why breakdancing is being included in this year’s Olympics Games, how it’s being judged, and which specific dancers to keep an eye on.
Why Is Breakdancing Included This Year for the First Time?
Breakdancing, aka “breaking,” had a highly watched debut at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, which prompted the Summer ’24 Olympic Games organizers to add it to the program. There’s hope its inclusion will excite younger audiences because historically breaking is “closely associated with young people and reward[s] creativity and athletic performance,” according to a statement released on the official Olympics site. “The IOC is keen to set a new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced and youth-centered Games” with sports that are “easy to take up and [allow] participants [to] form communities that are very active on social media.” If we were to wager a guess, we’d say you should be prepared for your TikTok FYP to be filled with a whole lot of amateur breakdancing attempts.
If you’re looking to get in on that dance action yourself, this year’s Let’s Move initiative should be on your radar. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Health Organization are encouraging fans at home—regardless of athletic ability—to share their own celebratory dances and sports moves online during the Games using the hashtag #LetsMove. That way, you can nip some of your inevitable Olympic FOMO in the bud before the official breaking competition kicks off. (We all have a “I could’ve been the next Katie Ledecky/Simone Biles if I didn’t quit [insert sport here] back in middle school!” story.)
How Is Breakdancing Being Judged?
Great question. At the 2024 Olympic Qualifier Series, Cosmopolitan spoke with the breakdancing competition’s MC head judge MGbility for clarity.
The 2024 Olympic judges will use a comparative five-criteria judgment system. Like almost every other individual sport, it just boils down to one breaker scoring higher than their opponent. Sixteen men (“b-boys”) and 16 women (“b-girls”) will participate in minute-long one-on-one battles against each other. No round will go over 60 seconds, and dancers improvise their moves with ZERO knowledge of what song will be played. The five performance factors that’ll be judged for the final score are:
Technique (20%): This scoring considers a dancer’s form, spatial control, and even the levels of their movements. “It’s about whether the dancer changes their level, patterns, and directions, or stays stuck in one place versus using the whole area,” says MGbility.
Originality (20%): Just as it sounds, this section gauges whether a dancer has truly made a breaking performance feel like their own. “If they’re able to innovate and add something new to a move, that’s the kind of thing that really makes the culture. It shouldn’t look like someone is ticking off a list of moves, they have to do it with personality, improvising how to transition and or even being able to spontaneously recover from a slip or fall.”
Musicality (20%): For this, judges get into the weeds over how “on-beat” a dancer’s performance is. “The judges are judging whether they’re dancing just to the bass or the drums or if he’s dancing to the saxophone or melody,” OQS judge MGbility says. “The more instruments a dancer can dance to the better.”
Vocabulary (20%): The vocab score poses the question: “Did this dancer have the range?” “It’s all about the breadth of their skill set, and how many moves they’ve got in their vocabulary,” MGbility says. “It’s important to keep things fresh and perform a variety of moves while battling and show that you have a broad range of moves under control.” In breaking competitions, repeated moves are actually penalized, so dancers really need to keep things unique.
Execution (20%): It’s one thing to make a move, but it’s another thing to pull it off with finesse. For execution scoring, judges are looking for seamless, clean movements without trips or falls. MGbility says they’re also taking narrative into account here. “What is the feeling they convey with their moves, what’s the story they’re trying to tell? It has a huge impact on the battle if the breakers can fully embody their narrative.”
What Are the Moves?
In good news for those who need a beginner-level explanation of breakdancing choreography, most performances are rooted in four basic movement styles:
Top rock: These are the standing dances that a breaker will make before hitting the floor, like a two-step or a hip twist.
Down rock: These are very impressive tricks you’ll see dancers do on the ground with hands and/or feet on the floor—spins and windmills are a couple.
Freeze: This is actually a move without movement. (Subversive!) So when any position is held, that’s a freeze.
Power moves: Quick and explosive moves that requires a bunch of momentum are considered power moves. They really stand out within breakdancing routines, so b-boys and b-girls whip them out often.
Who Are the Team USA Athletes to Watch?
Sunny Choi
Full name: Grace Choi
Age: 35
Hometown: Queens, New York/Louisville, Kentucky
Fun facts: Sunny wasn’t at the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest this summer because she was the first woman to qualify for breakdancing’s Team USA way back in November. She earned her spot because she brought home the gold at the Pan American Games, which made her the seventh-best-rated breaker in the world at the time. Before January 2023, Sunny served as the director of global creative operations at Estée Lauder but stepped down from the role to focus on dancing.
Victor
Full name: Victor Montavalo
Age: 30
Hometown: Kissimmee, Florida
Fun facts: Victor was another early Team USA qualifier. He was the first male breaker to earn a spot after grabbing the gold medal at the 2023 WDSF World Breaking Championships last year. For Victor, breakdancing is a family affair. His father and uncle make up a Mexican dance duo known as The Bermudez Brothers, and they taught Victor and his siblings how to break when they were kids.
Logistx
Full name: Logan Edra
Age: 21
Hometown: San Diego, California
Fun facts: Logistx has been dancing since she was seven years old and got her stage name from her father. She’s collected several major breaking competition wins, including the top spot at the 2018 Silverback Open B-Girl solo competition and the 2021 Red Bull BC One World Final championship title. Logistx also teaches dance classes in the South Florida area (when she’s not going for gold in Paris, obviously).
Jeffro
Full name: Jeffrey Louis
Age: 29
Hometown: Houston, TX
Fun facts: Jeffro, who has been dancing since he was 12, was an early advocate for breakdancing’s Olympics inclusion. Back in 2018, he wrote a letter to the IOC outlining why it should be added to the Games. While he didn’t get a direct response back then, he’ll be competing for Team USA next month. We love a full-circle moment!
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