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Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies

2010

A Battle of Repression: Hip Hop Bgirls,

Burns and Gestural Languages 1970-2010

Ansley J. Jones

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF DANCE

A BATTLE OF REPRESSION: HIP HOP BGIRLS, BURNS AND GESTURAL LANGUAGES 1970 to

2010

ANSLEY JOYE JONES

A Thesis submitted to the

School of Dance

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Degree Awarded:

Spring Semester, 2011

The members of the committee approve the thesis of Ansley Joye Jones defended on 6 December

2010.

__________________________________

Sally R. Sommer

Professor Directing thesis

__________________________________

Tricia Young

Committee Member

__________________________________

Rick McCullough

Committee Member

__________________________________

Jennifer Atkins

Committee Member

Approved:

_____________________________________

Patricia Phillips, Co-Chair, School of Dance

_____________________________________

J. Russell Sandifer, Co-Chair, School of Dance

_____________________________________

Sally McRorie, Dean, College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

iii

I dedicate this to all women in hip hop dance and to the progression of hip hop culture as a

whole.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my committee members for all of their support: Tricia

Young, Sally R. Sommer, Jennifer Atkins and Rick McCullough. Special thanks to Sally

Sommer and Tricia Young for graciously commenting and editing drafts of this thesis. An extra-

special thanks to Sally Sommer for encouraging me to follow my heart through this process and

giving me the courage I needed to continue.

Thanks to the FSU in NYC program directed by Sally Sommer. The information,

personal connections and opportunities I gained were invaluable to this research. Without these

experiences the thesis would have a very different voice; perhaps a premature one.

I would also like to give a shout-out to all the women (and men!) of hip hop -- bgirls

(and bboys) poppers, lockers, rockers hip hop party dancers and freestylers -- that shared their

heart and soul with me, making the documentation of this rare material possible: Kim “Kim-A-

Kazi” Valente, Ana “Rokafella” Garcia, Aiko Shirakawa, Asia “Asia-One” Yu, Ciprian “Radio”

Gontea, Mandi “Beyond bgirl” Shavon, Jorge “Pop Master Fabel” Pabon, Candy Bloise, Carla

“Ill Mischief” Silveira, Misty Dawn “Dura” White, Riyanna “Dvine” Hartley, Lauren “Ellz”

Rodeheaver, Jocelyn “Evil Lynn” Eckhout, Kate “K8” Morrissey, Margie “Kaotic Blaze”

Flecha, Tammy “Cadence” Tso, Kellye “Mohawk” Greene, Lisa “Mona Lisa” Berman,

Dawnette “Patience” Joseph, Charlotte “Pretty Sick” Schultz, Steven “Mr. Wiggles” Clemente,

Tiffany “Schizo” Hines, Stephanie “Seoul Assassin” Aasen, Miri “Seoul Sonyck” Park, Nicole

“Severe” Rateau, April “Squirrely” Vaughn, Sarah “Smalls” Saltzman, Stasha “Stash-One”

Sampson, Monica “TahXic” Kelly, Adrienne “Vendetta” Lee, Brenda K. Starr, Lane “ Yoda

LaneSki” Davey, Hanifa “Bubbles” McQueen Hudson, Violeta “Fire Starter” Galagarza,

Auristela “ Lady Champ” Nunez, Colleen “Miss Twist” Soto, Naomi Bragin, Nadine “Nene”

Sylbestre, Nicole “Olopop” Guess, Mariette “Peaches” Rodriguez, Pebbles “Pebblee Poo” Riley,

Doreene (Deena) “SnapShot” Clemente, Wanda “WandeePOP” Candelario and Lenaya

“Tweetie” Straker.

Special thanks to Kim “Kim-A-Kazi” Valente and Ana “Rokafella” Garcia for sharing

their invaluable experiences and thorough explanations regarding the material. Thank you Kim

for the conversations (for letting me pick your brain) and encouragement. Your words kept me

going when times were rough. And Kim, you are recognized and will be remembered! Thanks to

Bubbles for your wisdom, encouragement and accessibility -- you were always there with an

answer when I needed you. You are truly a Queen. Thanks to Fabel for the opportunity to be

your intern, I learned so much through our conversations and your research has buttressed and

enhanced all that I have done. Thanks to Christie Z Pabon for the support and for helping me

find interviewees. Thank you to Mr. Wiggles for giving me the names that helped me find some

very important women in hip hop. Thanks to SnapShot and WandeePOP for allowing me to

intern with you, for all your help and wonderful advice -- and for supporting me and giving me

the chance to get to know you. You have been wonderful. Thank you to Vickie Jones, my mother

for supporting me no matter what. You are the reason I love. Thank you to Donnell Jones for

your endearing support, I love you. And finally, thank you to Ciprian “bboy Radio” Gontea for

our countless conversations on women in breaking and hip hop over the past 5 years. Thank you

for supporting and believing in me inside and outside of the cipher when no one else did. Thanks

for standing up for me. You are my role model, my inspiration, my best friend and I love you for

it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract vii

1. PREFACE 1

Personal Note 1

2. INTRODUCTION 3

Chapters and Methodologies; Terminology; Review of the Literature 3

3. Brief Historical Overview 18

4. 1970’s Bgirls and Dancing Spectators 29

5. The 1980s 39

6. 1990s and 2000s 56

7. 2000s Oppression Through Panopticism and

The Abject Body: Battling as Self-Discovery 73

8. Bgirls as Drag Kings 86

9. Afterthoughts of Bgirls about Liminal Burns 97

10. BIBLIOGRAPHY 107

11. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 118

vii

ABSTRACT

The gestural language of a hip hop dance battle is one of the most important elements of the form.

This study’s primary focus is the gestural language of “burns” used in battles by women hip hop

dancers. Burns, the specific gestural language in battling used to insult the opponent, will be

analyzed through several theoretical points of view such as feminism, queer theory, and

historiography to name a few. These theories will be used to trace the evolution of women burns

from the 1970s in New York City to today’s contemporary bgirls. The masculinized/sexualized

forms of battle behaviors have shaped the physical expression of the women. However, this

gestural language has evolved from the transformative to the repressive affecting the bgirl

psyche in many ways, becoming both empowering and disempowering. I will question why

there exist few potent female-centered gestures in the women’s burns, and how empowerment

might be gained through bgirls using their own sexual/reproductive gestures in battling.

PREFACE

PERSONAL NOTE

I am a bgirl. When I was battling frequently (1996-2006), strategic planning and the use

of carefully chosen gestural language was my main focus. In fact it won battles--and to win was

all that mattered--but never at the expense of denigrating girlhood. As young women who got

down on the floor and battled, we prided ourselves as girls in control of the scene and gloated

when boys came to join our crew. However, battling was also changing tremendously as I

matured. I noticed how phallic gestures, such as “throwin’ the dick” became a primary gesture

in the battles. Consequently, I began to watch, attend, and research the setting of this language—

“bboying battles.”

I quickly became fascinated with gender and its representation in the breaking battle by

investigating breaking and its representation of women to its gendered spoken language. I started

to concentrate on women’s identity (as a collective) in hip hop dance. Next, I began questioning

the rarity of specific women’s burns in battles, such as “nursing the baby” or other female

sexual-reproductive gestures, comparable to the omnipresent, male-centric phallic gestural

languages. Peculiarly, bgirls themselves started to heavily utilize male sexual-reproductive

language in battles, thowin’dick even against other women. Dancing inscribes the body and

affects self-expression and definition of womanhood. The unquestioning adoption of hip-hop’s

homogenized masculinized/phallic physical and verbal languages caused women to repress

female-sexualized language in breaking, in their movement choices and gestural phrasing.

This began to affect my self-esteem immensely. I would say to myself, “God! I have got

to lose this ass in order to be good.” I struggled with body image (wanting to lose my hips and

thighs) and I began thinking of my body in negative ways. Eventually, I began to police my body

like the weight-conscious ballerina: I monitored what I thought, what I ate and how I exercised.

Things began to shift into harmful rituals. It became a constant battle between wanting to lose

weight and not wanting to lose what I deemed my femaleness -- which was strong, fearless,

confident and extremely exaggerated in battle. But I was starting to think of myself as

biologically weak, uncontrolled, thoughtless, and became severely insecure as a result. With a lot

of hard work, strength and perseverance, I eventually realized that I had second-guessed what I

knew best: my body.

As I watched other bgirls use phallic gestures I began to question the effects of breaking

culture on their psyche: Why are women using male sexual-reproductive gestures as a statement

of strength? Are women affected by this negatively in subconscious ways? Are the clichéd male

battling gestures manifesting those negativities? More importantly, how can this power-hold of

gestural language on women be lifted? Can women be empowered through the development of

pro-woman language?

This study focuses on the battle “burns” used by women hip-hop dancers.

“Burns” are specific physical gestures or danced gestural-narrative phrases that are directed at

the opponent. They are meant to insult, demean and discourage the rival and highlight her/his

weaknesses. These exchanges are quick (lasting about ten seconds or less) physical dialogues

that can be crude or clever, witty or cruel, flashing by in a danced one-upmanship. But if they are

to count, they must always be in rhythm with the music and on the beat. Because the dancers

have to think fast on their feet to create these dialogic exchanges, burns are the most intense

dramatic elements in any challenge, whether informal or formal competitions. They are also

core characteristics of a dancer’s identity and agency. The masculinized and sexualized forms of

battle practices, which have shaped the physical expression of the women, have evolved from the

transformative to the repressive, becoming both empowering and disempowering. Looking at

female gestural burns and physical practices from the 1970s in New York City to bgirls on a

global level in 2010, I question why there exist few potent female-centered gestures in the

women’s burns, and how empowerment might be gained through bgirls using their own

sexual/reproductive gestures in battling.

Women are unremittingly omitted from the history of hip-hop dance. Still, this thesis is

not an attempt to write the history of women in hip-hop dance but to offer an overview of how

women helped shape this form. This thesis is the beginning of an attempt to fill in the historical

gaps and to assist in understanding women’s presence in and contributions to the form.

Hopefully, this work will initiate a dialogue, more investigations, and shift a much-needed focus

on women in hip hop, shedding light on their crucial involvement in shaping its discourse,

narratives and history.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTERS AND METHODOLOGIES; TERMINOLOGY;

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Because of the dearth of information concerning women in the first two decades of hip

hop (1970-1990) I decided to conduct interviews with as many of the women dancers as I could

find. This supplemented the few books, articles and videos available on the subject. Certainly the

most significant information in this study comes from these interviews, which I conducted with

women over a two and a half year period and who were able to bring life and insight to the

contributions women have made to hip hop. For each decade I use specific theoretical

approaches to analyze and explain the women’s empowerment and disempowerment within the

form and what they contributed to hip-hop dance forms, particularly in terms of their roles in the

development of breaking (probably the best known of the many hip-hop dance forms, breaking

literally breaks down to the floor on the “break” in the music). Tracing the shifting intentions and

vocabularies of female gestural burns and physical practices from the 1970s in New York City to

contemporary bgirls of the New Millennium, several theories are posited to interpret aspects of

these physical behaviors, including retained Africanist ideologies and practices of

social/communal praise and censorship, feminism, panopticism, gender representation and queer

theory (drag kings, abject female body, threatened patriarch), racial repression and

historiography.

Chapter 1 is a brief data-descriptive overview of hip hop from the late 1960s to the

present, concentrating on those events and practices that will affect the physical behaviors of

breaking bboys, which the bgirls will submit to, and inherit, as their legacy in the latter decades.

The hope is that this short summary will assist the reader in orienting themselves in the flow of

events, and give background information that will help in understanding the more detailed

chapters that follow.

In Chapter 2, which concentrates on women during the 1970s, I use Robert Farris

Thompson’s Africanist aesthetics on community to explain women’s involvement in the form.

Thompson theorizes that the communal role of dance (“assertable actions”) is just as important

as the dance itself. The fluid flow of the relationship between spectator and dancer anchors his

theory of “consulting the experts.” In this reciprocation, the dancer is consulting (by performing

for and with) someone as knowledgeable as themselves. This is living interaction that testifies to

the importance of women’s influence in the hip hop community. Although most of the women

were keen watchers who remained on the edges of the “ciphers” (circles), I consider them active

dancer/participants. Through their physicalized attitudes of approval or dismissal (in reality,

responses are carefully selected and choreographed poses and gestures

), their facial expressions

and verbal comments they to a great extent controlled the men. The men sought their approval,

which caused bboys to push the form, to create something better, bigger, more virtuosic. As

knowledgeable witnesses, commentators and critics, women fueled the competitive nature of the

dance, which many male pioneers say is what drove the dance’s quick evolution (especially

breaking). Although the men now credit the women, they fail to give specific details about their

influences on the essence of the form.

In Chapter 3, women were making their mark and acquired work in the 1980’s

mainstream commercial hip-hop media. They were a visible part of the public culture and in

many of the intracultural ciphers. In hip-hop party-dances, popping (and all other funk styles),

locking, and other forms of hip-hop dance, women were chosen to perform. The 1980s hip hop

superstar MC Hammer, for example, included many women in all his concert-tour

extravaganzas, music videos and television shows. They were treated equally to the men and

were expected to do the same intense and high-energy dancing as the males. With the explosion

of breaking in the media, hip-hop women had commercial careers in the visual media, creating

niches for themselves as hip-hop dancers while also paving the way for very successful careers

in the New Millennium, for the singer/rapper/dancers like Beyonce, Ciara, Lady GaGa, Rihanna,

Brittney Spears, Christina Aguleira, Missy Elliot, Mariah Carey and Lil’ Kim.

I theorize women

of this decade as continuing the feminist women’s movement of the 1960s-1980s, claiming

agency and place in the metaphorical and actual ciphers as pro-feminist with physical statements

of presence, independency and pride.

Hip hop women of the 1980s can be seen as third-wave feminists, helping sow the seeds

for today’s hip hop feminists. Nancy Whittier, author of Feminist Generations: The Persistence

of the Radical Women’s Movement, explains that in the 1980s there was a split between the

The physical responses of Black and Latina women also included everyday language such as the hand in the face

or rolling of the eyes and neck ( which has become a stereotype) constitute as dance language.

More so than the men.

radical (women taking a stand) and liberal feminists (women focusing on single issues).

Mainstream organizations were considered liberal to many veteran radical feminists. I consider

women’s hip-hop feminism in the 1980s to be a kind of mainstream liberal feminism. Women

were not taking a stand per se, but they were definitely taking advantage of the rights they had as

women in hip hop (the right to express self). Though anti-feminine discrimination was present

inside the male-dominated hip-hop community, women found some power through movement

and dance in the public arenas. With each break down to the floor, they displayed mental and

physical force, concretizing feminine authority. They accomplished sets of physical skills

unexpected of them, moves previously reserved for men alone, thereby displaying new levels of

female prowess.

I use Amy Swerdlow’s book Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and

Radical Politics in the 1960s to explain how hip hop women made a name for themselves in this

masculinized form through a commercially feminine image. The hip hop woman’s agenda in the

1980s resembles that of the WSP (Women Strike For Peace Organization). WSP used traditional

motherhood as part of their protest against nuclear war. The 1980s women used this same base

of femininity to obtain jobs and opportunities. However, bgirls faced a different set of problems.

Bgirls could not use traditional femininity to succeed in the breaking world. Therefore they

emulated the masculinity of the underground and used it to their advantage. However in the

1990s, masculinity turns into a false consciousness and becomes a negative force against their

freedom to create their own identity.

In Chapter 4, the 1990s, women represented a much higher percentage of breakers than

the prior decade, but during this era, women’s gestural language transformed and began to be

proscribed and restricted to represent only patriarchal-power perspectives. This is the beginning

of the false conciousness

of bgirls. The agency that the 1980’s women gained was mediated and

diminished by these patriarchal views, especially in breaking. As dance writer and historian Sally

Sommer states, “break-dancers got pushed underground, and the rappers mutated into hard-core

Nancy Whittier, Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement (Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 1995).

Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1971).

Borrowed from Karl Marx and defined by Georg Lukacs.

gangstas, then ‘players,’ then big Mac Daddies, who pushed women down to ‘ho’s as their

personal booty, or, booty dancers.”

In Chapters 5 and 6 I analyze women who are disempowered, using Sandra Bartky’s

“panoptical male connoisseur in the consciousness of women,” based on her article, "Foucault,

Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power."

They are classified as mimetic bgirls,

using Katherine Rosenfeld’s interpretations of liminality and mimesis from her thesis, “Drag

King Magic: Performing/Becoming the Other.” Utilizing Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection

from her book, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, I look at the female body as the

“abject body” in breaking. This abject subjection, promoted by the homogenized male physical

and verbal language, and expanded by the rampant rise of regional, national and international

formalized/commercialized mass competitions, carried into the 21

century. Once again, bgirls

were pushed back to the edges of the circles.

Investigating women’s identity in hip hop as encoded in the movement, and specifically

in the gestural language, highlights the contradiction of hip hop’s golden goal of “finding self.” It

also reveals that hip hop’s “realness” is little more than a masked reinforcement of patriarchy

and male sexual domination. In 2010, several women are classified as “liminal bgirls” because

they do not abject the female body. Instead they erase the negativity associated with any

“feminine,” “girly” stereotypical moves, gestures or attitudes of the female body by utilizing

them in battle as material for burns.

The final chapter, Chapter 7, focuses entirely on liminal bgirls and their feminine-

oriented burns, centering much of the discussion on the renowned Ana “bgirl Rokafella” Garcia,

who has toured the world with her company Full Circle Productions, taught and lectured at

numerous conferences and is now screening her documentary around the country which

highlights the lives of seven bgirls entitled, All the Ladies Say. These burns are helping women

realize that they do not have to imitate males to be empowered [pretend to be something they are

not], perhaps the strongest messages that the burns send. For example, Kate “bgirl K8”

Morrissey frequently uses phallic gestures but she is rethinking her use of them. However, there

is also resistance from women about using anything that would be “girly” or believed to be

“corny” and “weak.” For these women, the end-all is to become powerful and have the same

Sally Sommer, “Prophets in Pumas: When Hip Hop Broke Out,” Dance Magazine, July 2004.

Sandra Bartky. "Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," in Feminism and Foucault:

Reflections on Resistance, edited by Diamond Irene and Lee Quinby (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988).

advantage and opportunities as men, on men’s terms. For them, using female-reproductive burns

and womanly physical representations to fight oppression seems a silly waste of time. Kelley

“bgirl Mohawk” Greene states, “How would that even work? Pull a tampon out of my vagina

and fling it? I just don’t see it happening. And, since I am masculine, I would rather throw a

dick.”

Ironically, the very gesture that bgirl Mohawk described was one of the first “liminal”

female-reproductive burns seen in the 1970s by a man, who describes this as a most powerful

burn. The man “burned,” truly toasted and clueless, asks “How the fuck can you burn that?”

Burns like these help realize the different levels of patriarchy in hip hop dance forms. In

other hip hop forms like locking and popping, and even in the mainstream diluted counterparts of

hip hop/pop dance, there are less restrictive ideas than those applied to breaking. Is this because

of the missing requirement to re-live movements and ideas that were generated by a group of

adolescent boys in the 1970s? Or, is it because of the movement itself? Whatever the case, there

seems to be a price to pay for women who enter breaking. Hopefully the burns and experiences

of other women in other forms can begin to reflect those of the bgirl. New burns could transform

the women’s body into a force, ironically, by expanding and giving power, through burns, to the

images and ideals that once defined the woman and her body as “weak.”

Women have the

possibility to turn around the negative self-images of themselves and other women through

breaking. Lastly, it is hoped that this patriarchal hold can be reversed, and that women can join

as a collective to stop the considered and unconsidered hatred being spread through hip hop in

the name of “truth and authenticity” and loyalty to tradition.

Hip-hop movement has extraordinary power, representing one generation’s struggle and

the definition of “cool” to another. In his article “The Black Beat Made Visible: Hip Hop dance

and Body Power,”

Thomas DeFrantz states, “ The palpable presence of physical pleasure

bound up with racialized cultural history, makes the dances powerfully compelling.”

He further

Mohawk, phone interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

While interning for Pop Master Fabel in the fall of 2009, I had the privilege to view some of the footage from his

upcoming documentary Rock Dance History: The Untold Story of Up-Rockin’.

LaneSki. “Laneski,” interview with Jee-Nice, Anattitude Magazine, Issue 03, 2008. As Lane Davey “bgirl Yoda

Laneski” Pogue states “. . . Back then women were not raised to be active or do sports; it was seen as unfeminine or

strange, so for a 14 year old girl to be physically strong and coordinated was shocking to most.” Here Laneski

proves that these ideas about the women’s body are still alive and an issue that today’s women are fighting through

breaking.

Lepecki. André. Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory.Connecticut:

Wesleyan University Press, 2004.

DeFrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible,” 65.

explains that this “amalgamation of pleasure and critique form the basis of power within hip hop

dance forms.”

However, this mixture of pleasure and critique that DeFrantz discusses is no

longer the formula for power in hip-hop dance. The power of gestural language has effectively

become the suppression of women’s identity, and, “actionable assertions”

definitely speak

louder than words. Breaking’s underpinning is a misogynistic male aesthetic that is increasingly

becoming a part of women’s identity. It affects the movement, determining what movement is

good or bad, what movement is considered “dope.” Male patriarchal dominance controls the

worldwide important sports-like competitions that feature winners and numerous male (and a

few all-female and fewer co-ed) contests.

All of this is now the basis of power for an entire generation of men. It hooks into an

interesting and infamous debate within hip hop about the “real” (that is, the underground culture)

versus the “fake” (mainstream culture). When hip-hop culture is discussed, the mainstream is

always criticized for being “watered-down.” It is presented as if negativity, commercial values,

and, most importantly “fake ass niggas” do not exist in the underground. But they do. And in

more ways than one, especially in dance. For many (if not most) hip hop dancers, the style of

breaking and other hip-hop forms from the 1970s and 1980s is seen as the only “real.” DeFrantz,

perhaps unintentionally, enters the argument with his assertion: “We ‘represent the real’ through

the dance, accessing its common speech like denominators; making phrases that can be

understood by others; becoming the dance”

But once we, the women, become this dance, what

happens if it is untrue? What if it does not really “represent the real” femininity and power?

Tricia Rose addresses hip hop’s defensive stance when she states, “The more under attack

one feels, the greater the refusal to render self-critique is likely to be.”

It is more than possible

in the underground for “realness” to go un-critiqued. In order to protect it from criticism the

Ibid., 66.

Ibid., 71. In a section of DeFrantz’s article, he analyzes a description of black dance by Charles Dickens in

American Notes. DeFrantz characterizes these earlier black dances and hip hop as “dances of actionable assertions,”

and defines that “It is this conflation of inner and outer aspects of African Diaspora dance that I interrogate as the

basis of an aesthetic of body power palpable in hip hop dance forms.”

At the 2008 NHHPC (National Hip Hop Political Convention) in Las Vegas Mr. Freeze ( a third generation Rock

Steady Crew member and considered the first white bboy) expressed extremely misogynistic views about bgirls and

their bodies. He proclaimed that bgirls would never be able to beat bboys because they are biologically weaker.

When I challenged him on his statement he defended “ It’s scientifically proven. The best bgirl will never beat the

worst bboy. The same goes for sports.” He later went on to say that bgirls are encouraged to participate - - if they

want. This is an example of the misogyny against bgirls in breaking by a pioneer.

Ibid., 73.

Tricia Rose, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop—and Why It Matters (New

York: Basic Books, 2008).

underground is notorious for preserving its ideology and heroic image of the culture and dance

form (it saves kids from robbing, gang-bangin’ and going wild). This protection also exists to

showcase hip hop in a tame, all-inclusive and respectable light.

However, gestures reflect deeper psychological insights about hip hop that surface and

are a part of each of us that participate in this form. If one believes that hip hop is about self-

expression then, when analyzed, it should reflect multivocal approaches. It is quite the opposite.

In the New Millennium most of the dancers repeat movements and gestures that are formulaic

and preordained. In fact, bgirls oppress themselves by clinging to the “real” form rather than

freeing themselves. They are hindered by working within in a hip-hop community that has

candy-coated itself with “truth” and an ironically rigid sense of “authenticity.”

* * * * * * * * *

The colorful jargonized and particularized terminology of hip hop comprises a notable

contribution by hip hop to our venacular language. However, for the sake of understanding

gender concerns in breaking language and culture, I will define my usage of the terms here in the

Introduction, and throughout the chapters as the jargon comes up. Breaking, bboying and

bgirling

comes from early nomenclature. Bboying, considered the original name of the form by

male hip-hop dance pioneers stands for “boys who break,” that is boys who dance “during the

break” in the record. The term “Bboy” has become controversial

because of the entrance of

women into the form. Therefore, I will use the term breaking to refer to the dance form. I use

the term bgirl to refer to women who break on the ground and use particular vocabulary from

breaking such as power moves.

I refer to hip-hop party dancers as women who practice and battle with hip-hop party

dance movements (popular moves such as “the running man,” “The roger rabbit,”

“the wop” and today “the jerk” would be considered a party dance as defined by the women

themselves. The terms gestural language and gestural phrasing will be used interchangeably.

Male reproductive burns and female reproductive burns are specific categories of highy-charged

sexualized burns for which I coined these phrases. Foundation is the name of the codified

In the 1980s, bgirls adopted the term “bgirling” and deliberately differentiated their style from the guys. This style

employed movements that were considered “girly” and associated with the gender binaries such as strong/weak,

hard/soft and in breaking’s case fast/slow. For example, bgirls who believed in this ideal did not attempt power

moves or footwork. Today, bgirls are accomplishing the same movements as the men and have been doing it for at

least two decades.

The term bboying is controversial for me. When the dancing is only referred to as “bboying,” it compromises

equality for tradition and promotes essentialism and the invisibility of women.

techniques taught as the fundamental steps and phrases of hip hop, which were derived from the

movements and attitudes developed by adolescent bboys from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. This

Codification of male attitudes along with the movement begins to take hold in the 1990s. It is an

attempt to make hip hop a male dance -- exclude femininity and women from the dance form.

Cipher is the name given to an impromptu circular formation created by four or more people.

The cipher can be small or large, and the dancers or spectators may be sitting or standing

(standing is more practical). In the cipher, everyone is positioned equally, creating a democratic

dance environment -- as opposed to stage space with its two-dimensional, frontal orientation,

which separates the dancers from the watchers. Dancers can enter the cipher either individually

or two at a time. Individual dancing today is called ciphering, and ciphering is also used as a

verb synonymous with free-styling, when the dancer engages in individual improvisations within

the well-known form.

When dancers enter the cipher together, it is considered a battle. Battling has become a

separate manifestation from the cipher. I concentrate and analyze the gestural language used in

the battle. In early hip hop (1970s-1980s) the term “jam” referred to something informal and fun.

Today, the term jam is synonymous with organized competitions. When using the term jam, I

will state which era I am referring to and the type of jam. The terms masculine and feminine

have been particularly tricky in their meanings and usage. Therefore I differentiate between the

phrases masculine dancing and male dance. I define masculine dancing as dance that has

masculine characteristics through style (not through technique) has traditional masculine

qualities. And although it has these characteristics it does not render a “feminine” characteristic

style or any other non-considered masculine style as wrong.

I define male dance as a dance

done by and defined strictly as a dance for men.

I use masculine to refine descriptions of

anything copied with the intent and perspective of male patriarchal views.

For example,

gestures that play into what guys want are “masculine” or “panoptic masculine.” Because

For example, if one would define a wide stance and wide steps as masculine then executing a movement with a

more narrow approach is not wrong.

Using the same example from note 17, in a male dance taking narrow steps would be wrong and no variation

would be allowed.

DeFrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible,” 76. DeFrantz states “. . . copying steps only achieves a repetition of

outward shapes, as opposed to rearticulating of the communicative desire that drives the dance.” This is simply not

true for gestural language in breaking. Under Foundation, male pioneers teach intent and desire through the

movement (which constitutes as “copying” another person’s communication through dance) and it is apparent in the

psyche of women in breaking. For a more detailed explanation see chapter 5.

women in hip hop are dealing with a series of inherited male movements, I tend to use and

redefine female gestures as gestures that originate from the female perspectives and bodily

functions. I use “feminine gestures” to describe movements that have been stereotypically

associated as a part of women’s movement (like putting on lipstick). Because I am dealing with

an inherited movement vocabulary, I will sometimes use male movements to describe those

moves that are shaped by society’s view of what is normative masculine, like the “Thomas-flare”

in which the dancer rotates the entire body in a circular motion on both hands; in gymnastics

training this is taught only to male gymnasts. Or, I will use rude hyper-masculine language (like

“throwing the dick”). For example, in Chapter 1, understanding that the basic Foundation

(codified movement vocabulary) is male or masculinized movement helps to understand why it is

that bgirls are therefore viewed as “masculine” when they perform certain traditional movements

in order to gain respect from the men. Bgirls throughout the generations continue to strive to

earn respect, and will suffer tremendous physical and mental discrimination due to the inherent

struggle involved. In the 2000s, the outcomes and possibilities are numerous, however it is up to

the bgirl to decide what is right for her.

* * * * * * * *

In reviewing the literature there is a lack information on women in general in hip hop, but

most markedly during the 1970s. There is also little theorization about the women, and their

gestural language has yet to be analyzed. I reviewed many books in hip hop dance finding little

to nothing on women. Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop

Generation is a historical account of how hip hop began. It includes one section dedicated to

dance, and is one of the first books to discuss the hip hop battle-dance form, Uprocking. Chang

gives information about when and where bboys and other hip hop dancers danced and what

places they frequented. But this is where the information stops. There is no mention of any bgirls

as a part of this history. Jeff Chang’s Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop is an

anthology of writings focusing on the understanding of hip-hop art: rap/emceeing, dance, theater,

graffiti and poetry with scholarship addressing multiculturalism, nationalism, gender, queer

theory, religion and photography (to name a few), and, the aesthetics of hip hop of the past,

present, and what he believes is to come in the future. It includes five articles that specifically

discuss hip hop dance: “Physical Graffiti: The History of Hip-Hop Dance” by Fabel Pabon,

“The Art of Battling: An Interview with Zulu King Alien Ness” by Joe Schloss, “ The Pure

Movement and the Crooked Line: An Interview with Rennie Harris” by Jeff Chang, “From the

Dope Spot to Broadway: A Roundtable discussion on Hip-Hop Theatre, Dance, and

Performance” by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Kamilah Forbes, Traci Bartlow, and Javier Reyes and

“Codes and the B-Boy’s Stigmata: An Interview with Doze” by Jeff Chang. These articles are

helpful in their accounts given by the pioneers, who give their opinions about dance and

historical facts. However, none mention anything about women in hip-hop dance and their

presence in the form. Kyra D. Gaunt’s book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes

from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop is an insightful overview concerning girls’ and women’s

authoritative positions of creativity in and contribution to Hip Hop culture. Gaunt gives

examples of specific songs used by black male artists, which originally belonged to the practices

of black girls’ play. Because hip hop has been mostly labeled a “male” form of musical and

cultural expression, most of the movement is labeled the same way. There are excerpts

comparing double-dutch to breaking, suggesting there is no reason why women should not be

participating heavily in hip-hop artistic expression and production. To some extent it seems the

author may be saying that women are not as artistically expressive and in the forefront when they

dance. Moreover, it seems she is describing the provocative (considered submissive) movements

of the “video vixens” in the background of various hip hop artists’ videos. Ultimately Gaunt is

concerned with communicating the heritage of African-American culture as a non-gendered

practice in movement. She manages to break down stereotypical beliefs of hip hop being a

“black male” expression, which parallels my aim of foregrounding women -- contrary to the

prevailing history and mainstream culture, which omits women. However, Gaunt did not cover

women who are expressing themselves in the forefront of breaking culture, the bgirls, though this

book seeks to highlight women as such. That’s The Joint! : The Hip Hop Studies Reader edited

by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, is an important compilation of articles on hip hop

culture. Articles specifically about, or articles that deal with dance, include “Breaking” by Sally

Banes, “Breaking: The History” by Michael Holman, “Dance in Hip-Hop Culture” by Katrina

Hazzard-Donald and “Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth” by Nelson George. These

articles are extremely helpful on the male view, history and analytical perspectives about

masculinity and machismo in breaking. Yet again, as a collective, it mentions nothing about

women and their influence on the form, with the exception of Michael Holman and Nelson

George. In George’s interviews, the Founding Fathers reveal a few dance names of the early

bgirls and crews of the 1970’s and state that women got down just as much as the men. Micheal

Holman gives incorrect information particularly in his assertion that bgirls did not do floor

moves. This misinformation again renders women invisible, with no mention beyond their dance

names and their unnamed presences. Tricia Rose’s Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in

Contemporary America is a critique and analysis of black women rappers. Her chapter “Bad

Sisters” was especially helpful. The ways in which Rose discusses female rappers may be

transferred to my analysis of bgirls. Although many of the bgirls I interviewed are southern white

American women, there are a few parallels with women rappers that I am able to make. Her

discussion of black women and their bodies -- in women rappers’ videos -- is important to my

parallels of women in breaking. However, it fails to discuss the women dancers themselves.

Joseph G. Schloss’ Foundation: B-boys, B-girls, and Hip Hop Culture in New York is valuable

and extremely important in that it is recent, and one of the two books focusing on breaking.

gives a basic account of breaking (terms, names of movements and communal lingo) and

includes some wonderful theory on music. However, Schloss has an uninformed opinion of

women’s issues in breaking, especially revealing in the questions he poses. His discussion of

bboys/bgirls and their place within the field circulates sexism and negativity in the community

by confirming it. In 2009 Schloss boldly states that the term bboy is a general one that includes

women, as explained to him by men of the community. His articulation of this points out exactly

how women are under-represented, starting with exclusive gendered terminology which seeks to

honor the male perspective and pioneers.

This book, in my opinion, excludes women in a very

deliberate way by re-gendering bgirls and using their quotes as support of what is and is not

accepted as Foundation, which is a patriarchal male view. Roni Sarig’s Third Coast: OutKast,

Timbaland, & How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing theorizes the south as hip hop culture’s

“roots” as opposed to the north. He states “At the start of World War I, almost 90 percent of all

American Blacks lived in the South. As they migrated, they brought their folk music to northern

Cooper, Kramer and Rokafella, We B* Girlz (New York: powerHouse Books, 2005). Along with Martha Cooper

and Nika Kramer’s We B* Girlz Book focusing on bgirls.

Ciprian “Bboy Radio” Gontea and Dwayne “Axel Brown” Brown, in conversation with the author, Summer 2008.

Newschool bboys especially emphasize bboy as a general term and discriminate against women both

unconsciously and consciously when defining it as such. For example, when I performed in Savannah Georgia with

Chief Rockaz Crew ( in which I was never a member) I asked the bboys to introduce the entire performing group as

bboys and bgirls. Rodney “bboy Xman” Anderson , a newschool bboy who considered himself the founder of the

crew strongly defined the term bboy as a general term, thus refusing to say bgirl in the introductory line for

performances. He routinely excluded women dancers from Chief Rockaz’ performances and deliberately instructed

other members not to inform the women who danced in or along side the group of performances.

cities, where it flowered into sophisticated works of genius.”

This is a wonderful theory that

had yet to be explored before this publication. However, again, he mentions only the history of

the “video vixens” of today’s media. This helps with my theory of why bgirls reject certain

movements, but, there is still no mention of women hip hop dancers. Tricia Rose’s The Hip Hop

Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop—and Why It Matters illuminates both

sides of the debate about hip hop’s effects on the black community’s debate between the “Hip

Hop Defenders” and the “Hip Hop Critics.” Both sides discuss their positions on women in

relation to hip hop. This is crucial in understanding the context in which women are discussed.

Looking at these arguments about women being outsiders is important to bgirls’ role and

identities in hip-hop culture. Yet, once again, female hip-hop dancers are not the focus of this

work.

However, there were a small number of useful (four) articles included in anthologies, six

articles in the We B* Girlz Festival magazine,

one article in a popular dance magazine Dance

Spirit, one article in Anattitude magazine, one article in the Village Voice and one book

exclusively focusing on bgirls, We B* Girlz. Edited by Constance Kreemer Further Steps 2:

Fourteen Choreographers on What’s the RAGE in Dance? is an interview with Rennie Harris

covering his opinions about hip hop culture, aesthetics traditions and his career. He goes into

some detail about women and how the media treats women. He names one bgirl, “Jules,” as one

of his female company members who truly could “bring it” as a bgirl. This was helpful to me in

finding her contact information specifically (though she was not available for an interview).

George Nelson’s “Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth” in That’s The Joint! : The Hip

Hop Studies Reader, is an entire interview with Clive “Kool DJ Herc” Campbell (father of Hip

Hop), Afrika Bambaataa

(God Father of Hip Hop Culture) and Joseph “Grandmaster Flash”

Saddler (credited with popularizing Hip Hop Djing and DJ producers). There is information on

breaking in these interviews and of the first bgirls and women of hip hop and informing material

about a few bgirls from the 1970s and 1980s. Also Bambaataa discusses women and has key

sections that I cite. Another article in the same book entitled “Breaking: The History” by Michael

Holman, presents a media-influenced view of breaking. The tone of his article is very macho,

Roni Sarig, Third Coast: OutKast, Timabaland,& How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing ( Massachusetts: Da

Capo Press, 2007).

This magazine was a part of a project for women in hip hop in conjunction with the book We B*Girlz.

Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005). I

have not found any documentation of Africa Bambaataa giving his real name.

contributing to the male view of breaking. Nevertheless, he mentions some of the early bgirls of

the 1970’s, though he gives incorrect information, stating “the girls did not do the floor moves

that the guys did.” In the book Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap, Music, and Hip Hop

Culture, Nancy Guevara’s article “Women Writin’, Rappin’, and Breakin’” devotes exactly 1 ½

pages to bgirls. Miri Park’s “Dance Special 2002: Very Young Hotshots: Breakers: The Next

Generation: In the Outer Boroughs, True Hip-Hop Dance Thrives” in The VillageVoice

discusses a young male’s view of hip hop as he was taught “bboying” by his mother, who is a

bgirl. There are also other opinions of what earlier generation bgirls thought in comparison to the

changes today, affecting my analysis of what bgirls in the 1970s and 1980s were doing, while

also helping me find names to search for interviews.

In Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology, there is an entire essay

dedicated to bgirls titled “Not the Average Girls from the Videos: B-girls Defining Their Space

in Hip Hop Culture.” In The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip-Hop and the Globalisation of Black Popular

Culture, the chapter “‘Nobody Knows My Name’ and an interview with the director Rachel

Raimist” highlights the documentary’s

discussion of women’s underrepresentation in hip hop

culture, including “bboying.” In the We B* Girlz festival magazine

there are six articles

that I

found especially useful: 1) In Maike Schroder’s interview of Nika Kramer in “Nika Kramer on

We B*Girlz Festival,” Kramer discusses her inspirations, goals and the basic need for a platform

for women and its possible facilitation of a feminist agenda in hip hop. Kramer explains “ The

ultimate aim of We B* Girlz is to promote women in Hip Hop as great role models by

presenting their varied accomplishments… we also want to document and preserve the role that

women played in Hip Hop history, so that this part doesn’t get lost.”

2) Bianca Ludwig’s

interview of Martha Cooper entitled “Martha Cooper on We B*Girlz,” is similar to that of

Kramer’s in that Martha states the goals of the We B*Girlz project. 3) Kim Valente’s “The

Park has also done extensive research focusing on oral histories of the 1990s bgirls entitled “Dancing Like a Girl:

The Oral History of B-Girls in NYC in the 1990s.” Her abstract in the program from the Congress on Research in

Dance November 14-16, 2008 states this research “attempts to complicate the current hip hop historical narrative by

listening to the experience of woman participants.” However, she explained in a phone interview that it is not ready

to be published so therefore I was not able to build off of this research as source material.

I tried to get a copy of Nobody Knows My Name by Rachel Raimist but the copy was too expensive for the

university to purchase at the time.

This magazine was created specifically for the We B*Girlz festival.

Half of the magazine articles are in German and because of this they were not able to be incorporated into this

research.

Maike Schroder, “Nika Kramer on We B*Girlz Festival,” We B*Girlz Festival Magazine: Women in Hip Hop,

August 2008, http://b-girlz-berlin.com/downloads/magazine/.

Dynamic Dolls - The Original Breakers” was a confirmation of my personal interviews and

conversations with Kim about her experiences as a bgirl in the 1980s. Valente also writes about

the lack of information on women in hip hop. She explains “While there is so much out there

about the original male breakers there is nothing mentioned about us; the females that paved the

way and helped make female breakers more acceptable.”

4) Maike Scchroder’s interview “B-

Girl Val and B-Girl Flavor Roc: Winners of the We B*Girlz battle 2007” is useful in that these

two bgirls add to the collective voice of the women in this research. 5) Ana Garcia’s “ Herstory

by Rokafella from the book ‘We B*Girlz’” is her personal testimony of her life as a bgirl. In it

she illuminates much of the discrimination that she and many women deal and have dealt with.

An important message in this piece is the triumph and the agency that she has gained overcoming

her obstacles as a bgirl. 6) In Martha Diaz’s “2008- Year of the Hip Hop Woman!” she explains ,

“The ‘Year of the Hip Hop Woman’ is a proclamation of liberation for women and girls from the

Hip Hop generation worldwide. Diaz defines the year of 2008 as “ … Our [women in hip hop]

Molotov cocktail to set things off. As an inspired Feminist, I am prepared to help support a social

paradigm shift for all women.”

All of the articles in this magazine have helped add to the truth

that there is a small amount of documentation on women in hip hop.

In Anattitude magazine, Jee-nice interviews Bgirl Yoda Laneski, which is helpful to my

documentation of women in the 1980s.

Carl Cunningham’s “Fem Powered,” an article featured in Dance Sprit, November 2004,

discusses women hip hop dancers but with no mention of specific bgirls. Lastly, the book We B*

Girlz is the only book exclusively dedicated to bgirls and has exactly 35 pages of text, consisting

mostly of short, one-paragraph quotes from the women themselves. Though all of these

resources have helped tremendously and are majorly important to this work , they only scratch

the surface of women in hip hop and their importance in the evolution of the form. Lastly, the

films that were extremely useful to this research were Breakin’: Where Breakin’ Was Born by

Joel Silberg, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo by Sam Firstenberg, You Got Served by Christopher

B. Stokes, The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-boy by Isreal, Beat Street by Stan Lathan, Style

Kim Valente, “The Dynamic Dolls: The Original Female Breakers,” We B*Girlz Festival Magazine: Women in

Hip Hop, August 2008, http://b-girlz-berlin.com/downloads/magazine/. She also discusses her plans to add to the

literature on women in hip hop by writing a book on the Dynamic Dolls.

Martha Diaz, “2008: Year of the Hip Hop Woman!” We B*Girlz Festival Magazine: Women in Hip Hop, August

2008, http://b-girlz-berlin.com/downloads/magazine/.

Wars by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant, Bgirl by Emily Dell, the We B*Girlz documentary and

Wild Style by Charlie Ahearn.

Researching the position of women demonstrated that their contributions are mostly part

of living memories, still existing as an oral tradition. Therefore, I have relied mostly on

websites, YouTube, and on the interviews I gathered over a two-and-a-half year period for vital

information. There are a few highly respected, constantly debated and updated websites that tend

to have more accurate information such as www.mrwigglez.biz. Mr. Wiggles is a third-

generation bboy, and Funk styles pioneer and Steve “Mr. Wiggles” Clemente’s website,

documents hip-hop history to an extent in its entirety (using male pioneers and their stories);

www.toolsofwar.com is an event newsletter that features hip-hop events from around the world,

www.anattitude.net proclaims itself as Europe’s only female hip-hop magazine; http://b-girlz-

berlin.com/ focuses on women in hip hop, especially bgirls mainly from Europe and Asia and old

school bgirls, www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com were wonderful networking sites as I

was able to connect with most of the bgirls I interviewed for this thesis. Still, most of the

websites lack information about the women from the early era of 1970-1985. There are many

current websites but they focus mainly on modern day bgirls, where to find classes in certain

areas, and function to provide more as promotional and biographical material.

But above all, the most significant information in this study comes from the interviews

conducted with women from each decade who graciously answered questions about how women

functioned, and what contributions they made to hip hop. Though few in numbers, the women’s

involvement and gestural language has played an important role in the development and

sustainability of hip hop dance.

CHAPTER 1

BRIEF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Hip hop culture and dance acted as response to oppression, especially for the early

practitioners. A quick generalization that helps in understanding the changes that took place in

the development of hip hop reflected in its vocabulary, is to imagine it as a three-part process

that resulted in its formal structure: 1) The early 1970s- toprocking and drops, 2) The mid to late

1970s-footwork /floor rock, 3)The early 1980s- power moves, and freezes (air). The beginnings

of hip hop culture and dance appeared around the 1970s in the South Bronx, New York City,

during a decade of economic city crisis that exacerbated unemployment among African-

American and Puerto-Rican youth. In the beginning, bboys

were mainly African-American

(early 1970s) as Santiago “Jojo” Torres, a Puerto Rican, from the Rock Steady Crew remembers,

“I know for a fact that when I went to some parts [in the city], it was rare to see a Puerto-Rican

dancer breaking. And when they did, it was like ‘Oh shit! Check out the Puerto Rican bboy!’ you

know?”

By the mid-1970s, Luis Angel “Trac 2 (Star Child La Rock)” Mateo states:

Everything -- all the breaking and stuff like that -- was considered underground until

Kool Herc, the father of hip hop, brought everything out into the open. And that was like,

say, ’74, ’75. All the underground stuff, all the in [inside the] house stuff, all the hallway

dancers, and all the house-party dancers were brought out to the streets. And the more

they took it to the street, the more ethnicities got involved in it. It was no longer an Afro-

American thing. The Hispanics took to the dance.

Reiterating this, Michael Holman (hip-hop author and former manager of the New York City

Breakers) says, “Though black kids invented breaking as we know it, as we understand it -- it

was the Puerto-Rican kids that put breakers on their backs.”

During this early period, the

Fabel Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” in Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, ed. Jeff Chang (New York:

BasicCivitas, 2006), 18-26. Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell is credited with naming the dancers at his parties bboys

and bgirls (the exact date of when the term “bboy” arose is unknown, however it was definitely in the early 1970s).

The Freshest Kids, DVD, directed by Israel (Chatsworth, CA: QD3 Entertainment, 2002).

Ibid.

dancers were predominately 12 to14-year-old boys and -- crucially for the future -- the basic

ideologies, verbal language and dance movements that eventually were codified as the sacred

hip-hop “Foundation” originated from this adolescent male mind-state.

In the seventies’ the South Bronx was burning down, block by block,

drugs were

rampant and death came early. Richard “Crazy legs” Colon states “’retirement’ age for a bboy

back then was like 16, 17-years-old.”

Bboys expected to be dead at an early age and this placed

them in a short-timed pressure-cooker that coerced them to live hard, make their lives count and

leave their marks inscribed on the city as fast as possible. It sparked extraordinarily rapid

innovations in the graffiti, music and rapping -- but it began with the dancing. The physical

environments in which the pioneering bboys and bgirls lived and performed were the large

tenement areas in the poor ghetto neighborhoods or in the city housing projects of the South

Bronx.

Previously, in the 1960s, the youth had danced in the clubs, high school cafeterias and

gyms, youth, church, and community centers and at the big outdoor summer parties in New York

City.

The second-generation of the 1970s, however, began dancing in their living rooms and

bedrooms, in the building’s entry hallways, on street corners, sidewalks, at parties and on

basketball courts. Anywhere that had a floor or space was a bonafide locale for breaking. They

did not frequent the clubs -- not because they were too young to get in, since NYC clubs did not

“card” the teens until the late 1980s (the underage could not drink inside the clubs, however) --

but because the clubs cost money. Besides, the new styles of dancing these youth were doing and

the kinds of music they were dancing to, were not welcomed inside clubs. They took up too

much space and sound in clubs that were still featuring disco music, and the hip-hop kids had

contempt for the elevator-synthesizer discotheque musical sounds. Many essential traditions that

define breaking arose in these wild-card contexts. It was in these situations that the hip-hop

cipher was born, and whether it was created for battling, free-styling/ciphering, or for trying out

new ideas, the cipher was “a space within a space,” the safety zone for dancers practicing hip

hop movement and music.

Although there is abundant material about men in hip hop from the second generation and

early period of commercialization (early 1980s), it is only in the last eight to ten years that

From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale, DVD, directed by Henry Chalfant (New York: City Lore, 2006).

The Freshest Kids.

Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.

Ibid., 114-115.

documentation is being dug up about their predecessors of the 1970s. Men were, from the

beginning, dominant in the hip-hop world and were initially the main creators of the form.

During this time, breaking as well as many other forms of hip hop dance (locking, popping

electric boogaloo, waving, “party hip hop”) were just beginning to formulate and become

stylistically recognizable. The terms “breaking, break-dancing, bboying, bgirling, bboy and

bgirl” were nonexistent. What constituted early breaking is notably different from what is

recognized as breaking today. Breaking in the 1970s was danced in an upright position, less

restrictive (but ironically less dynamic and virtuosic), and rarely utilized the floor. When the

floor was incorporated, dancers moved on and off of the floor, as opposed to strictly dancing on

the floor. The dance form’s developmental period spans approximately ten years, from the early

1970s to the early 1980s.

During this time breaking’s unique structure became clear. The first generation bboys

(approximately 1970-1975) contributed part of what is known as the “Foundation”

(Mr.

Wiggles calls this era “The early 70s: The Creation and the Blue Prints” that laid the groundwork

that bboys would build upon in the years to follow). Grand Master Flash states, “In early

breakdancing, you hardly ever touched the floor.”

If they did get down, it happened in short

and quick bursts of movement. Early crews such as the “Zulu Kings”

created “top rocking,”

“drops,” “foot work” or “floor rocking,” and “freezes.”

This style, called “toprock,” was the

first prominent manifestation of breaking in the 1970s. Toprock was influenced by the early

funk and soul songs and especially by the instructional dance songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Top

rocking means that the performer is dancing on their feet and, any movements standing up-right

such as “the Sling shot,” “the Frankenstein,” and “the Dracula” are part of the vocabulary.

addition, movements were inspired by the tap dancing of the Nicholas Brothers, the Lindy Hop,

uprocking ( a battle form of hip-hop dance, different from the category of toprocking in breaking

though today many use them interchangeably), and especially James Brown’s “Get on the Good

“The Foundation,” The Freshest Kids. Pop Master Fabel, currently senior vice president of the Rock Steady Crew,

says the following about foundation: “They used to do a style I hardly see anyone do which is more like, jerky

kinda. It wasn’t like six-step … it was a little more sporadic and wild spirit.”

Nelson George, “Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth,” in That’s The Joint! : The Hip Hop Studies

Reader, edited by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004) 45-55.

Mr. Wiggles’ Hip Hop Page, “Hip Hop History,” http://www.mrwiggles.biz (accessed November 17, 2010). The

first bboy (The dance division of the )Universal Zulu Nation crew consisted of Tricksy, Sau Sau, Charlie Rock, The

Amazing Bo-Bo, Eldorado Mike, The Nigga Twins (Keith and Kevin), and Norm Rockwell.

Ibid.

Foot,” released November 1972. Some consider Brown to be the first bboy.

There is also a

toprock step that was created from the “Charleston” called the “Charlie Rock.”

As a part of

toprock, a common step that many bboys and bgirls used to gain momentum before they

“dropped” to the floor came into play. This movement resembles today’s basic toprock and the

Indian step

(Mr. Wiggles states today’s toprock differs from the toprock back-in-the-day).

The basic toprock step is executed with one leg crossing diagonally in front of the other with the

arms swinging simultaneously towards the back of the body. The dancer steps back to the center,

feet hip-width apart while crossing the forearms in the front of the torso (some cross arms at the

wrists or the elbows). The same step then goes diagonally to the other side, making it seem as if

the dancer is executing a kind of runaround -- like movement that might go either side-to-side,

tracing a semi-circle.

Eventually, these bboys extended their movement to the floor, and when they eventually

dropped to the floor, the transitional drop steps between toprock and footwork, and the floor

might be called (and this is one example) a “corkscrew,” where the body spirals towards the

ground gradually. The structure of movement on the floor was termed “floor rocking.”

Movements leading to the drop and floor-rocking are “footwork” (this can include power

moves). Footwork/ floor-rocking during the 1970s consisted mostly of leg shuffles (the dancer is

on all fours and he shuffles the feet rapidly from side to side). Then, traditionally the “freeze,”

which consisted of a still pose on the floor, ended a dancer’s sequence, a much revered

contribution of the second-generation [c.] 1976). The next logical iteration was “Somebody went

down and stayed down” and it became known as “breaking,” primarily performed on the ground

to the break in the music.

The second-generation, what I call the “Martial” period

began

certainly by 1976. Most of the bboys at this time were Latino and they brought in different

movements and ideas. The main contribution from these dancers was the incorporation of

martial-art forms and related culturally-specific art forms like Capoeira. Many second-generation

Ibid. Mr. Wiggles states on his website under a section entitled James Brown Good Foot, “From what the TWINS

say. James Browns movements inspired young BBOYS dance styles.” The song was danced by Brown as a kind of

fast “bebop” footwork with some quick drop splits to the floor.

Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” 20.

The Freshest Kids.

Though the two different toprock steps (the old and the new) and the Indian step are different, they have many

similarities in the way that they are executed and the positioning of the arms.

The Freshest Kids.

Ibid.

Mr. Wiggles’ Hip Hop Page. Mr. Wiggles has entitled this “The Mid to Late 70s: The Next Level.”

bboys watched Kung–Fu flicks that also inspired their movements. These bboys added new

movements to the toprock (like “salsa rock”) and to the footwork -- the all-important “six step”

(originally called “cc long footwork”).

This has become the basis of footwork today and

consists of a circular movement on the ground, with the hands planted as the central axis, while

the body circles around this focal point. The two most popular freezes of the second generation

include the “chair freeze” and the “baby freeze.” In a chair freeze, the dancer’s hand, forearm,

and elbow support the body while allowing free range of movement from the hips and legs.

the baby freeze,

the dancer also supports the body with the hand, forearm, and the elbow except

the body curls up into a ball and the knee closest to the floor rests on the opposite elbow.

The third and final period of breaking was the early 1980s, a period known for its

Gymnast/Acrobatic/Ariel contributions (although some did come from capoeira).

Gymnastics,

and the upside-down movements and acrobatics including the martial-arts moves from the

second-generation era acted as the 1980s’ third-generation bboys’ main inspiration. Some of the

bboys who entered the dance during this time were gymnasts who combined gymnastic training

with breaking and created “power moves.” Power move is a debatable term because it is

unknown which movement takes more power -- footwork and freezes, or, spins and

gymnastics.

Certainly they have overshadowed the other elements of the form.

Then, and still today, bboys and bgirls will re-dance this lengthy history in any order they

please. These movement-units together, from these three periods, created what we know today as

breaking. However, it is the grandiose power moves that have become exceedingly popular,

probably because of their flashy visual appeal, and they have become the most favored, in-

demand part of breaking, affecting who and what movement is considered “good.”

In valuing power over wit, the most conversational, clever and humor-filled aspect of the

form remains backgrounded and contained within its gestural language. What is gestural

language in hip hop dance? Gestural language is the miming of specific actions and ideas

Ibid.

Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” 21.

In a dance class with Kenny “Prince Ken Swift” Gabbert at PMT studios in Manhattan, New York he explained

that the baby freeze was originally where a dancer would lie on their side in a fetal position and alternate the lower

legs in a kicking motion miming “a baby sucking its thumb.”

Mr. Wiggles’ Hip Hop Page. Again, Mr. Wiggles entitles this “The 80s: the Power Move Era.”

Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” 21. Also, Bboy Ken Swift noted that spins take more momentum and balance while

footwork and freezes require more muscular strength.

Ibid.

through movement -- a corporeal communication. Gestural language also travels fast as emotions

are instantly translated into visual statements or a physical dialogue that can be read like a text

(as if a codified sign language). Inspiration for gestures comes from music, cartoons, movies,

television, everyday situations, animals, or from the heat of improvisational dance exchanges or

from the dancers themselves. Gestural language is most commonly recognized as hand gestures.

A dancer may point at their opponent to challenge them, or they may “give” their opponents two

thumbs down, giving the opponent a bad “rating.” However, I extend this definition to facial

expressions, individual body parts, and, to the body as a whole and analyze a much wider range

of movements as legitimate breaking gestures. For example, a bgirl is picked up and mimed

(used) as a gun against the opposing crew.

Gestural language in hip-hop dance has two manifestations: “freestyle” gesture and

gestures in battle called “burns.” Gestures in freestyle erupt when dancers are improvising (free-

styling) in a cipher or “ciphering.” This language surfaces mainly in relation to music. Although

free-style gesturing is minimal in its interactive conversations with other dancers, when it does

occur, it becomes a “commando”

or a “game.”

Battles are dialogic conversations occurring

between two or more dancers in which the subject can include anything within the range of

human communication. The dialogue is competitive, friendly, everyday conversational and witty

as a good debate, chess or capoeira game.

However -- and this is an immensely important distinction -- when battles become

personalized critiques of other dancers and the gestures turn raw and insulting, they are called

“burns.” Burns are a special category of gestural language meant to intimidate the enemy

combatant. Phallic or violent gestures are used to discourage or draw attention to the other’s

vulnerabilities as a strategy to humiliate or demean them in critique battles.

These are best

described by Razvan “Tiny Love” Gorea. “The burns are where you, like, take the guy, cut him

up, shoot him …There’s a lot of violent movements, and those are called burns.”

Traditionally in breaking the burns happened in the freezes (a bboy might be in an

upside-down freeze and mime throwing feces at his adversary). But today, burns are mostly

A commando is a term used by some bboys and bgirls to describe a shared movement that is one dancer’s

entrance and the other dancer’s exit into the cipher.

I am defining a battle in a cipher as a game in order to differentiate it from battling in organized competitions now

called “jams” or “battles.”

These gestures in and of themselves can be considered a strategy of battle as well as gestures.

Joe Schloss, Foundation: B-boys, B-girls, and Hip Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University

Press, 2009).

separate from the freezes. Burn gestures have been inherited from the breaking lineage and this

language is also rooted in the early gang-affiliated dance form of uprocking (different from

toprocking), which mimics gang habits in different ways. For example, “The Apache Line” is a

ritual set into action when potential members are being initiated into the group or when a

member is requesting to leave the gang.

In a gang initiation, the initiate or departee would have

to finish walking through two lines of fists, bats and chains in order to complete the rite of

passage into or out of the group. In uprocking, however, the line is used symbolically for the

same reasons of initiation.

Uprocking specifically uses violent battle gestures creatively with the music.

Violent

burns can be categorized in two ways: through the use of mimed weaponry and miming physical

contact. Weaponry includes the enactment of using knives, swords (fencing and Asian martial art

techniques), bats, shanks, mallets, guns and bullets. Physical contact miming is more commonly

represented by punching and grabbing motions in the air. A bboy might mime taking his

opponent’s head to smash, slap, or hump and throw away, crushing the opponent. Phallic

gestures,

which are another kind of physical burn, are not far from the crotch-grabbing mic-

holding gestures recognizably employed by rap emcees. I analyze these burns as “sexual

patriarchal expressions of power.” For example, “throwing the dick” and many other forms of

derogatory gesturing are frequent in uprocking battles.

If breakers teach uprocking and breaking as separate forms, then how did these gestures

become a part of breaking battles? As hip hop spread worldwide and other cultures began

adopting the dance, they merged all the forms. Also, hip-hop teachers who did not know the

distinctions between one form and the other lumped them together in their classes. Fabel states:

“The mixing and blending of popping, locking, bboying/bgirling, and uprocking [and

toprocking] into one form destroys their individual structures. Unfortunately, the younger

generations of dancers either haven’t made enough effort to learn each dance form properly, or

[they] lack the resources to do so.”

Although many disagree on the issue of fusing forms, most

of the styles were introduced side-by-side on stages and through performances. The blending of

Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.

Schloss, Foundation. Schloss points out another difference of there not being one person getting jumped but the

two lines attack each other.

Ibid.

Phallic gesturing is also considered to be a form of phallic gesturing and these phallic gestures are mainly sexually

dominating.

Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” 25.

these forms spread battle-burn gestures into breaking. The terminology can get confusing.

Uprocking is also termed “battle rocking”

and because bboys and bgirls will uprock for about

10 seconds in a cipher before breaking down, uprocking gestures also began to appear often in

breaking battles. Most confusingly toprock is interchangeable with uprock, though I use them as

distinctly different forms. “Throwing the dick” became extremely trendy with bboys and then

bgirls. Throwing the dick is a prevalent male gesture in uprocking but today, because these

aggressive male gestures have become a part of breaking, women are using them as heavily as

men in the 2000s.

Phallic gesturing may double as weaponry in battle. The bboy will mime using his semen

as a way to “shoot” his opponent, clearly demonstrating that his dick symbolizes a gun. These

gestures, along with many others, were carried in the dance forms and vocabularies, and

currently, these gestures are commonplace and easily identifiable since they are frequently

deployed.

Interestingly, women use these same phallic gestures in battle today (discussed in later

chapters). But when women use penis gestures, it significantly changes the meanings of what is

being communicated. Along with all of the other influences, the numbers of women in breaking

affect the original function and meaning of gestures and the battle. Meaning has also been altered

by mainstream sports and popular culture and despite the fact that battling used to be co-ed now

the sexes are segregated and battle separately (mainly because of the exclusion of women).

Media representations of breaking are prolific. Over the last 30 years, outfits and shoes,

the physically arresting “tough” attitudes, the “dead-face” expressions and colorful lingo have

appeared in newspapers, magazines, in films, television and on theater stages. The media quickly

recognized the possibilities of commodification, and gave hip hop substantial coverage during

the 1980s. Hip hop attributes have been translated into a multibillion-dollar, multinational

fashion industry. Images were appropriated, extrapolated and distanced from the aesthetics of

breaking. In turn, these same images have cycled back and altered the interpretations and

practices in hip hop, both in the past and in the present. These disconnected appropriations,

which re-interpreted the context, traditions, and aesthetics of hip hop, were projected by the

media as an “actual reflection.” In reality, it was a media narrative that was picked up and used

by the bboys to perpetuate power issues within the hip-hop community itself. It was a clever

This is a term coined by the new generation.

construction that simultaneously communicated a slightly menacing but very attractive, potent

“hiphopitude” [my word].

Towards the end of the first burst of media exploitation of breaking (from 1980-1986),

the media’s interpretative narrative about hip hop dancing cooled down. However, in 1985 the

media-hounds were hunting down the hot and dangerous West Coast “gangsta rappers” and

MCs. In their music videos, these guys pushed the bboys offstage and replaced them with their

“posse” (wannabe lookalikes who did what the rapper did, magnifying and extending his body;

or some would say hype men) and the dancing “’ho” who polished the rappers’ fiercely

misogynist images and lyrics by hanging her ass and titties on their arms.

In the 1990s, internationalism and the panoptic masculine ideology dominated the

aesthetic of women’s gestures in breaking. The female hip-hop language from the 1970s and

1980s was completely replaced by male movement and aesthetics. Validating this change was

the new form of sport-like competition that took over the breaking cipher, limiting the bgirls

from self-expression more than ever before. As hip hop traveled around the world, Europe began

the trend of sport/Olympian-like competitions. In this new world, women neglected, disowned

and rejected/abjected their bodies through an internalized misogynistic male view, promoted by

competitions and the fevered teaching of “Foundation” that does not take into consideration the

female body, or in fact, the female identity.

In the beginning, breaking expressed ideas of a marginalized hip-hop scene, and through

this expression, an underground/background scene gained status as a site of power. With the

ascendency of gangsta rappers, and the disappearance of bboys into the underground and/or the

European scene, hip hop was personified, once again, by a media-created rap artist who was

concocted of glorified violence. It was a drama about sex, quick riches and danger that was

controlled by media corporations and designed for one goal: commercial success.

When the dancing lost its media following, its dominant aesthetics trickled down to the

underground hip-hop culture and had a substantial effect on it. The older material and film

footage still existed in private archives and in the memories of its practitioners. With the advent

of YouTube and the internet it re-emerged on computer monitors to reinstate hip-hop aesthetics

in the New Millennium, bringing a focus for this generation, who, if they are cool, turn away

from the “commercial” styles and consider themselves to be adherents of the “authentic”

“underground” hip-hop culture.

However, as dancers learn hip hop today the only readily

available historical information they receive comes from the media -- via the old footage shown

on YouTube. This older footage from the early 80s, tends to concentrate on the dramatically

visual power moves, speed and flash. As Grand Master Flash noted, “Bboying died for a while.

Then it came back, and it was this new form of acrobatic, gymnastic-type of dance.”

Not only

is the physical change noticeable, but also the changes in the aesthetics and traditions is

noticeable. The meaning of gestural language, specifically the burns, has radically shifted. Rather

than rewarding wit and “outsmarting” the opponent, “fairness” (in competitions) is categorized

through a number of “rules” that govern movement. Endurance and speed are prized. Judged

competition categories exclude gestural language or burns as a winning factor (in the real-life

battles they are valued as the epitome of signifying motions).

In the 2000s, women are more marginalized than in the past. When gestures are used,

they are copied directly from hip-hop dance movies that always narratively frame the dance as a

competition between the bad-ass-commercial bboy who is going to ruin the pure “real”

underground good-hearted bboy (this trope is also presented, with different characters, in You

Got Served, the Step It Up movies and many other films). In all these movies, the women simply

accompany the heroes and encourage them throughout their trials and awakenings into being

better men. At their core, these movies dismiss women and glamorize the males.

At worst

they present a kind of sentimentalized and soft misogyny. As this convention gets played out in

the successful (2004) hip-hop film, You Got Served,

a brutal battle is being waged between two

crews, the bad versus the good. There are many examples in this film of sexualized misogynist

burns and these gestures are easily picked up by the knowledgeable watcher. For the novice

spectator, they pass by so quickly-- in milliseconds -- that they may go unnoticed. Besides

having a lot of “throwing the dick,” one of the bad bboys takes his index and middle finger,

slides them from the back-to-front of his female opponent’s vulva area (without contact, done

front and low on her torso). He proceeds to smell the two fingers and makes a face that says

“Oo-o-hh you stink!” Then, he takes the two fingers and waves them in front of his crew-mates

The Freshest Kids.

George, “Founding Fathers,” 47.

B-girl, DVD, directed by Emily Dell (Screen Media Films, 2009). The Bgirl movie is one exception.

You Got Served, DVD, directed by Christopher B. Stokes (Culver City, CA: Screen Gems, Inc., 2004).

and they all faint dramatically from the “smell.”

In testament to the potency of this visual

phrase and the persuasiveness of the media, this exact gestural phrase is repeatedly used today by

men against women.

A superficial analysis translates that the dancer “stinks,” in the sense that

she is not a good dancer. However, a deeper analysis concludes that because only women have

vaginas they not only stink, but they “stink” (not good dancers) precisely because they are

women. As women begin taking new roles in the hip hop scene in the 2000s in the commercial

realm and in the underground, their presence is not readily welcomed by the men.

In an interview with Lisa “bgirl Mona Lisa” Berman, she explained her resentment for

this “played out” gesture. “There’s definitely one that I really, really hate when guys do it to

girls, and I think it’s just gross. When guys pretend to stick their finger up you and they smell it

and then they faint… That’s something that they have done to me a couple of times in a battle

and I’m like ‘that’s so old.’”

Thus, the burns have been demoted, perhaps desensitized slightly.

But they still sting and display the beliefs and ideas of the male breakers and highlight the

inequality that exists in this community.

In 2000, the bboy combatant-demeanor upon entering the room or the cipher which, in

the old-days (1970s through the 1990s) could be viewed as a version of the “African cool” (as

defined by Robert Farris Thompson), has become nasty and fierce, ratcheted up from the cool to

the arrogant. This is also true in the dancing, since in competitive forms it makes no real

commentary that pushes creativity. Instead it excels at bringing the other opponent down -- at

the expense of honoring what were the hip hop community values, especially affecting the

women and their participation in the form. The resurrection of the values may lie within the

women’s actions, and they might – if they continue to work as a collective – arrive at some

creative solutions. At this point in the New Millennium, the status of women is on the edge of

disappearing, or surviving and becoming victorious in their abilities to change and grow in

positive directions.

You Got Served. This same “stinking” finger gesture is/was used by boys against boys by wiping the ass of the

opponent but this gesture has been copied “verbatim” by bboys and used against bgirls today.

This gesture was used against my dance partner in a two-on-two impromptu battle at a now closed club in

Augusta, GA “Tinted Windows in 2003.” I have seen it used countless times in other battles against women.

Mona Lisa, phone interview with the author, February 26, 2009. This is testament to the fact that generations copy

burns from the media.

CHAPTER 2

1970’s BGIRLS AND DANCING SPECTATORS

As was true of the men of the early 1970s, early bgirls were predominately Black and

Latina youth around 12-14-years-old who lived and danced in New York City. Because of the

lack of interest of women in hip hop during the 1970s, bgirls were/are marginalized and difficult

to locate. As well, there were many other female dancers who were unrecognized and unnamed

and danced as toprockers, breakers, hip-hop party dancers and freestylers. However, the most

important role the women fulfilled in that early decade in terms of the evolution of breaking was

to function as knowledgeable spectators and social commentators -- the consulting experts. They

made the continuation of hip hop possible. As active watchers and peripheral moving

participants they were part of the hip hop breaking events. Using Robert Farris Thompson’s

theories of African spectatorship and social communal critique, I analyze these spectators as

dancers, positioned outside the center of the circle. One extremely helpful bgirl was Pebbles

“Pebblee Poo” Riley, who vividly describes the raw bgirl burns she threw when battling bboys.

Judgments about the stylistic distinctions between women who were uprockers, breakers,

hip-hop party dancers and freestylers were in force at this time. Women who were uprocking or

breaking were looked upon as being more “credible” dancers than the freestylers. Female

uprockers and breakers were the first to dance in the streets alongside the boys, and this probably

earned them their credibility (“props” or respect) because they had the courage to enter ciphers

on the street.

As they matured and wanted to act older, they started to go to the clubs.

Freestylers, on the other hand, had always danced in the clubs or at block parties. Not

surprisingly, club ciphers included more dancing styles and more women than the breaking

ciphers erupting on the street. In the clubs it was easier to join the circle and it was physically

and mentally smoother and more comfortable to dance on the floor instead of cement.

addition, any competitiveness in a club cipher is mediated by the presence of many other

This also includes girls who were friends of bboys.

The Freshest Kids. The Nigga Twins explain with pride that they did not dance on linoleum or card board but they

danced on the cement. Dancing on rough surfaces that present a possible danger are considered masculine or manly.

Thus women on the street “took these risks,” which is another reason why they were given more credibility than the

women in the clubs.

dancers; its purpose is different. It is about fun and entertainment, not the exciting

confrontational modality of ciphers that spontaneously arose in street challenges.

The absence of any written documentation about the seventies’ women underscores the

fact that the beginnings of hip hop reside in memories, and this dance remains an oral tradition.

This presents research problems, especially in collecting information about the women who are

more obscured than the men. Recently information about the 1970’s men has begun to be

actively gathered and disseminated.

Because media attention about social dancing in these

early years was directed towards the glamorous nightlife of the 1970’s discotheque with its

fashionable outfits, electronically-synthesized music, drugs and exotic “night creatures,” there is

much we may never know about the early women uprockers.

However, there is evidence provided about women in hip-hop dance in the 1970s by the

bboys themselves. And, two 1970’s women were discovered and interviewed for this study.

The women’s legacy exists mostly in the hearts of the male pioneers and in the almost mythical

tales told by some of the “Legends”

(someone who is accepted as a pioneer of hip hop dance,

and accepted as such in hip hop culture). Incomplete and intriguing stories of the “Zulu Queens”

and the “Shaka Queens” of the early 1970s

and the women of the “Dynamic Dolls” of the early

1980s (which included Susan “Susie Q” Vega, Jeanette “ JaeCie” Cruz, Brenda “ Brenda K.

Starr” Kaplan

and Kim “ Kim-A-Kazi” Valente),

plus the mentioning of the names of a few

women in between, create nostalgic discursive frame with no subjects. The emcee group “Us

Girls” had a bgirl named “Lisa Lee”

who was part of the Zulu Queens.

Mr. Wiggles wrote in

an email conversation the names of a few women he remembered, such as bgirl “Sista Boo” who

Ibid., In The Freshest Kids there is abundant information on the 1970s men. Also, hip hop dance pioneer Jorge

“Fabel” Pabon is actively creating documentaries about the dancers from the 1970s (all men). However, one of the

most lengthy and important works (books) about bgirls entitled We B*Girlz includes nothing from the women of the

1970s.

This information on women of the 1970s is very rare. I have not been able to find any research that includes

women from the 1970s beyond my interviews.

This is a hard status to define. However it is defined the male pioneers. For example, many bboys are considered

legends because they created specific or because they were in a legendary crew (i.e. Rock Steady Crew). However,

the women who should be considered pioneers (Baby Love the first female member of the Rock Steady Crew) as

well during that time because of their association with these crews are not considered legends.

George, “Founding Fathers,” 46-47.

Kim Valente explains that this was her name at that time.

All names were given to me by Kim Valente of the Dynamic Dolls.

Was not able to find her real name. She appeared in wild style.

George, “Founding Fathers,” 46-47.

went back to the Nigga Twins era.

He referred to Sista Boo as the “FIRST” bgirl from the early

1970s, and “Nasty Top Rokc.” But--and this was not uncommon -- he was unable to provide

details about who she was or what she did. He spoke highly of the Dynamic Dolls’ “Suzy Q”

stating, “She was nice [a good dancer]. They performed at the Kennedy Center Honors with us

and New York City Breakers.”

There are several reasons why the women were difficult or impossible to locate. Hanifa

“Bubbles” McQueen Hudson, a 1980s bgirl considered to be the UK’s first bgirl, told me about a

1970’s bgirl, “Rican Rose.”

In turn, Rican Rose explained to Bubbles that, “many of these

women are dead or in jail.”

Despite the fact that these women would be fairly young today,

gangs or violence may have taken their lives prematurely. Another factor is that technology has

left the older generation of women dancers behind. The internet is a primary tool-of-contact

when searching out various social networks and groups.

When Pebblee Poo was finally reached

she apologized for not responding for months: “I am not online that much.”

The women from the 1970s do/did not always identify themselves as dancers. Bgirls

today are easily found by their popular bgirl names alone, which are trumpeted across social

networks such as Face book, MySpace and Twitter. But this is not the case for the 1970’s

dancers.

Many more women than men stopped dancing, and they became less involved in

dance compared to their male counterparts. As women, pregnancies, and childbirth often placed

careers on hold for about sixteen months. Afterwards, especially for single mothers, giving up

dance was their only option. While it is fairly easy to find older NYC 1970’s bboys who travel,

teach, and dance today, women may have stopped dancing because of their age. Breaking is

extremely demanding on the body. Older people have less energy and most likely they have not

been able to keep up the necessary and rigorous techniques that breaking demands.

Unfortunately as the female body ages, breasts, hips, buttocks get heavier and larger, and

stomachs sag because their essential core and oblique muscles have been stretched by

pregnancies. Breaking becomes impossible if the body is not regularly trained. Furthermore,

Considered first generation bboys (early 1970s) by many pioneers and documented as such in The Freshest Kids.

I located Rican Rose’s name on myspace.com but was not able to speak with her. I began to get frustrated about

the lack of information that existed about women of the 1970s.

Bubbles, email message to author, September 7, 2010.

The hardest group to find online was the 1970s bgirls. Quite naturally the easiest group to find were the 1990s and

2000s bgirls.

Pebblee Poo, email message to author, January 6, 2010.

It was difficult to locate women by their previous dance names, and, even harder to find them by their real names.

misogyny and discrimination undoubtedly caused women to leave. To struggle for recognition

and equality, in and out of the cipher, became too much. And lastly, in the 1970s hip hop was

viewed as a passing fad by the rest of the world (hip hop music did not even become a Grammy

category until after 1985) and many bgirls and bboys became discouraged because they too

believed it would not continue.

In spite of it all, two women who were dancing in the 1970s were located: Kim-A-Kazi

and Pebbles “Pebblee Poo” Riley. Although Kim-A-Kazi was actively breaking in the 1970s, she

did not become a member of the Dynamic Dolls until the 1980s, the decade with which she

identifies herself as a dancer most, and therefore she is a self-described 1980’s bgirl. However,

Pebblee Poo

began breaking in 1972 and her memories make up the bulk of the primary source

interview material in this chapter. In addition to these two bgirls, I define all women who

participated at the edges of the cipher as dancers. Because these women contributed to the

circle’s energy and fueled the dancing with their physicalized responses, I analyze them as early

women in hip-hop dance. Ken Swift of the Rock Steady Crew talks about these women on the

edges:

Martha has a lot of girls in the background of her pictures [Martha Cooper was the

first professional photographer who was on the hip-hop scene]. But she doesn’t have

them [women] breaking because back-in-the-day it was taboo for the girls to jump

out like that. Maybe they were just girlfriends. They may have been breaking

[before] but I guess they figured that with the cameras out, it was time for the boys to

do their thing.

The cipher is both a closed figure and a place where an exchange of ideas and energy

takes place, and in which the spectators are most responsible. Because ciphers appear and then

disappear, they are only experiential for the watchers and the watched. Existential and transitory,

a cipher can take place in a car, around a table, in the street. A cipher is in fluctuation because it

is a performative exchange that exists in a “now-ness.” The cipher is a kind of mystical entity

that seems to manipulate space, time, location and identity. The dancer (if s/he is good) and the

As a solo bgirl from the Bronx, and later affiliated with the Smoke A Tron’s and eventually created a crew,

Pebblee Poo and the Non-Stop Crew.

Cooper, We B* Girlz, 16. Quote by Ken Swift.

spectators seek the “zone,” a psychological state of euphoria when all time stops. The zone is

not static despite the sensation that insubstantial time has stopped. The cipher-zone exists

because it is intensely interactive. The dancers -- and the watchers -- are in constant flow and

motion, reacting in microseconds to what is occurring. In this situation “identity” becomes a

stream of perpetual slippage. People and situations seesaw from being the challenger, to the

challenged, just as the attacker can abruptly become the humiliated. Because the spectator is an

empathetic kinetic witness, the slippage of identity extends from the center of the circle to its

outer edges. The spectator is a dancer in her physicalized reactions. The difference of dancing is

one of degree. She is a more subtle dancer than her male counterpart performing in the middle of

the cipher.

In the 1970s women mainly participated as watchers but this does not mean that the

women standing in these ciphers were not-dancers. For example, Aiko, a bgirl from the 1980s

states “I waited until I was good enough to hang with the guys before I even stepped on the

dance floor.” This explains how many women feel when they are dancers but not considered as

good as the men. Without their reception, the dialogue between the seer and the seen, there

would be no energy strands to hold the cipher together and it would lose its magical effects.

What power do women spectators have that the dancing male bboys do not? To be

admired by the spectators is as much a part of breaking as any other element of the art form. The

various roles women played in the community as spectators, and their influence as spectators, is

a significant factor in the continuation of hip hop dance. In a lecture given in November 2010,

Jorge “Pop Master Fabel” Pabon admitted “We did it for ourselves, but we also did it to get the

girls.”

Women’s active spectatorship made up a physical discourse of what is, and is not cool in

the ways they sequence or enact their responses. Their perpetually changing poses and

Because of this, the only sure way to identify a dancer in the usual sense is to see them dance in the cipher --

unless they are already well-known because they enter the cipher frequently. Dancers do not give as much

significance to spectators as they do their dance cohorts. In later years this position becomes a threat to the respect

women seek as dancers. As breaking spreads, and competitions reign, the importance of the spectator diminishes.

This diminishes the importance of women, and therefore the women’s movement from the 1970s will no longer be

as powerful for the later generations. As the generations progress, the women who do not enter the cipher will be

seen merely as unimportant watchers. They lose all power by not entering into the cipher.

The magical effects I speak of concern the cipher’s ability to transform location, space and time through temporal

boundaries and the dancer’s ability to enter “the zone,” an altered state in which the total being -- mind, body and

soul -- are at their highest level of communication.

Interview with Sally Sommer November 19, 2010 guest lecture given by Fabel for her class, “FSU in NYC.”

movements as well as their audible and visual codes, formed a gestural language of dance.

Audible codes included clapping, encouraging the dancers by shouting “Yeah! That’s it!” or

“Go! Go! Go!” or hooting approvals. Audible codes could also be discouraging. The women

might “boo” the dancers, “hi-s-s-s” or say “s-hi-i-it!”

announcing that the dancer is not skilled.

Visual codes could be anything from static poses of “Oh, yeah?” with one hand on a hip with

head cocked, to the wary-watcher “show me your stuff” with the arms crossed, legs slightly

akimbo, the mouth frowning, eyes focused on the cipher’s center. Big approval actions might

consist of clapping, smiling and head bopping and jumping up and pumping their fists in the

air.

More subtle movements of approval are holding an arm(s) slightly out in front of the body,

pulsing them up and down in time to the music, heads nodding. And, there were the facial

expressions. When the women disliked the movement, they stood still, looked away, and

frowned. Even worse, they might not react at all, which was the ultimate expression of dismissal.

The various roles women played in the community as spectators were profoundly

influential. In his book, African Art in Motion, art and dance historian Robert Farris Thompson

theorizes an African dance aesthetic in which the flexible, active communal role defines the

dancing itself, no matter how brilliant the moves may be. “An aesthetic is a mode of intellectual

energy that only exists when in operation, i.e., when standards are applied to actual cases and are

reasoned.”

100

In “Consulting the Experts” Thompson writes that the crowd, or, the majority of

the community decide who is, and is not, a great dancer. The “experts” are the knowledgeable

community members who make up the audience. He divides the experts’ understanding into

three different categories.

According to Thompson the first level of experts are defined: “The traditional expert in

Africa who is defined as any person who holds a strong and reasoned opinion about dance and

who . . . is a member of a traditional society.”

101

When translated to early hip-hop, this fits

women on the edges of the ciphers who act as the authoritative experts of the community, since

they lived in and around the bboys, and were always a part of the social circle and the dancing

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with the author, December 28, 2009. Kim-A-Kazi explains how women would yell

out discouraging things from the crowd, “when I went on the 1984 Fresh tour I was the only female. The females in

the stands would yell out ‘Shoo-ooo—t what that white girl think she gonna do?”

WildStyle, 25

Anniversary ed. DVD. Directed by Charlie Ahearn. (Burbank, CA: Rhino Entertainment

Company, 2007).

100

Robert Farris Thompson, “African Art and Motion,” Chap. 1 in African Art in Motion: Icon and Act (Los

Angeles, CA: University of California press, 1974).

101

Ibid., 2-4.

cipher. Moreover, there are more levels within this level of expertise -- and women have

occupied them all. For example, there are women who dance and enter the cipher, women who

dance but do not enter the cipher, and women who are non-dancers but are still essential

members of the dance community, all with varying levels of expertise as “experts.” They fall

into Thompson’s second level of “Modern experts on music, dance, and art.” The third level is

“the White Collection.”

102

In his definition, the white connection is the written record or

outsiders. Thompson’s explains that “whites” do not know as much because they are outside of

the community, non-residents. The theory is useful because it relates, not by race, but by level of

expertise. Everyone who studies hip hop culture but does not participate directly in it (regardless

of race) would be considered the “white collection.”

103

All of these individuals are a part of the

larger circle that inform the process of consultation.

To further apply this theoretical breakdown to members in the hip-hop community, the

traditional members (the most important experts) in hip hop are the women who congregate with,

and around, the crew members.

104

From this relationship, bboys began dating women who were

part of the cipher. Rock Steady Crew member Ken Swift states, “There weren’t girls doing it

[breaking].

105

But, if there was a dancer who had a girlfriend, she would eventually either had

tried it or [she] was taught how.”

106

Much of the existing documentation of women consists of photographs and video footage

of the women standing in the circles supporting the bboys. Ken swift states that “We had a bunch

of girls in Rock Steady, but they were there for the support--and they would bug out and do the

stuff here and there.”

107

The female spectators were extremely influential, and without their

confirmation, who would the bboys really be? It compares to the relationship between superstars

102

Ibid.

103

Ibid. This also resembles the relationship of the researcher and the community of study. For example a scientific

researcher may be seen as part of the “white collection.” However an ethnographer can be considered closer to the

expertise level because of the required involvement in the community of study.

104

In Nancy Guevara’s article, “Women Writin’ Rappin’ and Breakin’” she states “relegation of females to a

cheerleading role in breakdancing contests is also closely related to repressive definitions of femininity.” While this

is true, I am looking at the “cheerleading” role as a very important one in the history of women in hip hop

dance/gestural language evolution. This role is also a very important one in the way that ciphering functions.

105

The time Ken Swift is referring to is the early 1980s. His statement “there weren’t girls doing it” may be true in

terms of where he lived and where he frequented. However, there were definitely girls “doing it” at that time.

Violeta “Fire Starter” Galagarza states “ there’s so many politics of ‘ that’s not the style of this’ or ‘you wasn’t

around this.’ back in the days we wasn’t paying attention to anybody or going “hey what’s your name?’” This shows

the relativity of Ken Swift’s statement.

106

Cooper, We B* Girlz, 16.

107

Ibid.

and their fans. Without the public discourse, the superstar ceases to exist. Thompson writes that

he “Consulted the Experts” for his book, recognizing that without their opinions, he would not

have been able to gain the understanding he needed to complete the project.

108

Many pioneering bboys proclaim competition as the prime ingredient that drove the

dancers’ creativity and rocketed the dancing to new levels of virtuosity. Unmentioned or

downplayed in these tracings, was the bboys’ competition for admiration from the women. “I use

to hustle, and I use to practice by myself, cuz’ I didn’t dare cut in with the girls thinking that a

girl might be like, ‘Ooh who is you?’ You know? So I use to just take to the floor. If they didn’t

notice me for my hustling abilities, they were gonna notice me for my breaking abilities.”

109

When women are mentioned in the mix of spectators, they are targeted for their affection

towards bboys. Pop Master Fabel writes in dialogue found on www.universalzulunation.com,

“We fed off of the crowd a lot--to get them hyped was half of the reason we did it. Well, at least

a quarter. Three-fourths were more selfish reasons, like, there’s some fine girls around here,

yo!”

110

Dancers are considered great when they can finesse and manipulate the crowd to their

liking. When bboys dance, they are trying to finesse women to like them. Thus, every action of

the bboy is done with consciousness of the opinion of women. For example, Ciprian “Bboy

Radio” Gontea states “If I am attracted by you, and you’re in the cipher [the edges], and when I

go out and dance and you don’t seem to have a reaction, I would keep going out and try to peek

and see what the girl is thinking.”

111

In working to gain affection from the woman, Bboy Radio’s

thought process changes to disappointment because of the woman’s lack of reaction, so he will

“peek” to continue to observe her reaction. This process affects his emotions, shifting his

intentions in dancing at that second, determining how many times he enters the cipher to dance

and how virtuosically he performs.

Women’s involvement as spectators constitutes early women’s hip-hop dance language.

Through coded sounds and subtle movements (specifically gestures and expressions) they

controlled the thought process, emotions, and intentions behind the bboys’ performances and

they had an extremely important role in determining the evolution of the form. Certainly there

108

Thompson, “African Art and Motion,” 2-4.

109

Jo Jo, one of the co-founders of the Rock Steady Crew. For more on this see Ch. 9, “The Birth of Rock Steady”

in The Freshest Kids.

110

www.universalzulunation.com

111

Ciprian “Bboy Radio” Gontea, in conversation with the author, September 5, 2009.

could be no more credence and importance accorded to the women. They are, in truth, the real

movers in this dancing dialogue of performer and spectator.

As the young bboys battled with scatological gestures, the dancing bgirls of the 1970s --

who entered the ciphers -- responded in kind, enacting the sassy young-girl attitude, “We can do

what you do, but better.” When speaking with Pebblee Poo about the possibility of using

feminine gestures in the future, she explained “No. Women love to do things that the guys do,

but add style to it.”

112

However, feminine language was already being used by women of her

generation by the edge-of-the-cipher dancers. In more explicit language seen in the film footage

of Pop Master Fabel’s documentary, Rock dance History: The Untold Story of Up-Rockin’,

acclaimed uprocker Papo Luv

113

describes women uprockers from the 1970s movement as

“sexual” and proclaims, “they be getting’ dirty!”

114

Papo describes the burns he saw women

throw in battle. As he talks, he paints a picture of female domination in the burns of women

uprockers. “ I seen girls that’ll take a nigga like this [at this moment he begins to uprock], wrap

you up into a little ball, take you like a douche and flip you up like w-i-i-s-s-s-h-h-h with no

mutha’fuckin’ thinkin’ about it! And you just a douche, thinking ‘I just got flinged the fuck off!’

He finishes his analysis of her movements and asks dejectedly, “How the fuck can you burn

that?”

115

The burn Papo Luv describes is what I would label as a “female sexually- reproductive

power burn.” Although the burns were (and still are in many ways) dominated by male

interpretations and genitalia, this woman is remembered as a fierce battler who found a way to

express female power in the same way. The gestures the edges-of-the-cipher female spectator

uses are more subtle and very different from the hard gestures a bgirl would use inside a cipher.

When asking Pebblee Poo about her gestures when battling, she said “grabbing the coochie like I

was fixin’ myself, like a man do, and standin’ with my arms folded like ‘Yeah! Now what?’”

116

Although these gestures are blatantly different from gestures used while when standing in a

112

Pebblee Poo, email interview with author, January 6, 2010.

113

Fabel explains that Papo Luv is a member of BVD: Brooklyn’s Vicious Dancers. He is not comfortable with his

real name being displayed.

114

POPMASTERFABEL, “Rock Dance History: The Untold Story of Up-Rockin’ = Papo Luv on “Outlaw” Sisters

that rock.mov,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR_MULaVMg0 (accessed December 21, 2010).

115

Fabel, “APACHE LINE: From Gangs to Hip Hop,” youtube.com/watch?v=mdmQludvzBQ (accessed September

16, 2009).

116

I will use all vernacular language when quoting the women I interviewed.

cipher they give an idea of the range of what some of the early women were doing -- and

definitely what Pebblee Poo was using.

However, what else can the women’s gestures mean (and this includes Pebblee Poo

adapting the male sexualized gestures for her own use) besides giving approval or disapproval of

men’s dance? This is consequential when looking at them as part of a lineage that will affect the

ideas of the next generations. Still, gestures in the 1970s for bgirls display a struggle for showing

womanhood as equal. When Pebblee Poo discusses the gestures, they are seen as a way to fight

against men in a very practical manner. If women are to dance against men, women take on the

ideas that they must do everything that the man does -- but better. “I just did what I saw other

guys do,” Pebblee Poo said, “but with a little more finesse. I feel that women should use male

gestures and act like a boy on the dance floor. It’s impressive. We as women like to show the

man, whatever you do, we can do better.”

117

As hip hop evolved, the relationship between bboys and women dancers changed. In the

1980s, women became more expert dancers and spectators, and, they took the center of the

cipher. Women’s gestures were less subtle, more pronounced, and they gained credibility as a

whole. This was because their next cipher was in the center of mainstream popular culture.

117

Pebblee Poo, email interview with author, January 6, 2010.

CHAPTER 3

1980s

Expanding and solidifying their presence in the 1980s the numbers of women in hip hop

significantly increased.

118

Although the majority of women were Blacks and Latinas, more

Caucasian females were coming in. As a group, the 1980s’ women entered as 14 to 18-year-olds,

making them more mature than their 10- to14-year-old predecessors of the 1970s. However the

biggest transformative event to affect hip hop occurred when the media “discovered” the dance

in 1980. What had been an underground community-based dance transformed, almost overnight,

into a national then international dance craze. A flood of publicity followed: newspaper and

magazine articles, hot photographs, movies, how-to-dance books, record deals, music videos,

stage performances/exhibitions, television shows, and the emergence of a multimillion-dollar

sneaker (shoe) industry and immediately after, a multibillion-dollar fashion industry. Attractively

packaged, hip hop was presented as a physically virtuosic, slightly dangerous yet redemptive

dance that deflected the youth from crime. This was partially true, and irresistibly glamorous.

Everybody wanted a piece of the action-- or wanted to be an actor-dancer-choreographer-

designer. Women auditioned as dancers for films, commercials, music videos, or, to be fashion

models and designer spokeswomen. They were traveling, performing and pursuing careers in the

media spotlight whose scrutiny represented, then imposed, stereotypical normative sexual-gender

representations on the women.

Like the women of the WSP (Women Strike for Peace) movement of the 1960s, the

women of hip hop (excluding bgirls) “Wore the mask” (of the media’s prescribed femininity) to

advance their agenda of agency and presence was a strategy used by 1980’s women to get jobs in

the media.

119

In Catherine R. Stimpson’s foreword in Amy Swerdlow’s Women Strike for

Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s, she states “…The members

of WSP appealed to the public with uncanny skill, as housewives and mothers….”

120

For

example, hip hop women would dress the part of the 1980’s women in the media such as the Fly

118

In the 1970s I only found one woman to interview. In the 1980s, I found 12 to 15 women, though not all were

able to participate in this research first-hand.

119

Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s ( The

University of Chicago Press: Chicago,1993).

120

Ibid., x.

Girls of In Living Color did. However, they would execute the movement with strength and

power like their male counterparts. Similarly, Women of the WSP movement would “ go public,

demonstrate while they pushed baby carriages, speak, march, picket, petition, write research

reports and press releases.”

121

Bgirls however wore the mask of prescribed masculinity(but

injected femininity in various ways),

122

thus they were rejected from the media but accepted in

the underground. For example, bgirls in all-male crews dressed in male fashioning.

123

Consequently this mask warped into a false consciousness; no longer a disguise to gain agency, it

became a way of life for women to suppress and police their bodies in order to “find

themselves” in the 1990s and 2000s. Nevertheless, this move gained women a permanent

position in both worlds. In the underground women were making head way by following the

guys lead. In the media women were being recognized and thus documented, written about and

became the focus of the new image of hip hop that would pave the way for women in the 1990s.

Distinctions were exaggerated between the bgirl and the hip hop-party dancer (although

the same women sometimes did both forms). The hip hop-party dancers were feminized and

tamed, while the strong bgirls were masculinized and toughened.

124

Complicating the bgirls’

identity were the bboys, who resisted the bgirls’ presence in the ciphers with gestures danced out

in uprock battles. Instead of freezes

125

that cut the phrase and threw out a challenge, the bboys

were now throwing out phallic battle burns. Consider the differences: In the 1970s’ female

spectator-dancers-critics encouraged the men’s movements as good, or dismissed the men if their

movements were bad. But in the 1980s, bboys began to attack the bgirls’ presence with phallic

burns aimed at sexually demeaning them as women (throwing the dick then spraying them with

semen). Phallic battles between bboys has the youthful bragging quality of “mine is bigger and

better than yours.” But when aimed at women, the message becomes decidedly anti-feminine.

The hardening of lines between what is feminine and what is not can be viewed as the

Anxious Patriarch versus the Black Matriarch and the duality between male control and fear of

121

Ibid., x.

122

Hanifa. “Video clip of the Wolverhampton Crew From the UK,”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaE0d9BWxJo (accessed August 10, 2010). For example in one of Bubbles’

video clips she wears a skirt while doing windmills.

123

When women danced in hip hop they wore earrings and makeup to counterbalance the male fashioning they

adopted (discussed further as liminality in Ch. 6).

124

This changes, however, for the hip hop-party dancer in the 1990s, when women report being considered

“masculine” for the movements they used when compared to the women in the earlier videos.

125

Many of the freezes included phallic gestures such as ending with a freeze by grabbing the crotch.

women, and women’s need to establish presence gets expressed in what I have called the

Anxious Patriarch-Black Matriarch paradigm. This urge to dominate/control and therefore re-

define the image of the women is Anxious Patriarchy. The Black Matriarch is a term that

evolved from the writings of senator and sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s research The

Negro Family: The Case for National Action more commonly referred to as The Moynihan

Report (1965),

126

which can be applied to any black women who is seen as unfeminine, too

strong, aggressive and assertive. Certainly this defined the breaking bgirl in the eyes of the

media, which became a controlling Anxious Patriarch eager to define the gender representations

and the parameters of what was, and was not, good dancing and who were appropriate

participants. Women were not welcome in the cipher and on the ground except as a novelty.

Representing the ultimate struggle between established ideas of femininity and masculinity in hip

hop, a struggle that has yet to be addressed as a whole.

In this era these raw gestures of contempt entered the vocabulary as embodied

discrimination and they were interpreted as a part of the “Foundation” legacy (Foundation is the

term used for the codified movements and ideologies of breaking), which came to be considered

as the “real” and “authentic” inheritance from hip hop. Is Foundation folklore or folklorism? In

truth, it is both. Using the definitions established by Dina Roginsky, “The concept of ‘folklore’

has connotations of an ‘authentic’ and ‘genuine’ expression of a ‘traditional’ nature, performed

in its ‘first life of existence’ in its community of ‘origin’ by group members who ‘own’ it,

sometimes manifested as a naïve form.” What Roginsky calls “Folklorism,” on the other hand,

she regards as misleading “‘fake-lore’ that exists in a ‘second life’ outside its ‘source-

community’ [and] is materialistic and popular (e.g., ‘commercialized folklore’), and is manifest

in an ‘objectified form.’” Roginsky is analyzing these two concepts through “processes of

synchronization” which she believes reveals “the empirical social conditions in which folklore

and folklorism are negotiated: a dialectic process of cause and effect.”

127

If folklore, in order to

be true, must have everything agreed on unanimously by the pioneers of the culture, then

Foundation is folklorism because it leaves out women. However, Foundation is also a semi-

126

The U.S. Department of Labor Website. “The Negro Family- The Case For National Action,” www.dol.gov

(accessed December 23, 2010). The Moynihan Report was carried out by the United States Government to discover

why blacks were so poor in the US. “Black familial structure” paired with the Black Matriarch were therefore

recognized as the fundamental problem of black poverty.

127

Dina Roginsky. “Folklore, Folklorism, and Synchronization: Preserved-Created Folklore in Isreal.” Journal of

Folklore Research, Vol. 44, No.1 (2007): 41-66.

folklorism in another sense because it was established after the media took hold of it, used it and

threw breaking away after its initial popularity died down--however, it was also created by the

pioneers (“group members who ‘own’ it). It is folklorism in the sense that despite the fact that

the actual pioneers established it, it was not in its “‘first life of existence’ in its community of

‘origin.’”

128

Foundation was created in order to counter-balance the diluting effects of

commercialization and in an effort to recreate tradition.

As the bgirls tried to deal with the negativity of phallic burns, they paradoxically began to

copy and use the same phallic burns, thereby incorporating into themselves the negative male

“panoptic gaze.”

129

It was ingrained in the movement and internalized by the individual bgirl

who became her own suppressive and controlling agent.

130

In this chapter, the women’s

interviews reveal these ideologies in practice, then they voice (for the first time) their

experiential reality “back in the day.”

Finally the women were really going public, not limited to just dancing in their

bedrooms, school dances and talent shows. As older girls they were able to dance wherever they

pleased. Lane Pogue “Yoda LaneSki” Davey remembers, “Back then, we looked for battles

wherever we went, the dances, the mall, the airport, schools, whatevers.”

131

Other public areas

included park-jams, house parties, block parties, school campuses and the street. Clubs were also

a major space for women; the Octagon, The Fever, Mars, Souls Kitchen, Wild Pitch, Nells, Two

ii’s, New Music Café, The Rooftop, Roseland and Union Square, Irving Plaza and The World are

a few named by the interviewees. But hip hop party dancers’ Doreene (Deena) “SnapShot”

Clemente and Wanda “WandeePOP” Candelario also noted the difference in the numbers of

women who danced in clubs in comparison to the numbers of bgirls who danced in the streets.

“The few girls we encountered were in the park-jams or house-jam battles. The crews in the

neighborhoods were all-guys. We did not have any other female street influences other than our

family members.”

132

Performance spaces were also practice spaces. “There was no such thing as

128

Ibid., 42.

129

See Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze and Michael Foucault’s theory of panopticism. It is a combination

of the two; self-surveillance from the male point of view.

130

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment (Vintage Books: New York, 1995). "He who is subjected to a field

of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play

spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles;

he becomes the principle of his own subjection."

131

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

132

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with author, December 2, 2009.

street dancing in the studios, so that [the street] was our only outlet to practice what we

created”

133

Women began forming crews

134

and creating choreography for their groups. Crews had

names like the Dynamic Dolls, the Lady Popatrons, the Gucci Girls, FBI (Far Beyond Ur

Imagination), Unique Force, The Sleek Dancers, KGB (Ko Gettin’ Busy) and BUTTA (Bustin’

Up the Total Atmosphere). Still in the breaking and the hip hop party dance world, women were

the minority. Lenaya “Tweetie Bird” Straker, a prominent hip-hop party dancer of the 1980s

explains that she was the only woman who danced with Mop Top Crew and Elite Force at the

time, “but [was] never a member of either.”

135

However, she was a part of two female crews,

KBG and Butta in her high school years; “KGB was eight girls and Butta was nine girls.”

136

She

also mentioned two other all female crews the Gucci Girls and FBI. Hip hop party dancers were

easily finding spaces for themselves -- compared to bgirls who were struggling to establish

themselves.

Violeta “Fire Starter” Galagarza, a bgirl who also identifies with other styles, explains

that she did not think of herself as part of a crew because to her the word “crew” was a “boy”

thing. “We collaborated as a group … because we’re ladies you know?”

137

But she also

remembers that “Back-in-the-day when we used to be in clubs we wasn’t paying attention to

anybody else but who was around us. We’re not going ‘Hey what’s your name?’ I mean, you

battle somebody -- you battle them and that’s it. I don’t wanna know your name. I did my thing, I

repped

138

in the circle and that’s it you know?”

139

Whether as a solo dancer or as a part of crews,

women are moving into the center. Fire Starter describes the sheer fun of the ciphers in the clubs.

I was excited. I mean just seeing a cipher, any cipher, just to see the ‘ampness’

140

everybody! People enjoying what they’re seein’, whether people dance or not. It’s the

feel you know? Back in the day, too, it wasn’t only about battling, but, we’ll start

something, and a certain rhythm comes out, and they’ll start following us. If a certain

133

Ibid.

134

These crews were either all or mostly women crews.

135

Tweetie Bird, email interview with author, January 12, 2009.

136

Ibid.

137

Fire Starter, phone interview with author, January 27, 2010.

138

To represent.

139

Fire Starter, phone interview with author, January 27, 2010.

140

Exciting energy.

thing [dance/song] comes out we’d do the ‘wop,’ and then everybody does it. Or, the

‘bizmark,’ and everybody does it. It was fun, you know? I was in another world.”

141

[itals

mine]

Although this is true for Fire Starter, did the other 1980’s women dance in this kinder type of

cipher? What does the cipher mean to the women in this decade? What kinds of pressures did

women face? Aiko Shirakawa states “Being a girl in Hip Hop back then was very difficult

because you had to be as hard as the guys to be seen or respected….”

142

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki

recalls how bboy crews capitalized on women’s success as dancers, even when they were not

part of the crew. “Sometimes my crew [the one she hung out with] would tell me to do a move

and another move, then the circle would just end and start up somewhere else. I never really

knew if it was because I won, or, if they just did not want to battle a girl.”

143

Through regulating

authenticity and the battle structure, the bboy patriarch regains his power by always controlling

the formula of the contest.

Generally women were excluded from the comfort that crews were supposed to offer.

144

As Nicole “Olopop” Guess, a native Hawaiian bgirl states, “Many guys did not have females as

an official part of their crews.”

145

So women felt alienated and often felt extra pressure to prove

themselves. Aiko states “I find that we have to come harder to get the respect the guys get and

some of us girls get easy props

146

when we have very little skill. Either way it sucks.”

147

Daisy

“Baby Love” Castro, known as the “Rock Steady Crew’s first bgirl,” professes “It was hard to be

the only bgirl with them! [itals mine] I wanted to be treated as an equal. But because I was a girl

it wasn’t always possible…As the only girl you want to prove yourself all the time, but for them

it was never enough. And, that was a hard thing for me to acknowledge.”

148

Sexism and racism affected their careers and personal relationships and these issues

would also impact how they were assessed. Kim-A-Kazi acknowledges this. “Back in the

141

Fire Starter, phone interview with author, January 27, 2010.

142

Aiko Shirakawa, email interview with author, February 23, 2010.

143

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

144

Bubbles reassures that she had no problems with being a woman in her crew. In addition, Bubbles’ crew was all

boys excluding her.

145

Olopop, email interview with the author, February 3, 2010.

146

Asia “bgirl Asia One” Yu attempts to combat this issue in the 1990s with her crew No Easy Props.

147

Aiko Shirakawa, email interview with author, February 23, 2010.

148

Cooper, We B* Girlz, 16.

beginning ALL Breakers were discriminated against because we were looked at by society as

thugs, gangsters and criminals.”

149

But discrimination also came from other dancers. “We were

still trying to convince the world that we were a serious dance form. When we performed for

President Reagan in 1983 at the Kennedy center honors, Mikhail Baryshnikov warned us, “Don’t

expect a great response from the audience. What you do is a fad, what I do is an art.”

150

Kim

continued, “But guess what? He went on before us and we received a standing ovation and he did

NOT! Ha in your face! Ballet boy lol.”

151

The two white women I interviewed said they felt pressures and were excluded not only

because of what was expected of a girl, but because of the prejudicial expectations put on white

girls. “When I went on the 1984 ‘Fresh’ tour I was the only female. The females in the stand

would yell out ‘Shoo! What that white girl think she gonna do? And they would laugh at me!”

152

The guys also laughed at her at first -- until they saw her dance. Then, Kim proudly states, “Then

they were all on my strap!

153

[itals mine]” Bgirl Yoda LaneSki had a similar experience as a

white bgirl. “Guys were so shocked to see a female dancer [and a white girl] that they did not

know what to do.”

154

In what ways does the Black Matriarch theory apply to white women, to

the majority of bgirls who are not black? As Patricia Hill Collins states,

Not only does the image of the Black Matriarch seek to regulate black women’s

behavior, it also seems designed to influence white women’s gendered identities. In the

post-World War II era, increasing numbers of white women entered the labor market,

limited their fertility, and generally challenged their proscribed roles as subordinate

helpmates in their families and workplaces. In this context, the image of the Black

149

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with author, December 28, 2009.

150

Ibid.

151

Ibid.

152

Ibid.

153

This slang “all on my strap” is appropriated from the male slang phrase “all on my jock strap or jock.” It is

defined like “ I wasn’t popular before, but now that I am people want to be affiliated with me— all on my jock or

bra strap.” Also, “get off my strap” means get out of my business, you are in my personal space, trying to get to

know me after I am famous or credited for something I was not before. Today, the male slang phrase is called “dick

riding.”

154

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

Matriarch serves as a powerful symbol for both Black and White women of what can

go wrong if White [black Anxious Patriarchal] power is challenged.”

155

Sexist prejudices deeply wounded the women. Kim-A-Kazi talked about the sexism the

Dynamic Dolls endured during their professional careers. “We were discriminated against by our

own manager. He did more for the boys than us.” I asked her to explain. “For example, ‘Test

This.’ It was a record the Dynamic Breakers made and all we [the Dolls] did was the ‘ahhs haas’

and the ‘ooh hoos, that’s fresh’ in the background. I wrote raps for us! And in one session, we

were rapping in front of Joe Web of Sunshine Records who loved it.” She continues that Web

began recording the rap, “and when our manager came in and saw what was happening, he threw

a fit. ‘This is the boys’ record!’ He said we would do ours next. Yeah, right. Never did.”

156

Mariette “Peaches” Rodriguez, a popper from the 1980s discussed her experiences when she was

given gigs just because she was a girl, a kind of inverse sexism which made things difficult for

her.

157

Peaches described other struggles she faced as a woman.

I had a, you know, a very cute look and about 60 to 70 percent [of the] skills that the guys

did. But when I danced I would garner attention. And that was a pervasive issue for me

back then. I would not be as good as them but [I would] get the attention. They didn’t

wanna be in a group like that. They wanted to have their own shine, so it broke up a lot

of partnerships with us.

158

Just being a girl affected their activities and self-image in the male-dominated hip hop

world. “My parents weren’t comfortable with me cruising with seven other guys, so I was

limited how much I could dance with them”

159

It also affected women on tour. “I think when

you’re a female, you’re always somewhat solo. Because you can’t just hang with the guys like

155

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment 2

ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000).

156

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with author, December 28, 2009. She also talked about other opportunities passed

up by their manager: “They wanted to make a “Dynamic Dolls” doll [like a Barbie Doll] but my manager let that

one slip away too….”

157

Peaches, phone interview with author, February 11, 2010. “I would go on a commercial audition with them [the

boys] and I would end up getting chosen, and they didn’t. It was a very difficult… it’s a hard relationship, you

know, career-wise, not even talking about the personal. I’m talking about career.”

158

Ibid.

159

Bgirl Yoda Laneski, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

the other guys do.”

160

If a bgirl had the physical skills to execute power moves, “boy crews

would ask for my help at battles -- though I never was a part of their crew. I was the last-minute-

secret weapon, if their crew was not winning, it was ‘Bust out the girl who could break dance!’

And your crew pretty much won the battle.”

161

On the other hand, pioneering bgirls and hip-hop party dancers, SnapShot and

WandeePOP said “We did not find ourselves struggling with issues being women because we

had strong female role models in our families.”

162

The women of the 1980s began practicing

specific variations. For example, hip hop party dances consisted of any of the earlier popular

social dances like “the twist”

163

and dances that pertained exclusively to hip hop music and

dancing, such as “the running man,”

164

the “roger rabbit,”

165

“the smurf,” “the boggle” and “the

wop” to name a few. Hip Hop party dancers also had the freedom to create their own dance

vocabulary and become pioneers because of it. Snapshot and WandeePOP explain “Unique

Force would practice to come up with our own to showcase at battles like ‘The Jason.’”

166

Hip-

hop party-dancers did not confront as much discrimination. More latitude was given to

“femininity” in hip hop-party dance, undoubtedly because more women went into this style.

“Our 80’s crew ‘Unique Force’ included five girls and [only] two guys.”

167

However, bgirls (as opposed to the party dancers) certainly had the most issues with

negative self-images, but also with the abilities of the body physiologically. Bgirl Yoda states

that she is “still dancing because I learned the culture early, and know what is behind the moves,

160

Ibid.

161

Olopop, email interview with the author, February 3, 2010.This use of women in battle is also seen in the movie

Breaking (1984). Both of the crews (all male) have it out until the opposing crew uses a girl to win the battle. For

the next battle the main characters, “Ozone” and “Turbo” include “ Special K” to win their next battle.

162

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with author, December 2, 2009.

163

The Twist, Jim Dawson (Boston: Faber &Faber, 1995), 35. A popular song and dance hit from the 1960s.

Twisting was a side-to-side movement with the hips, twisting on the balls of the feet while the arms alternately

pumped forward and back. There were also different variations of this movement. Chubby checker explained “…

when my ‘Twist’ came out we decided that the twist would be like putting out a cigarette with both feet, or like

coming out the shower and wiping your butt with a towel.”

164

The basic running man is executed with the forearms perpendicular to the torso. The arms pump forward and

backward (accent on the back); the feet slide backward with the backward force of the arms, alternately, and in

place.

165

The roger rabbit is a moving dance with the arms pumping from the back to the front while the feet alternately

move back to front but while crossing behind the other foot and thrusting the hips forward.

166

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with author, December 2, 2009.

167

Ibid.

and why we do them. If I were dancing just to be cool, I wouldn’t be still dancing at 39, ‘cause it

hurts!”

168

Women were also credited with bringing choreography into breaking. Michael Holman

writes, “They concentrated more on routines and synchronized group moves which pioneered the

idea of complex routines for breakers years later.”

169

Kim-A-Kazi confirms; “I Loved to

Choreograph -- it was Dynamic and Myself that Brought Choreography INTO BreakDancing (Its

History).”

170

Today, 30 years later, choreography in breaking is included as a category in major

competitions all over the world. Naturally, the vocabulary also expanded because of women

participating. Contrary to Holman’s claim that “The girl breakers did not do the floor moves the

guys did,”

171

according to the women themselves, during the late 1970s and throughout the

1980s, woman breakers did execute all the floor moves the guys did. Because the bgirl is an

assertive woman, she rouses fears of the Anxious Patriarch when she encroaches into his

territory (power zones).

The Black Matriarch, as mentioned earlier is a term that is applied to black women who

were seen as unfeminine, too strong, aggressive and assertive.

172

During slavery, they were also

seen as physically stronger than normal. bell hooks, author of Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women

and Feminism states,

While Black men were not forced to assume a role colonial American society

regarded as ‘feminine,’ Black women were forced to assume a ‘masculine’ role. (…) In

the eyes of colonial white Americans, only debased and degraded members of the

female sex labored in the fields. And any white woman forced by any circumstances to

work in the fields was regarded as unworthy of the title ‘woman.’(…) On any

plantation with a substantial number of female slaves, black women performed the

same tasks as black men; they plowed, planted, and harvested crops. On some

plantations black women worked longer hours in the fields than black men.

173

168

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

169

Michael Holman, “Breaking: The History,” in That’s The Joint! : The Hip Hop Studies Reader, edited by

Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004) 31-39.

170

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with the author, December 28, 2009.

171

Holman, “Breaking: The History,” 37.

172

Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 77.

173

bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1981).

Under this negative definition, black women were considered a “failure to the true cult of

womanhood,” that is, failing in the psychological and physical roles of “submissiveness” under

which the white women functioned.

174

During the 1970s and 1980s, women were using breaking vocabulary and posing and

gesturing less. In fact, every bgirl I interviewed or read about from these two decades testified

about their abilities to execute power moves, or they talked about how they worked hard until

they mastered the moves.

175

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki began her career in 1983 in Seattle Washington.

“I had a lot of power moves from being an elite gymnast. And, most of the guys could not beat

me because power [power moves]

176

was the main thing at that time.”

177

In the 1980s, the women did less verbal discouraging/encouraging, and less of the

dramatic responsive posing

178

and gesturing than the women-spectators of the 1970s. Burns were

becoming more prevalent. Burns were used by all women hip hop dancers; but, depending on the

hip hop dance form, they acquired different meanings. The women began doing more gestural

phrases and burns, and, all the hip hop movements became more virtuosic.

Gestural language in the 1980s manifested as battle language. Fire Starter notes, “Well, at

that time, we would always see guys do it [burns] and it wasn’t something where you go to

classes like now, and they show you different versions.” She continues explaining how they dealt

with these gestures: “We would get back at them [the boys] the way they got back at us, with our

own style you know? ‘Cause our thing was ‘this is the guys, so we gotta show ‘em no fear,’ and

that we’re on the same level. If they grab a knife -- we’ll grab a knife too.”

179

This is the Black

Matriarch in action, challenging the male role and traditional structures. They are as fierce, or

fiercer, than the men, and their power and roles as single mothers, undercut black masculinity.

Hip hop-party dancers responded to phallic burns aimed at them with a wide variety of

feminine gestural language -- but they never returned bboys’ raw male-reproductive power

174

Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 77.

175

There is footage and pictures of women from the 1980s executing these movements.

176

LaneSki. “Laneski,” interview with Jee-Nice, Anattitude Magazine, Issue 03, 2008. LaneSki states, “I laugh when

I hear all the new schoolers try to claim the early 80s were all about style. In Seattle at least and all my videos from

NYC, it was certainly about ‘power moves’ back then.”

177

Bgirl Yoda LaneSki, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

178

Tweetie Bird, email interview with the author, January 12, 2010. Women still used audible/verbal language. “I

would stand there and clap to the beat of a song really loud to show the audience they [the bboys] were off beat, and

also to help them [the audience and dancer] find the right beat lol. I still do that today. Lol.”

179

Fire Starter, phone interview with author, January 27, 2010.

gestures. Peaches explains, “There always was a couple of things. If a guy ever put a dick in my

face, you know, I’d do the scissors thing and I’d cut his dick off and throw it away. So, I mean,

yeah we always had comebacks but… I tried not to use them [phallic gestures].”

180

Obviously

this responsive gesture was a harsh and potent gesture-answer to an aggressive sexualized burn --

but the hip hop-party dancers did not use male sexualized phallic burns. “When we popped or

rocked, it was gesture weapons: the baseball and the bat, eating gestures, shotgun, hammer,

knife, body slam or throwing a punch/kick.”

181

The bgirl is a forceful woman who is labeled as

“manly” because she takes power from the traditional patriarchal structures and assertive actions.

As Tweetie Bird explains, “I used a gesture like giving people the finger, lol, slappin’ my

butt which means ‘they can kiss your ass.’ [A] fist meant that you would punch them in the face.

The thumb behind you or your shoulder meant that ‘they were outta here.’” Women also had

general battle gestures and/or statements that all forms used. “Back-in-the-day a lot of females

use to grab their ‘crotch.’ Lol, we still do that.”

182

Importantly, Tweetie Bird described the

women using sexual feminine gestural retorts that displayed the female power, like “grabbin’ my

chest or shakin’ them [her breasts] towards the other person. I would pat all of my private parts

to state ‘yes I gets busy’ but I am very much a female.”

183

Fire Starter described other gestures

within the parameters of feminine responses. “They [the boys] would comb or brush their hair,

like they’re slick. And we’ll wave our hair like we’re divas, you know?” tailoring the same

gesture to fit them as women with “flavor,” or, “feminine” perspective.

The 1980s was also the period when the word and idea of “movement”

184

becomes the

burn. But it was not enough for bgirls to win battles by gestural language. Bgirls had to go toe–

to-toe with male counterparts. Kim-A-Kazi states, “As Females We had [itals mine] to work

harder than the guys. Men had more upper-body strength. But we would never give up! No

matter how many injuries, black and blues we had. We kept going until we mastered the

moves.”

185

However, “In hip hop party-dancing, it was about who could rep [represent] the

180

Peaches, phone interview with author, February 11, 2010.

181

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with author, December 2, 2009.

182

Tweetie Bird, email interview with author, January 12, 2009.

183

Ibid.

184

Bgirl Yoda Laneski, email interview with author, December 23, 2009. The movement considered mostly as a

burn was power moves or freezes in breaking.

185

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with author, December 28, 2009.

dance style/character the best. So when the ‘wop’ was created you had to prove your ‘wop’ was

better.”

186

I asked Kim-A-Kazi if she ever felt obligated to use phallic burns in battle. “Yes, in

uprock mostly, because those were the kind of disses [dismissals,] you used.”

187

She continues,

“As women in the World of MEN breakers we had to use our breasts and booty in an uprock

battle. It’s the only things we had to use against them! LOL.”

188

I asked Fire Starter exactly what

burns were executed and she stated, “The grabbing part of it. They would do something with

arms, you know, like dissing them with their middle parts [penis and balls], you know. It was the

guys doing it to other guys.”

189

After this I asked what the women did to counter these gestures.

“The guys would do that and we would do it right back to them [men did pelvic thrusts to other

men and to women; and women did the pelvic thrust right back to them].”

190

Fire Starter explains

“grabbing, pushing, pulling the thighs [while doing the pelvic thrust], grabbing their hats,

throwing things.” I asked when these gestures appeared most often and she said, “In uprock.

That’s when I would see it.”

191

However, many bgirls merged phallic burns with breaking, and by copying the guys, they

absorbed the controlling-male panoptic gaze embedded in the anti-feminine movement. “I liked

making fag hands

192

to the guys, but that would be politically incorrect today.”

193

Thus, when

bgirls used gestures as battle burns they were extremely male oriented and it seems they were the

only women who were using phallic gestures. “The main hand gesture I knew of was ‘the dick.’

That gesture was mainly used by bgirls. Real bgirls [itals mine].”

194

The bgirls started to feel compelled to gain respect from the bboys by playing the

established male rules. The eighties decade was when the bgirl interviewees, along with other

female hip hop dancers, stated they received a lot of respect for mastering and executing the

difficult physical movements “like the guys.” On the contrary, Nancy Guevara and Alesha

186

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with author, December 2, 2009.

187

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with author, December 28, 2009.

188

Ibid.

189

Fire Starter, phone interview with author, January 27, 2010.

190

Ibid.

191

Ibid.

192

Bgirl Yoda Laneski, email interview with author, December 23, 2009. This gesture is done with the hands in

front of the chest with broken wrists. Using this gesture against men suggests that they are gay.

193

Ibid.

194

Tweetie Bird, email interview with author, January 12, 2009. Not all bgirls used vulgar burns. The majority of

bgirls revealed that they did not use vulgar burns in breaking, only in the battle dance form uprocking.

Dominek Washington quote Baby Love. “We do a more feminine style than the guys, just to

show that were not girls trying to look like guys,” and, as Guevara states, “In general, slower and

smoother breaking moves are considered feminine and appropriate for bgirls.”

195

While this may be true for Baby Love (and other women), all of the bgirls I interviewed

said they executed the movements “just like the guys” in the ciphers and earned respect for it.

Femininity in dance existed only in the sense of adding “finesse” or “flavor.” When I asked

about an understanding of “flavor,” I was told it meant to execute it like, or much better than, a

man -- i.e., accepting without adapting the masculinized power vocabulary of breaking, since

other kinds of movements are not readily accepted.

196

They can also mean “smooth” and

“slick.”

197

However, by doing it “as the boys would” meant that bgirls had a much more

restricted movement palette for their creative processes. Doing it “like the guys” buys into the

male perspective, signifying how bgirls were beginning to internalize the male rules (panoptic

self-policing). “A b-girl is a female who is courageous, with a definite style, and definitely a

winner in moves.”

198

Based on this definition “courageous,” is the bravery to enter all-male

ciphers; “have a definite style” and be a “winner” at the moves means “doing it better than the

men.”

The most common movements bboys used to measure a bgirl’s skill level were power

moves. “Moving like the guys,”

199

became synonymous with what it meant to be a “serious” or

“real,” and this skill became a major marker for 1980s’ bgirls.

200

On a deeper level, both bboys

and bgirls were being judged and shaped by the media’s ideologies of masculinity. The media

had taken over the role of the Anxious Patriarch in their efforts to control the flashier qualities of

the dancing. This is apparent and vivid in the photographs and rarer filmed footage from this

decade.

201

There is an inexorable progression of breaking movement towards the most flashy,

195

Nancy Guevara, “Women Writin’ Rappin’ Breakin’” in Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and

Hip Hop Culture, edited by William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996) 49-62.

196

This is interesting because the main view of hip hop is to “express yourself” through the forms.

197

In the trailer for Rokafella’s Documentary “All the Ladies Say,” the narrator states “we [meaning women or

bgirls] have style; we don’t crash when we dance.” Implying that bboys do not dance smoothly or execute their

movement perfectly.

197

Cooper, We B* Girlz, 15. Quote from Bubbles.

198

Ibid.

199

“Moves like the guys” specifically meant power moves and movements generally unexpected of women.

200

Many bgirls today also aspire to “move like a guy.”

201

Kim-A-Kazi and Yoda LaneSki both have footage and numerous photographs of themselves and their crews

dancing in the 1980s.

acrobatic and dramatic power moves. It was the stuff of exciting filmic opportunities. Kim-A-

Kazi describes some of the power moves that defined the “good” and/or “professional” bgirls.

There were other female crews, but The Dynamic Dolls were the ONLY Professional

Female Breakers and the ONLY Females who could do the moves the guys did, e.g. I

used to pick Susie Q up with one hand, and then spin her on my head [the propeller]. I

then used to pick up both the girls and spin them [the helicopter]. I also could, and did

these moves with guys. We all had footwork, top and bottom. We did hand glides,

floats, headspins and windmills….”

202

Since being able to do these moves was like validation from the men, it affected how women

perceived themselves. Bubbles, the first UK bgirl states “After I had mastered my windmills and

headspins, males throughout the world of b-boying respected me for my skills alone.”

203

Bgirl

Yoda echoes this: “In my younger days, I just did what the guys did. Being able to be a female

and do the power moves was almost like reinventing a new move.”

204

Headspin Janet, another

popular bgirl

205

of the 1980s was perceived as a “real bgirl” because she did not “give a

fuck.”

206

Luis “Bboy Alien Ness” Martinez states, “We used to make jokes about the b-girl

freeze, how long it takes a girl to get into a freeze, but Janet was real fluid. She was strong! And

she would go into headspins just like Crazy Legs.”

207

To be a real bboy or bgirl you must battle

with literal rules as well, helping to establish the pure new order. Through the regulation of

authenticity and invented traditions, the Anxious Patriarch retains power, and eases his anxiety.

Some women, however, believed that merely copying the guys was a negative habit. “I

think women only use it because it [the penis gesture] brings them to the same level as their male

counterparts. I believe it just belittles us females.”

208

On the other hand, Peaches Rodriguez, an

enormously influential dancer, justifies her representations. “I think the reality of this [her]

particular style of dance, which is popping and waving… it stems from…African roots, um Latin

202

Kim-A-Kazi, email interview with author, December 28, 2009.

203

Cooper, We B* Girlz , 15. Quote from Bubbles.

204

Bgirl Yoda Laneski, email interview with author, December 23, 2009.

205

In the book We B* Girlz, Alien Ness informs that Headspin Janet came out of the Hot Feet Rockers crew, a

subdivision of the Rock Steady Crew.

206

Cooper, We B* Girlz , 16. Quote from Ken Swift.

207

Ibid., 12. Quote from Alien Ness.

208

Olopop, email interview with the author, February 3, 2010.

salsa-style roots.

209

It is a masculine dance. The contraction of the muscles during it makes it a

masculine dance. The style, the attitude, the um posing, the element of it is a masculine dance.

And I think to execute this particular style of dance properly a women does have to honor

that.”

210

Peaches holds deeply-considered views from her thirty years experience about how

women should honor hip hop forms as male dances.

211

This also, however, demonstrates how

internalized the panoptic male gaze of the female body is in breaking.

I think that goes for bboying too. You don’t try to change something to bend it to your

sexuality. You execute it the way it is -- without changing it. I think the best female

breakers are the ones who emulate men completely. I think it’s good to keep the style

pure. Each individual style is like the difference between doing Tai chi and Muay Tai.

You don’t change the form as it is. You don’t try and create a new dance form. You

have to respect its structure. I wouldn’t wanna … feminize breaking. Because there’s

something just basically wrong with that. Here’s the problem with women doing it: That

if you do it, or you start it with a sexual connotation then you’re gonna get it back.

You’re gonna get it back from the guy, and, um, the guy will always have the upper

hand.

212

In Peaches’ view, honoring the form as it is, respects the form -- and this represents the

Bboys’ party line. But honoring and respecting some of the ideas in breaking often means

suppression of the female body.

As the role of the bgirl changed over the next twenty years, defining the male as

dominant soared to new heights. This became extremely harmful to the bgirls of the New

Millennium and subsequently their roles and expressivity was affected. Women were restricted

from within and without. Discrimination was becoming ingrained and relative to each woman’s

209

Most forms of movement that have African roots expect one to develop an individual style as a part of technique

(unless they are partner dances). This is contrary to Peaches’ comparison of breaking to the fighting forms of Muay

Tai and Tai chi, which do not stress the development of the individual self. A form that has African roots can not

be compared to forms with such rigid definitions of movement, gender within movement and require a person not to

develop a style. See her comparison below.

210

Peaches, phone interview with author, February 11, 2010.

211

Although Peaches’ defines hip hop dance forms as masculine, I believe she means to define them as male dance

forms.

212

Ibid.

identity in their power-move skill levels (whether beginner, intermediate or advanced) and in

their genderized movement choices. Bgirls experienced inequality in personal and career

relationships in the 1980s, and these women began to battle with the negative feminine images

projected onto them. The initiation of negative self-images began strongly during this era as the

bgirls’ struggle with identity, measured by their experiences and how well they were accepted by

the bboys. Panoptic censorship was manifested in the dancing and in the gestural language of the

burns. Although there were more bgirls than ever before they were dealing with damage deeply

ingrained in the movement.

CHAPTER 4

1990s AND 2000s

During the 1990s and 2000s hip hop underwent an international relocation and its

dancing energy shifted from America to Europe and Asia. The numbers of American bgirls

dropped in comparison to European and, most strikingly, Asian women became the bgirl

majority. Although the overall number of women worldwide in hip hop exceeded that of

previous generations, and the 1990s bgirls were older when they began dancing, women still

remained marginalized in the masculine breaking culture.

213

As a result of internationalism, the spread of “Foundation,” the rise of competition

circuits regionally, nationally and internationally, bgirls established a presence for themselves

and began to form loose collectives as they became aware of the power that women had together.

They “made space” for themselves in bboy crews and founded more all-female crews.

214

“When

I started No Easy Props in ’97 [an all-female crew] it was all about earning respect for your

skills. You don’t want your props [compliments, praise] easy…”

215

While working hard to

master “skills” (physical techniques) and gain respect for their virtuosity, they also polished their

female gestures, movements and burns. Women also initially organized some of (what would

become) big-time national and international breaking competitions that, ironically, they

eventually left because of being marginalized by the men. Disheartened by having judges and

promoters take away any choice-making from the “official” battles, bgirls returned to smaller

venues to collaborate with other women in crews and initiated smaller jams, spontaneous battles

or smaller competitions where their gestures, moves and burns would flourish.

The 1990s are also a period when women copied the bboys’ gestures (movement phrases

and hand movements), along with male-reproductive power burns like “cocking” or “throwing

the dick.” I analyze the women as complicit in their own repression, oblivious -- or blatantly

proud -- of what these gestures signify about them as women (detailed in Chapters 6). This

213

If we count mainstream manifestations of hip hop as hip hop then I believe that the number of women exceeds

the number of men in hip hop dance.

214

Colleen “Miss Twist” Soto, email interview with the author, December 23, 2009. Miss Twist is another bgirl who

formed an all-woman crew in 1998 called Powerfemalia. Other names of all female crews from the 1990s and 2000s

include Dirty Mamas, Female Artistics, Ikandee, True Essencia, Rhythm Queens, Venus Fly Trap Crew, Sistaz of

the Underground, Collective 7, The Synergy Girls, Extra Credit Kru, Fox Force Five and Shebang.

215

Cooper, We B*Girls, 33. Asia-One quote.

oblivion to the negativities in the culture of women about women I analyze as the

falseconsciousness.

216

As Daniel Little, a professor at the University of Michigan summarizes,

“ members of a subordinate class (workers, peasants, surfs)” – which I consider women and

bgirls in hip hop -- “suffer from a false consciousness in that their mental representations of the

social relations around them systematically conceal or obscure the realities of their subordination

[for example Foundation conceals the agenda to erase ban femininity from the form] ,

exploitation, and domination those relations embody.”

217

Kathryn Rosenfeld, author of “Drag

King Magic: Performing/Becoming the Other” explains the cross-gendered problematizing of

this adaptation. “Women who feel powerful when they pack a dildo and strut out into the

evening, and the women who lust after them, [both] manifest queer girl desire of the phallus.”

218

The opinions of the bgirls who employ male-reproductive power gestures is that they assume

domination with these gestures, and/or, they are merely following the practices of

“Foundation.”

219

As the breaking battles quickly grew in popularity, they were transformed into highly

regulated, judged international competitions. “Battle” codification paralleled the entrenchment of

hip-hop “Foundation” codification, with its inbred masculinized discrimination. These changes

profoundly affected bgirls: On the positive side during the 1990s, women found agency and

space for themselves as they organized crews and competitions; on the negative side, bgirls were

rigorously policed not to be “girly.” In crews that accepted females, and in classes in Foundation,

bboys increased their gender patrolling of the women’s movement. Many bboys treated bgirls as

inferiors, refused to teach them certain movements, and did not accept the fact that women’s

bodies function differently. In the late 1990s and 2000s, things were becoming decidedly more

difficult for bgirls, although things were in many respects becoming easier for the women

practicing other forms of hip hop dance (locking, popping, hip hop party-dancing).

The worldwide epidemic spread of a misogynistic hip hop was pushed forward by an

aggressive American multibillion dollar celebrity-publicity machine combined with the music

and fashion industry. Profit margins increased significantly if a company only had to promote

rap/rapper and cultivate a glamorized image of the macho rapper. In this separatism, the rapper

216

Lukacs, History and Class Conciousness.

217

http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/iess%20false%20consciousness%20V2.htm.

218

Kathryn Rosenfeld, “Drag King Magic: Performing/Becoming the Other” (master’s thesis, Roosevelt University,

2002), 201-219.

219

This will be covered in more detail in Chapter 5.

and his rap were effectively divorced from the cultural context of poetry, graphic art, hip hop

dance, improvisatory challenges and vibrant street life that gave them “juice” [power].

Rampant commercialization of hip hop began about 1985 and edged out the dancers. By

the 1990s the gangsta rapper reigned supreme; this was the era of the East Coast/West Coast hip-

hop rap wars and the murders of rappers Tupac Amari Shakur and Christopher “Biggie Smalls”

Wallace.

220

Other performative hip-hop artists got shuffled underground, which (thankfully) kept

the culture alive. The better-known bboys and graffiti artists (“writers”) went to Europe and

Asia to perform and teach on regular circuits.

221

European and Asian youth were mesmerized by

the power, glamour, edginess and rebellion of the entire hip hop culture. In their eyes, the culture

and the practitioners represented the exotic/erotic “other” who lived hard, danced hard, and made

hard art spontaneously. It was liberating and in-your-face. It was the perfect form of youthful

revolt. Foreign bboys and bgirls flooded into New York City to get close to the source and soak

up the vibe. One hip-hop cliché claimed they got off the plane at JFK International Airport in

New York City and asked how to take the subway to the South Bronx. “Yeah, good luck!”

222

was the response. The international hip-hop dance-craze served to link youth together in a

worldwide yet stylistically recognizable form. By the beginning of the 1990s hip hop culture

was firmly established in Europe, Asia and South America, Russian, German, French, Korean,

Japanese and Brazilian youth wanted to look, dance, talk and walk like their inner-city, Black

and Latino NYC ghetto counterparts, feeling more connected to each other than to their home

cultures. Hip hop was so popular in France by the early 1990s that “c’est le Bronx” meant to play

your radio loud and dress like a “bro.”

223

In the 1980s, hard-core bgirls stateside had been mostly of Latina/Hispanic/Puerto Rican

descent with a few Whites, almost no black women, and most lived in and around New York

City

224

or on the West Coast. Hip hop spread nationally in America, first as a musical craze then

as a dance fad, attracting youth, sponsoring competitions and always disturbing the established

220

These murders were important to all areas of hip hop because the focus shifted and changed everyone’s

perspective, even dance.

221

The bboys’ exportation first began around 1983 with Rock Steady Crew then continued during the mid-1980s

and through the 1990s with other well-known bboys such as Ejoe Wilson, Brian Green and Terry Wright.

222

From Mambo to Hip Hop

223

Ibid.

224

With the exception of Bubbles (United Kingdom) and Olopop (Hawaii). In addition, there were women from

other countries that I was not able to contact for various reasons but not at the magnitude of women from other

countries in the 1990s.

norm with its rebellious attitudes (the perfect format for teenage success). Yet hip hop’s

adoption abroad was stronger and quicker. Overseas, the numbers of bgirls were growing,

particularly in Japan and Korea.

225

In New York, however, by the early 2000s, Ana “bgirl

Rokafella” Garcia made a prophetic observation that the numbers of practicing bgirls were

actually diminishing at the turn of the century. “At this time there was only one other girl

training with me, “Honey Rockwell.” I met a girl from Italy -- “Marcella”-- and later heard of

another girl from California, “Asia One,” and another from Chicago, “Lady Champ.” But that

was it. One girl from Germany… and “Bentu” from France, and “Beta” from Miami…but we

were all just a handful of women hitting the floor.”

226

Karima (considered the first French bgirl

from the 1980s) with Actual Force in Paris, and Kayra

227

from the Rock Steady Crew Japan

Chapter, were mentioned by Ereina “Honey Rockwell” Valencia, a well-known bgirl from the

1990s. “They were out there, especially in Europe, and these girls had power.”

228

Because the 1990s women were breaking in their late teens and early twenties, they were

old enough to consciously consider decisions about “masculinity” and “femininity,” and age

made them perceive things a bit differently. Now, the women’s emulation of the men and how

they were learning from bboys (less the actual techniques than the performative modes) became

more problematic. To learn “properly,” women had to experience the panoptic oppression of the

homogenized male language.

The all-powerful sites where discrimination got formalized were in the popular

international competitions (they immediately went to YouTube in the 2000s) that became the

center of breaking culture. We B* Girlz battle was started by Martha Cooper and Nika Kramer in

their efforts to acknowledge and preserve the history of women in hip hop,

229

“Bboy Summit”

was created by bgirl, Asia “Asia-One” Yu, who was one of the first bgirls to become highly

225

In Europe many of the women came from the immigrant populations of the Turkish, Eastern Europe and North

Africa; but even more Japanese and Korean women were attracted to breaking. It offered them license to be publicly

assertive, physically strong and self expressive.

226

Ana “Rokafella” Garcia, interview by Sara Rosen, The Boogie Down Bronx Presents… LA ROKA,

wordpress.com weblog, October 1, 2009.

227

I was not able to find the family names of Karima or Kyra.

228

Ereina “Honey Rockwell” Valencia, email interview with the author, January 25, 2010. This shift has an

interesting connection to mainstream hip hop’s portrayal of women. In the late 1980s and 1990s images of pimps

and hos flooded the media. These images of hos were mostly of black women and this had a gigantic affect between

black women’s association with hip hop culture.

229

http://b-girlz-berlin.com. There are a host of others whose urls and links can not be found.

visible in the 1990s internationally.

230

“Battle of the Year,” the first international organized

battle in Germany in 1990 lists its scoring on the website. The scoring includes: stage presence,

theme and music, synchronicity, and choreography. Everything is informed by the aesthetics of

sports and media and judged quantitatively by a point system.

231

In the American as well as the

international battles, “Judges will tell you, ‘I wanna see footwork, I wanna see this I wanna see

that….’ Once you do that, you’re dictating how a person should dance . . . I’m gonna judge a

battle, not a dance contest!”

232

The overall choice of who battles who and/or with what moves is

handed over to promoters instead of being dictated by the dancers.

233

Freestyle Session (1995),

began in California by “Cross One” a bboy/promoter), Bboy Summit (1995), and IBE aka

International Breaking Extravaganza (1998) were famous battling venues that breakers all over

the world aspired to attend. Because of the publicity, hype and prestige these organized battles

eventually became the only place breakers would battle. This radically changed the tradition and

art of battling by standardizing the movement, and altered the prime aesthetics of the form --

eliminating the element of “surprise,” the spontaneity (thinking fast and dancing faster) that

attracted devotees in the first place.

By the 2000s, breaking battles were sporting events supporting essentialism, separatism

and women’s inferiority to men. Currently, the rules and regulations that monitor mainstream

sports culture influence the dancing and the structure of battles, compromising the democracy of

the form.

234

Through the categorization of movement into sport-like competition, dancers lose the

choice of which movements to execute and what movement is considered “good” or “bad.” For

example, Emiko “bgirl Emiko” Sugiyama reveals the following about battling decisions. “… If

they [judges] say ‘Oh, we are looking for power move,’” then of course I have to do power move

to win the battle.”

235

Lauren “bgirl Ellz” Rodeheaver states, “When you’re in a sport like

230

Asia One would go on to judge Battle of the Year 2004 and many others.

231

www.battleoftheyear.com, 1990.

232

Cooper, We B*Girls, 85. Quote from Alien Ness.

233

Jorge “Laces” Gallo, “Tribal Floor Wars II,”

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=524760855&v=app_2344061033#!/event.php?eid=113273255407513&in

dex=1 (accessed December 21, 2010). For example, on C.I.P.H.E.R.’s (Florida State University’s hip hop

organization) Tribal Floor Wars II (hip hop jam scheduled January 15, 2010 by C.I.P.H.E.R.) facebook page, the

rules of the battle are listed. It reads, “**** ONLY ONE ROUTINE OR COMMANDO PER BATTLE**** (* OR*

means, if you do a routine, you can’t do a commando and vice versa! Basically pick one of the two to do and that’s

it)” as of December 21, 2010. This is interesting because something that was created by women is actively being

excluded from competitions.

234

Today, bboys and bgirls battle most often in set-up competitions as opposed to spontaneously in the cipher.

235

Schloss, Foundation, 123. My brackets.

breaking, there’s so many different things. There are some things that guys do, and some things

that girls do.”

236

Furthermore, battles have become separated in terms of sex. Early Rock Steady

Crew bboy Ken Swift states: “You shouldn’t separate or segregate boy or girl… because I see

that now [2000s] where it’s like bgirl events. We never said ‘boy events and girls are not

invited’… I don’t know what the underlying theme is, but that’s not the way to do it. We need to

be together, everybody.”

237

In addition to organized battles, exhibition battles became popular. These battles are non-

judged one-time showcases of two semi-famous crews “battling” (a complete misuse of the

word) in order to “give a good show.” “Europe vs. USA” in 1997 and “Ultimate Session” in

1998 are the first two recorded exhibition battles.

238

Unfortunately, these battles exert the same

determining power over breaking that the media commanded in the 1980s, and almost

singlehandedly, they govern what is good breaking and what is not. In 1990 in Berlin, Germany,

“Battle of the Year” was the very first, and now the oldest, organized battle. Originally, this

event consisted only of shows and performances. However as the “battle” popularity grew, it

began featuring shows, thus creating a physical and ideological separation of battling from the

dancing. Battling was taken out of its original context and became a showcase, a spectacle that

garnered international media attention. Showcase-battles were like dance competitions and talent

shows. Exhibition-battles also became popular, exhibiting only the well-known crews “battling”

but, an exhibition-battle is actually collaboration between two crews since no one “wins.” This is

slightly different than the set-up battles where the crews may collaborate as well, but in this case,

the collaboration is created in order to increase one crew’s chances of winning. These groups and

types of battles have affected the breaking world’s idea of performance on many levels. Breakers

usually explain that a battle is not a performance. The media have always loved the flash of what

they see as “power moves” (not always the most difficult moves), and because they are now

controlling what is “good” and “not good,” power moves became the focus of the form. In fact,

now there are “power move” battles, which consist only of this category of power moves

(considered something manly).

236

Ellz, phone interview with the author, March 2, 2009.

237

Ken Swift on Bgirls youtube clip and Mr. Wiggles’ website. Ken Swift is a third generation bboy who pioneered

moves such as the air baby and the elbow slide. It is clear that Ken Swift is not aware or of the rampant

discrimination of women in hip hop which has led them to create their own spaces.

238

There may have been other exhibition battles but because these were recorded they become the only

documentation of exhibition battles. Exhibition battles became more popular after the 1990s.

Although breaking was/is the main dance form featured in these large organized battles,

locking and popping battles were also allowed to be a part of it. Unfortunately, these battles

alienated hip-hop party dancers and the real freestylers, who got stuck between existing in the

underground or being co-opted by the media. Effectively, through competition segregation,

regulations, and the increasing emphasis on power-moves, bgirls became a tiny and intimidated

minority, afraid to enter the cipher. By the mid-2000s, they were completely alienated from the

competitions and many stopped coming to them all together.

From the beginning, bgirls (as opposed to women who specialized in the other hip hop

styles) had to overcome prejudice from the bboys. It was permissible to stand and encourage, it

was another thing to enter the circle. Auristela “Lady Champ” Nunez recalled, “I always wanted

to break. My cousins use to break in the early ‘80s and wouldn’t teach me ‘cause I was a

girl.’”

239

I also asked Honey Rockwell about the prevalence of women breaking in the 1990s and

she states, “There were other women in other crews. For every crew that was even out [there],

they tried to represent with at least one girl.”

240

The Rock Steady Crew grew from having one

female dancer, Daisy “Baby Love” Castro in the 1980s, to having three more women in the

1990s: Masami

241

from Japan, Honey Rockwell from the Bronx and Asia-One.

242

More women

were being let into bboy crews (probably through a sense that it would be prudent and good for

the bboy crew’s image) with at least one girl, yet the numbers of women were purposely kept

low in crews. For example, Bgirl Asia-One states, “It was frustrating being the ‘token’ girl in the

crew.” For some bgirls this also meant that they were competing with each other, or with bgirls

from other crews since the “token” girl was a person on whom the crews could capitalize. Asia-

One explains that she was not able to perform because of her skill level and position in the crew.

She stated, “For instance, in RSC, since Honey had more seniority than me and was better than

me (initially), she got the gig since “Legs”

243

usually only used one [itals mine] girl per show.”

244

Despite the reality that there were three women in Rock Steady Crew, only one of them was

allowed to perform. In making this selection, the men were intentionally sending out the idea that

only a few women should be allowed in breaking crews. There were many more women

239

Lady Champ, email interview with the author, January 7, 2010.

240

Honey Rockwell, email interview with the author, January 25, 2010.

241

Was not able to find her family name.

242

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

243

Crazy Legs, one of the most famous bboys and president of the Rock Steady Crew.

244

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

participating openly in breaking than before. However, there were still issues with being the only

woman. Lady Champ explains “I did have issues. I grew up with my crew [and] I couldn’t relate

to them a lot, and I always wondered why. I was in an all-guy crew ‘Chicago Champions Crew’;

I was the only girl…. There was no girls in Chicago at the time [when] I was breakin'. It felt like

I was solo. I felt weird, alone, and like the black sheep. It was very lonely time for me because I

couldn’t relate to them, and them to me, on certain things. As I got older I realized it’s cause I’m

a Lady!”

245

Bboys who teach women are often unaccepting of the fact that women’s bodies

function differently. Lady Champ also noted “It was awkward to break when I was on my period,

or didn’t wanna break when I was crampin’. They didn’t understand. I [also] would break a little

different 'cause I had feminine fat, lol.”

246

However, where women were successful and dominated as hip hop dancers, was in the

enormously popular TV shows such as In Living Color as the Fly Girls. In music videos women

were almost always bopping in the background and provided a pretty, saucy addition. This

inequality in job opportunities must have rankled the male dancers in hip-hop. They began to

proclaim, “if you don’t have bboys in your video then you’re not doing hip hop.”

247

The

contextual causes of this female-prevalence is the result of how hip hop was regionalizing in the

United States.

Since the mid-1980s the steady rise of Jamaican “dance hall” music, and southern bass

out of Miami and Atlanta (“bass” features the lowest booming bass beats of hip-hop music),

accompanied by the buttock and pelvic-centric party-dance styles had been seeping into the

national forms, adding different and sexualized flavors to hip hop-party dance, and to some of

the moves in breaking. When Miami Bass came to the forefront in the late 1980s and early

1990s, both women and men were using this movement. Originally, however, these butt-centric

dances did not mark women as sexually available in the south. But this would change. Music

video producers/rappers saw it as an economic opportunity and way to increase and control the

sexualized reception of the macho rapper. By the end of the 1990s, southern styles had

infiltrated the music and lyrics and either influenced or were involved in the creation of “30 to 40

245

Lady Champ, email interview with the author, January 7, 2010.

246

Ibid.

247

The Freshest Kids. This is also true of the word bboying. Pioneers will say to “keep it real” or “true” you must

call the dance form bboying. This means that any other manifestation may be considered “fake” or “mainstream.”

This is also an attempt to discredit the women in the videos.

percent” of the “singles” (records or DVDs) at the top of the hip-hop charts.

248

But the biggest

boost came from Miami’s Uncle Luke (Luther Campbell) and the 2 Live Crew, “possibly the

first Miami bass record to feature on its cover the backside of a scantily clad black woman—a

connection between bottom-heavy ladies and bottom heavy music that would be drawn

forever.”

249

Hip hop music producers and rappers leapt on what 2 Live Crew began and in music

videos, such as those of Uncle Luke and many, many others, the clichéd trope was that women

slithered around in supportive roles (like living sexualized bling-bling), dripping off the arms and

necks of somewhat indifferent men. Women were portrayed as sexually ravenous animals who

clung to the rappers’ bodies or they bounced about in the background. They were scantily clad

(often bikini-clad) “arm candy” doing a lot of sexually explicit butt- and pelvic-swiveling, with

“shaking it” as the central feminine dance motif.

250

Such problematic representations of women overshadowed women’s significance in hip

hop culture, and clearly, it had a damaging influence on female dancers. As hip-hop

choreographer Rennie Harris states, “For whatever reason, the males take the spotlight in hip-

hop. Although there are a lot of women who do hip-hop, and who are amazing, the media push

or highlight women for their sexuality. They don’t emphasize women to show their skill and

ability.”

251

The 1980’s dancers Snap Shot and WandeePOP described how the 1990s affected

their identities. “It was not until the 1990s when it was all about shaking the booty and showing

lots of skin that we realized our style was considered hard, and not feminine. Their version of

what they call hip hop was jazz fusion to a hip hop beat and the exploitation of women.”

252

Bgirls now (suffered) felt the challenge the female body’s “preexisting meanings, as sex object,

as object of the male gaze,” which ultimately “can prevail… despite the intentions of the woman

herself.”

253

Although women were entering the ciphers, there were multiple layers of “approvals” to

move through. During the 1990s, bgirls were still hidden from the forefront of the culture.

248

Sarig, Third Coast, xiv.

249

Ibid., 20. Now this movement is considered a part of strip culture.

250

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2 Live Crew. 2 Live Crew 1989 album, As Nasty as they Wanna Be,

featured sexually explicit lyrics, with song titles like “We Want some Pussy” and “Throw that Dick.”

251

Rennis Harris, “Rennie Harris” in Further Steps 2: Fourteen Choreographers on What’s the RAGE in Dance?

Edited by Constance Kreemer (New York: Routledge, 2008) 79-94.

252

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with the author, December 2, 2009.

253

Janet Wolff, “Reinstating Corporeality: Feminism and Body Politics” in Meaning and Motion: New Cultural

Studies of Dance, edited by Jane C. Desmond (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997) 81-99.

Hence, the spectators encouraged and the bboys -- who were numerous and obvious --

discouraged the few bgirls -- whether good or bad. Certainly moving into the cipher was about

proving oneself. “Most times people underestimated what I could do so getting in the circle was

a trial by fire.”

254

Nevertheless, sometimes being good was not enough. “As I got better, some

heads would purposely say I was ‘whack’ or not as good as the other girls who were doin’ other

moves.”

255

Certainly it is true that without substantial prior experience in breaking, the energy of

a cipher can destroy a dancer’s ability to grow, and women are especially affected by this.

Rokafella explains how her confidence in the cipher changed when she reached a certain skill

level. “I think I peaked in 1998 when I had a lot of moves I always wanted, like windmills, tracks

and lots of footwork and freezes. But in 2004 [when] I was asked to go judge international

competitions, I felt I had reached a good place with my skills because I was able to dance with

real good breakers, and not feel like I was under-the-standard.”

256

This is the main reason Asia-

One created her all-bgirl crew No Easy Props in 1997.

On the other hand, bgirls, could also receive “props”

257

just for being girls, for being out

there in the cipher. Baby Love believes this. “I think every girl group that’s out there is good,

because they’ve got the nerve to do it.”

258

However, this can also be disadvantageous and

condescending. As Asia-One explains, “Throughout the years [No Easy Props] has evolved

more into a movement, and the motto, for what most of us [women] in hip hop stand for, which

is hard work and dedication to our skills, taking no shorts [shortcut] and earning respect the real

way.”

259

Condescension is the perception that No Easy Props aims to eradicate. However, it is

extremely hard on bgirls because women receive so much negativity within ciphers. Rokafella

states, “To my dismay, no matter how I excelled at my club steps, some guy would always have

to grab me or humiliate me in the circle—as if to say ‘But you can’t beat this!’” Rokafella

explains that bboys would do this to other girls as well. She continues, “I would observe how the

other girls would not want to get into the circle. I also noticed this was not [itals mine] how they

handled one another—man to man. Among the guys, it was either straight respect, or straight

254

Rokafella, email interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

255

Cooper, We B*Girls, 10.

256

Rokafella, interview with the author, October 18, 2009. It is important to note that the community has a huge

influence on determining whether a dancer is good or not. In hip hop, men ultimately set the standard for women’s

level of respect.

257

Props means respect, congratulations or recognition for doing something impressive.

258

Guevara, “ Women Writin’ Rappin’ Breakin’,” 58.

259

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

battle skills.”

260

Moreover, many bgirls’ self-surveillance to submit wholeheartedly to the bboy

masculine codes, conclude that discrimination does not exist or they downplay the prevalence of

sexism in hip hop suffer from the false consciousness. I asked Honey Rockwell if she had issues

being a woman she stated: “Yes, of course. But I don’t think it was a gender thing as much as it

was just having experience in your business, and your level of skills.”

261

Asia-One reiterates this

belief. “Hip hop is about skills, not about gender.”

262

Women began to monitor themselves to dance hard like men, both in the burns and in the

impossibly difficult skills. There were some extraordinarily punishing moves in breaking that

took extraordinary upper-body strength, like the “hollow/holla back,” where the body is in an

inverted handstand with the hands as the balancing point and the head moves towards the front

of the body past the arms and the legs reach towards the back of the body.

In striving to fit the bboy mold many bgirls connect their struggles with discrimination

with their skill levels (technical level). Bgirls began to believe that if you are “whack then you

are whack” -- and it has nothing to do with sex. For example when Asia-One explained that she

did not dance alongside other women in Rock Steady, highlighting that the reasons for not being

able to dance with RSC as being issues of experience and affiliation with the crew. However, she

stated a very clear fact about discrimination in hip hop: She knew that Crazy Legs only used one

girl per show. However she downplays this fact by explaining, “But I’m not gonna front [lie].

That made me work harder to get better to earn more gigs. Scarce resources make you put up or

shut up. Ain’t no use in complaining. We got to get up, get into it, and get involved!”

263

On the one hand, this is a great way to overcome discrimination. On the other hand,

discrimination is being swept under the rug by implying that if one is “blaming gender,” it is not

really the point, since it is actually only the result of not “having skill.” Discrimination was not

only inbred, it was used to regulate ideas about breaking in teaching a singular (masculine) way

of doing things. This is only one example of the way that all-male crews used women to their

advantage. Bgirls have to work unfairly twice as hard, yet they still have to master certain

movements in order to gain respect as a bgirl, while many bboys are not held to the same

standards in the breaking community. By blaming themselves, bgirls are perpetuating the idea

260

Cooper, We B*Girls, 10. Rokafella quote.

261

Honey Rockwell, email interview with the author, January 25, 2010.

262

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

263

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

that gender discrimination simply “goes away” once one has the skills. Using this kind of

rationale is a way to perpetuate women’s discrimination against other women, setting the

established bgirl against other bgirls, especially beginners. Rokafella addresses this discrepancy

and how approval is also framed in sexual terms. “Then, when I got the skills to show off in a

circle, I was [still] approached by many guys who were flirting with me, and I had to figure out

who was good, or bad, for me. When I finally got a dance partner boyfriend, it was easier. But

the guys would just get slicker with how they flirted.”

264

Because of up rocking’s entrance into breaking through organized events (uprock is hip-

hop battle-dancing based on the gang behavior and initiations; different from top rocking which

is danced before going to the floor in breaking) many of the male-centric phallic gestures, began

to enter the form. In the1990s’ bgirls started using this uprocking language frequently

265

while

breaking -- but they also expanded on the concepts of creative gestural-burns from earlier

decades. They might, for example, build a short narrative -- on the beat. “I was more into

storytelling type shit. So I would rock (uprock) on my opponent: I would stab ‘em, shoot ‘em,

sweep up dust and blow it in the air, kiss ‘em goodbye!”

266

Instead of just stabbing someone, the

usual cliché, a bgirl might stab them then begin shoveling at the ground, suggesting burying her

opponent.

267

The 1990s was a particularly rich period where female expressivity and “feminine”

gestural language was played with as well as male language (gestures are like everyday body

language). Sadly by the 2000s, female gestural language has become a very limited category.

However, there are bgirls who use them. Adrienne “Vendetta” Lee explains how she flavors her

gestures with femininity. “I like to take it a little bit further and make it more magical so people

can know what I’m doing.”

268

Making it more magical might include doing a gesture entirely to

the beat of a song. SnapShot and WandeePOP said “We used the lipstick, the mirror, sexy walk,

putting on perfume, fixing the hair, and sexy props in the 1990s.”

269

264

Rokafella, email interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

265

This is not to say that guns, aggression etc are masculine or male. These ideas become male because of the

context. Because hip hop was and is male dominated, a perspective of phallic imagery and dominance through the

idea of penetration reigns supreme in the intent of gestural language. Therefore by this I define it as male centered.

266

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

267

Ibid.

268

Vendetta, phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

269

SnapShot and WandeePOP, email interview with the author, December 2, 2009.

Gestural language is telling of the individual and their expression. Bgirls of all

generations have grappled with movement and gestural language, trying to balance the idea of

femininity and masculinity as it pertains to their expression as women. “I dressed different; I

always added a feminine twist to my gear. I wore lipstick, earrings.”

270

To remedy this problem, they define “moves” (which are usually gestures) as burns

(when the gestures purposely demean and belittle the opponent). Bgirls believe that one should

“let the movements speak for themselves.” Bgirls of the 1990’s generation expand the idea of

moves as burns. Honey Rockwell states, “When I battled, I basically was more about the moves

than the gestures [here she means gestures as burns].” Honey Rockwell was not the only bgirl

who believed in using moves as burns. I asked Colleen “Miss Twist” Soto what burns she used

and she explained, “Not many. Mostly [I] tried to burn with moves.”

271

Bgirls who burn with

moves use simple gesturing as a kind of strong/hard punctuation at the finish of a

sentence/movement phrase. “I dance with my hands. And just put hands out, like ‘Take that!’ or

‘Bring it!’”

272

However, moves are specific breaking vocabulary that becomes a burn because of

its dynamism and/or potency, virtuosity rather than the witty undercutting of the contestant.

A large amount of bgirls’ gestural language comes from mimicking the gestural language

of bboys that I have classified into two main categories: cross-gendered gestures and male-

reproductive power gestures. Cross-gendered gestures are the iconic posed actions and

mannerisms associated with men -- with dominant reference to black masculinity and being

specific to hip hop culture. Most of these gestures for bgirls cast back to an embodiment of

traditional gender stereotypes of male/masculine equals strength; and, female/feminine equals

weakness. This traditionalism is what many of today’s bgirls strive to embody. For example,

pointing directly at an opponent with two fingers, and posturing and posing with arms crossed,

shoulders in a symmetrical position, with wide-legged open stances, are considered masculine.

Vendetta explains, “I like to do things that people normally wouldn’t do, you know? ‘Cause you

have those typical gestures that people naturally do, like shooting a gun. But if I do shoot a gun,

I’ll do something like shoot myself in the knee and, you know, like break down, and do

270

Lady Champ, email interview with the author, January 7, 2010.

271

Miss Twist, email interview with the author, December 23, 2009.

272

Rokafella, email interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

something and reload.”

273

“Candy”

274

Bloise says, “I like brushing my shoulders off, kicking

dust at people, shooting people.”

275

Male reproductive-power gestures reference claiming power through the male-

reproductive anatomy (the penis and the balls) and is theorized by Katherine Rosenfeld, author

of “Drag King Magic: Performing/Becoming the Other” as phallic desire. By the 2000s, the

emphasis on masculinity and power had become so prevalent that of all the homogenized

language, male-reproductive burns became the most popular. For example, burns that reference

traditional feminine gestures such as blowing kisses and batting the eyelashes becomes a specific

statement when used by men -- “ I’m so good I can be feminine ( act submissively) and still beat

you.” These gestures clearly communicate misogyny (discussed further in Ch.6). I asked 1990’s

bgirls what they thought of these gestures and most said that they see bgirls doing them more

today than in the past. Honey Rockwell said “I see it being done all the time. Even now (2010),

people still do it.

276

Moreover, the most infamous burn, in a category by itself was made

notorious by 2 Live Crew’s song, “Throwing the D,” or “cocking.”

277

Throwing the cock is a

gesture that uses the penis or its excretions (pee or ejaculation) in a sexually-dominating manner.

One example is crotch-grabbing,

278

a well-worn staple in hip-hop culture from the crotch-

clutching, microphone-manipulating emcee to the penis-extending bboy. The gesture, of course,

also alludes to the little boy-child who, when he discovers his penis’ vulnerability, is constantly

holding it, cupping it, protecting it and fondling it. It is also decidedly rude behavior by a man.

Some examples of crotch-grabbing prove to be male statements of superiority. For example, men

grab the crotch during a number of movements especially power moves. While executing a

variation of a windmill (continuous backspin) called “nut crackers,” bboys hold their crotch the

entire time. Complicating this is the fact that bboys do the crotch-grab during power moves,

something unexpected of women to perform, the gesture makes the movement decidedly anti-

273

Vendetta, phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

274

Her real name is also her dance name.

275

Candy, phone interview with the author, September 29, 2009.

276

Honey Rockwell, email interview with the author, January 25, 2010.

277

Cocking is another term for raping someone (metaphorically through movement).

278

Crotch grabbing raised considerable discontent with bgirls being defined as a “masculine” gesture. Many

explained crotch grabbing as a neutral gesture because “guys and girls both have crotches.” However, part of the

power of gesturing lies in its nuance and the perception of others. Therefore because of its larger association and

meaning as a male oriented gesture in hip hop culture, I categorize it as a masculine gesture.

woman. Grabbing the crotch is like stating “I have the penis/ balls so I have the power,” which is

today used by a number of bgirls.

Going into the 2000s, cocking has expanded in usage, meaning and graphically-mimed

depictions. The most basic structure for throwing the dick includes a hip-thrusting motion, which

can be executed once or repeatedly. Some of these movements include grabbing the crotch

combined with a thrust, or, holding out the arms parallel with the ground and thrusting

repeatedly. A common gesture phrase accompanying this is to mime an extended penis,

symbolizing power over the opponent. When executed, it becomes synonymous with sexual

harassment/rape (like forcing someone to suck a penis). In this gesture, the penis is mimetically

held at the base with one hand, with the other hand at the tip of the penis (bigger is better), while

the hips are thrust forward as if to say “Take this!” Going further, the gesture is sometimes

accompanied by masturbatory or ejaculatory actions (semen being the ultimate dominating

finish), indicating power gained during, or after, the dancer executes this movement. For

example, in a battle a bboy, after thrusting repeatedly, would send his body into a full-body

tremor, depicting the end of ejaculation or dominance. When used against the opponent, it is

literally mimed. This opponent can be taken by “surprise” or the opponent may be totally

oblivious about what is being mimed. For example, a bboy and a bgirl are battling. As the bgirl

finishes her sequence with a freeze on the floor the bboy mimetically shoves the dick into her

mouth. An example of unawareness would be if a bboy were to slide on his head with his back

facing her, and she might “cock” (rape) him from behind without the opponent’s knowledge.

This material is raw, but it is the vocabulary of battle. What mediates its fundamental

repugnance is that is executed quickly and always on the beat, in rhythm with the music. If the

gestures fall off the beats of the music, the gestural phrase is considered a bust and the dancer is

dismissed, and is transformed into a gross loser.

I asked bgirl Rokafella what male-oriented gestures she saw women using in the 1990s.

She answered “I do [see women use male gestures]. But it usually is using an imaginary

penis…’throwing the dick.’” How many bgirls of the 1990s have thrown the dick? Rokafella

responded, “I never threw a dick cuz I use my breasts or my ass if I want to get vulgar with it.”

279

Miss Twist explains “I have done it as a joke, because I think it is funny…never serious…. I

279

Rokafella, email interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

have seen women do it. And to each their own. But it’s not for me.”

280

Asia-One explains, “I

remember back in freestyle session 2001 or 2002 when No Easy Props battled I was throwing d’s

to the Philly crew we were battling. It was kinda cool, back then, a powerful statement coming

from a woman like, ‘I can do that shit too, don’t matter!’ I still see girls doing it today. It’s kinda

played out though.”

281

Oldschool bgirls today and the mature bgirls of the New Millennium, are beginning to

reconsider the adaption of cocking. As Janet Wolff writes about dealing with the female body in

western society, “It is through the body, too, that women in our culture learn their own particular

form of self-surveillance.”

282

For the bgirl, this means re-considering her representations of

femininity in the high-testosterone world of breaking. She needs to reclaim herself, with new

representations. Bgirls are thinking of themselves as women and are becoming conscious of the

gender and identity expressivity. The discursive practices that produce female-ness in hip hop

need to be reformulated.

Bgirl Rokafella confesses in thinking about her use of male reproductive burns, “At first I

used to grab my pants in the crotch area cuz I knew sexual reference was how to humiliate or

intimidate... but as I said before, it was in the beginning that I was following the guys lead.... It

then changed when I began to see that sex could not possibly express my power over the

opponent when dance skills was in question.” She is among a handful of very influential bgirl

practitioners whose ideas can, and will, affect how women may choose to represent themselves

and the field. “I felt like I wanted to prove that I was capable of physically maneuvering my

body around without fear. I wanted to show that I could be aggressive also, and [I could] execute

physically hard moves, too. But as I a matured, I realize my blending of grace and aggression is

what makes my expression so unique.”

283

Contemporary bgirls struggle with the idea of

femininity and masculinity. Another bgirl named Tammy “Kadence” Tso explained “I actually

am not the one who does a lot of burns. I think part of it is where I’m at right now. And the other

part is figuring out how I feel about a lot of them.” Kadence explains that a burn has to be her

way of showing something about herself. To her, “It’s all about finding creative ways to do

280

Miss Twist, email interview with the author, December 23, 2009. In this quote Miss Twist explains that she uses

it as a joke but also states that the gesture is not for her, maybe stating that when used as a joke it is ok but when

used seriously it is not for her.

281

Asia-One, email interview with the author, January 5, 2010.

282

Wolff, “Reinstating Corporeality,” 87.

283

Rokafella, email interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

that.”

284

They are attempting to find ways to blur the edges of the female/male binary, to find a

new identity that will fit ideologies and new hip hop iterations of the 21

Century.

284

Kadence, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009.

CHAPTER 5

2000s

OPPRESSION THROUGH PANOPTICISM AND THE ABJECT

BODY: BATTLING AS SELF-DISCOVERY

A statement written in 1988 by feminist Sandra Bartky identifies one of the major issues

for New Millennium bgirls: “In contemporary patriarchal culture, a panoptical male connoisseur

resides within the consciousness of most women.”

285

The “panoptical male connoisseur,” Bartky

argues, exists to keep femininity in order and to monitor and control women. Certainly the

panoptical male in bgirls’ consciousness exists to completely restrain femininity and the female

body from reproducing images of femaleness.

As Little explains, “Marx asserts that social mechanisms emerge in class society that

systematically create distortions, errors and blindspots in the consciousness of the underclass. If

these consciousness shaping mechanisms did not exist, then the underclass, always the majority

would quickly overthrow the system of their domination.”

286

Men (The Anxious Patriarch) are

threatened by commercial hip hop’s femininity, the power it holds in defining hip hop and how

many women have entered the realm of hip hop over the last 20 years -- commercial or not. As

mentioned before, if we include all manifestations of hip hop as valid, women at the very least

equal the number of men in hip hop -- which makes the men anxious. Bgirls , the underclass

here, are under the influence of Foundation, the social mechanism put in place to dominate and

control women and femininity in hip hop.

One of the principle methods of control is the teaching of “Foundation” (the codified

early technique of breaking). It began in the 1990s, then picked up intensity in the 2000s, so that

by 2005 panoptic oppression was more pervasive than ever before. Thoroughly inculcated into

bgirl practices, to step outside the rules is considered disrespectful to hip hop history. The

panoptic invasion of the bgirls’ psyche is instilled in three ways: 1) Men are teaching women to

dance, so 2) male ideas are embedded in the aesthetics, assuring that the panoptic guardian of

masculinity is internally in place, and 3) these ideas are reiterated on to others through ubiquitous

285

Bartky, “Foucault and Femininity.”

286

http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/iess%20false%20consciousness%20V2.htm.

battle burns. Other methods of control are the numerous international, national and regional

competitions that are formally organized and judged and serve to rigidify what had been a

flexible and innovative dance form.

The influence of male teachers plays a crucial role in how women learn about expression

of self. Bgirls are vulnerable when learning because they want to be accepted and generally

want to be judged as “good.” Bboy Alien Ness is very clear on this subject. “I teach a lot of girls

now because, from my standpoint, they are easier to teach….A b-girl wants to be able to do what

you can do [meaning the male teacher], so she’s gonna take it and absorb it.”

287

Almost every

bgirl said her inspiration came from her crew, usually all or mostly all-male. Naturally if

something “looks” or is “wrong,” a good teacher will correct it. Since the panoptical bboy

connoisseur guards against emasculation from the biological and imaginative female,

288

bgirls’

expressions are policed. For women who may interpret or approach movement differently from

the established canon, this can be profoundly problematic. Instead of being innovative or

“original,” women’s bodies are marked as wrong. In writing about literature, Marilyn Francus

states, “this condemnation of female authors [and by extension their creativity] functions within

a broader literary agenda: to promote a masculinist model of art.”

289

Therefore when bgirls dance

and accept these ideas, they will be praised. Bgirl Mona Lisa describes how it works.

“Sometimes I’ll be doing moves, and the guys I practice with would be like, ‘Damn, you totally

look like a dude [itals mine] when you do that!’ and I’ll be like, ‘Yes!’ Because that’s like, I

don’t want to look all-girly when I’m doing stuff, you know?”

290

Thus, bgirls may never have

authorship over the movement they make. Bgirls are ridiculed for not “totally looking like a

dude.” Stasha “Bgirl Stash-One” Sampson explains that her crew constantly urges her to be

more “masculine.” “I hear that from the crew all the time you know? ‘Don’t be girly,’ or you

know, ‘Try and rock like a guy,’ so I’m going more on that end of it.”

291

All of these influences

287

Cooper, We B* Girlz, 135. Alien Ness does go on to say, “… if she is a good b-girl, she’s gonna flip it, to the

point where you hardly recognize it.” However, he later explains that teaching is all about spreading his personal

legacy.

288

The imaginative female was used in battle by the bboys when they were much younger in the 1970s. For

example, the pin-up girl poses etc.

289

Marilyn Francus, “The Monstrous Mother: Reproductive Anxiety in Swift and Pope,” ELH 61, no.4 (Winter

1994), http://www.jstor.org/stable/2873360.

290

Mona Lisa, phone interview with the author, February, 26, 2009.

291

Stash-One, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009. The crew she speaks of is HBO crew based in

Atlanta. The meaning of their crew used to be “Home Boys Only.” They recently changed it to Hebrew, Black and

Oriental.” However, “Home Boys Only” is apparent in their enforcement of misogynistic ideals of dance on women.

are expressed very quickly in movement phrases or spoken expectations. However, these ideas

are also systematically taught through the fixed teaching philosophies of “Foundation.”

292

Ken Swift, bboy and Rock Steady Crew member says, “I don’t want people to take these

dances into the New Millennium on some different whole vibe and feel and origin. You know, I

think it’s important to teach the people about where these dances came from, and how people

felt, you know, so they can take it on to the next level.”

293

As Sarah Laboskey writes, “For male

teenagers growing up in poor, dangerous neighborhoods, the desire to become someone, to

overcome and make it out as somebody is a powerful drive.”

294

For this reason, Foundation is

more than a codification of movements. It is a code of honor and respect given to the pioneers --

from executing the movement like the pioneers to breaking for the same reasons as the original

creators of the form. For example, in The Freshest Kids numerous old-school bboys explained

their ideas of originality and breaking. Jo Jo, one of the two founders of the Rock Steady Crew

states “Whoever wants to keep it real will keep calling it bboying.”

295

What does this mean for bgirls? Crazy legs states “We [itals mine] did the first shows

and set the Foundation for what has become an industry, and we ain’t getting no love. Why is

that?”

296

This question articulates the idea that Foundation was put in place to preserve the

“original ideas of the pioneers.” Alien Ness of the Zulu Kings and Essential Rockers is a prime

example of the teaching philosophies that many older generations of breakers believe. “If I don’t

ever break again, I wanna be able to go to a show, go to a battle and still see Alien Ness. That’s

what teaching is all about.”

297

He further proves that teaching is not about the individual coming

up with their “original style,” but a way to keep the ideas of his originality alive. “My mission is

to keep the original shit alive.”

298

What is the original shit? “When you get everybody doing shit

that you created, that’s when you can say, ‘OK, I did what I had to do!’”

299

Teaching is more

about keeping each of the creators’ names alive than it is about teaching someone else to grow

through the art form as a person. And, these legacies carry with them deep patriarchal codes of

292

Also referred to as the original style or being original.

293

The Freshest Kids.

294

Sarah Laboskey, “Getting Off: Portrayals of Masculinity in Hip Hop Dance in Film,” Dance Journal Research

33:2 (Winter 2001): 112-120.

295

The Freshest Kids.

296

Ibid.

297

Cooper, We B* Girlz,135.

298

Ibid.

299

Ibid.

order. Laboskey states, “Hip hop dance has provided the arena for the expression and affirmation

of masculinity. Built into this artistry is competition and domination, sexuality and libido, and

hero worship,” and these concepts manifest in every aspect of many of the pioneers’ pedagogical

methods. For example, Fire Starter explains her distaste for ideas such as Foundation and what

they create.

“In this era, there are so many politics. Now [old-school and up-and-coming

dancers] all they’re doing is going to other people’s countries and telling them

what’s right and wrong -- when everybody has their own verse, just like the bible,

a belief you know, just like a culture. We all have our own version. I’m not here to say

I’m the first of whatever. When I go to other countries, I feel bad when I hear ‘Oh we

studied so hard and learned this.’ So I just don’t respect how other people now are

building this way of their own truth, or, ways that everybody gotta follow.”

300

This resembles the competitiveness of colonization and is an ongoing debate in hip-hop dance

and in the culture overall. These ideas were verbalized during a class being taught by a bboy

pioneer, Ken Swift, who teaches at the PMT studios in Manhattan. He proclaimed to the class, “I

am not gonna teach you my personal shit. Why would I show you all my moves?” Though

different from Alien Ness, Swift’s statement displays the same priorities outlined by Laboskey.

Alien Ness seeks to dominate by perpetuating all his moves; but, because Ken Swift is still

battling, he teaches with the idea of competition (he will not give away his best moves).

Sexuality and libido are not only demonstrated in the gestural language, but in the idea of having

the force and stamina to be able to dance for hours without tiring. And, of course, hero worship

is obvious through the pioneers themselves and their Foundation. The idea of old school -- or

what people believe to be “authentic” -- changes geographically.

301

For example, Carla “Ill

Mischief” Silveira describes her observation of Florida’s interpretation of Foundation. “I

definitely um, don’t necessarily have a typical Florida Foundation. I do a lot of foundation, but

300

Fire Starter, phone interview with the author, January 27, 2010.

301

Pabon, Jorge “Fabel,” The Last Bboys in New York, youtube.com/watch?v=ftj0l3MMEOs (accessed September 5,

2009). Even with the older generations ideas of old school or original style change. For example Fabel is creating a

documentary entitled “The Last bboys in New York.” This idea of unpredictability and dynamism is different from

the general idea of foundation that most people know from the Rock Steady Crew. Although the idea of foundation

that “The Last Bboys in New York” discusses is more about a quality of the dance rather than a particular lineage of

certain people’s movements and ideas, it still polices what movements should and should not be done.

I’ve always had a slightly cheekier attitude. For a long time, when I first moved down to Miami,

it was very much ‘Oh you know you can’t look like a girl…’ People really get burned a lot for

that.”

302

Florida style is essentially equivalent to dancing like a man. This is a very

discriminatory attitude that would be based on what it means to “dance like a guy” or “not look

like a girl.” Paradoxically, self-expression is hindered through this very restrictive form of

codification but many bgirls become fixated on the idea of “authenticity,” “keeping it real” or

keeping it “old school.” Tiffany “Schizo” Hines states “Knowing the culture and the

Foundation, it means a lot to me, because, it’s like my character.”

303

Schizo gives an example of

the false consciousness. Charlotte “Pretty Sick” Schultz explains her favorite movements as

“Any kind of like, dope original type of footwork that stays within the boundaries the dance was

meant to stay in.”

304

Pretty Sick elaborated on this idea further. What did she mean by “original,”

and what are the boundaries that “the dance was meant to stay in?” “Well, you know there’s

Foundation” she answered. What would be a movement that is not considered staying within the

boundaries? She explained, “Um, that’s really hard to say. That’s not for me to say.”

305

She

continues with the idea that breaking has a history and that one should learn the history and why

they do the dance in order to understand it. However, when analyzed, what she is saying is that

bgirls should dance for the same reasons that the pioneers danced. According to her definition,

old-school or original is equivalent to the bboys from the 1970s and 1980s. In the opinions of

Pretty Sick and many others, one must not only execute and use specific movements of the

pioneers, but they must even dance for the same reasons! The old school or original way is to

preserve the male ideas of breaking culture. For instance, many forms of innovation such as

power moves are accepted as new movement. However, if women execute movements in certain

other ways they are seen as inferior such as a “hollow/holla-back.”

306

During a practice with the

crew Mixed Motions from Augusta Georgia, I observed Edrick “Bboy Kydsonx” Ramsey tell a

bboy not to arch or curve (flexibility is seen as something naturally feminine) his back while

executing the movement. “That’s how the girls [itals mine] do it, man! You wanna have your

body in a straight line because you use more strength.” What is considered as female or as

302

Ill Mischief, phone interview with author, September 29, 2009.

303

Schizo, phone interview with author, December 28, 2009.

304

Pretty Sick, phone interview with author, October 25, 2009.

305

Something for dancers in general to consider: How might one stay within the boundaries of the dance if they

cannot identify and explain them?

306

There are many different names of movements in breaking. I choose to acknowledge them all.

female execution is discouraged and the idea of “Foundation” or the old-school essence is a

patriarchal instrument put in place to sustain male ideas as superior.

Sandra Bartky defines self-surveillance as a form of obedience to patriarchy. Once these

ideas are in place, policing of the body for non-male characteristics becomes an everyday

occurrence of monitoring according to these rules. For example, Pretty Sick explains, “A lot of

times males try to take away that femininity… You have to be masculine enough to stay on that

[masculine] level -- but you have to be feminine enough to stay who you are.”

307

Bgirls, in excluding “feminine” movement begin to discriminate against other women for

using it. “To come out and be a girl and be feminine about it, you’re not truly being a bgirl, I

believe.”

308

Kate “Bgirl K8” Morrissey expresses similar panoptic views of her body when

practicing. “I try to move like a guy as much as possible because I think that it looks better that

way. I’m trying to study the way the guys hold themselves, and the way their hips move when

they go from side-to- side, or, the way that they hold their shoulders or their arms. So, that way, I

can put that into what I do.”

309

When discussing their feelings about the way that men move,

these same two bgirls had negative ideas about what it meant to “dance like a girl.” “Like um,

when you watch bgirls some bgirls really move like girls, and then there are some bgirls who

figured out how to move their bodies like guys. And the ones who move their bodies like guys,

dance better.”

310

Mona Lisa said “I definitely try to move away from looking ‘girly’ when I

break.” When I asked Mona Lisa earlier what was her definition of feminine was, she stated:

“It’s the word weaker.” However, later she shows tension between her choices of trying not to be

“girly” when she goes on to say “There are definitely times where I feel like I wanna do feminine

movement and be girly you know, like… I feel more carefree, I guess. So I guess it affects my

breakin’ that I try not to look feminine.” April “Bgirl Squirrely” Vaughn also strives to keep

feminine movement out of her vocabulary. “Females use their hips a little bit more, um, twirling

around, so on and so forth. Um, I try not to do that. But of course sometimes I do.”

311

307

Pretty Sick, phone interview with author, October 25, 2009.

308

Stash-One, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009. This is the same bgirl who was chastised for

“dancing like a girl.” Now she believes that it is “wrong” or “fake” – much like commercial hip hop – to utilize

femininity -- as a bgirl.

309

K8, phone interview with author, May 7, 2009.

310

Ibid.

311

Squirrely, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009.

The attitude that leads to the embodiment of these gestures starts the second a bgirl

decides to attend an event. Bonita Lovett explains, “From the time you walk into a jam

312

to the

minute you step foot in a cypher, you must have style, grace, and flavor.”

313

But what is style and

flavor and how is it defined? In this case, in the New Millennium, bgirls are being judged on

these characteristics: Now “style” and “flavor” may be defined by how much a dancer adheres to

the panoptic views.

Bgirls have a ritual they follow when it comes to preparing for a jam. Creating a certain

atmosphere, or “feel” for themselves is key, and it depends on what kind of jam they are

attending. For example, when going to a party, the attitude is about having fun and “getting

down.”

314

When one goes to an “organized battle,” the preparation is very different because it

involves evoking aggression.

315

Although battles can produce a number of feelings, the new

focus in the battling encourages negativity. Emiko “Bgirl Emiko” Sugiyama confesses, “When I

battle, I still smile— I can’t help it. I was like, smiling, and people [were] like, ‘Don’t smile!’ I

can’t help it!”

316

For example, Chyna defines breaking as “An opportunity to talk shit, be angry,

and be a badass, and it’s cool. You suck if you can’t do that.”

317

Chyna continues, “You go to a

battle, and the idea is to be aggressive, really offensive, like you’re attacking someone. As a

result, dancers feel they have to choose between being negative and positive. And this has

become especially hurtful to the community of women in hip hop.

318

In Foundation: b-boys, b-

girls, and hip-hop culture in New York, Bgirl Emiko is quoted as recalling an experience at an

all-bgirl event, where she had to choose between connecting with bgirls or battling. Although

Bgirl Emiko did state, “You know females do talk a lot,” connecting talkativeness with being

female, Schloss simply reiterates this stereotype, instead of questioning these traditional gender

ideas. Joe Schloss interprets this. “In Emiko’s eyes, the other bgirls were violating battle protocol

by attempting to be sociable before the competition.”

319

Schloss concludes that bgirl Emiko had

312

Today, the jam is another name for an organized competition.

313

Cooper, We B*Girlz,125.

314

Term for expressing self through dance to the fullest.

315

Schloss, Foundation, 39. Even the music is seen as evoking aggression. For example, Schloss explains the idea

that dancers “carry history in their bodies” by dancing to these songs. He states, “the emotions that the songs

evoke—particularly aggressiveness—provide a deep connection to that history as well.”

316

Schloss, Foundation, 109.

317

Cooper, We B*Girlz,57.

318

Smiling in the previous example with bgirl Emiko is seen as a “feminine” characteristic another approach to

controlling ideas of “femininity” by bboys.

319

Schloss, Foundation.

a tough choice to make: to choose between being female and bgirl. By stating this Schloss

reinscribes the idea that being a bgirl is to not be feminine. In making these decisions, bgirls not

only have a false sense of what the “true essence of battling” is, but they are also discriminating

against each other. However, being female, and being a bgirl, are the same -- and they should

not be separated.

Many bgirls listen to certain types of music before they go to an event. In fact, music

plays a key role in the dancer’s establishing and maintaining the performance mode from

beginning to end. However, there is what Schloss has defined as a “bboy canon” of music that is

expected to be known, and reacted to, in certain ways in order to understand “bboying.”

320

This

too hinders expression in dance. For example, Schloss defines “ The canon, then, is the site of

mutual influence: bboys who wish to maintain these steps [Foundation] as a part of their dance

will show a strong preference for bboy songs. At the same time, the continued prevalence of b-

boy songs preserves such steps as an integral part of bboying.”

321

So, the question is: Are you a

real bboy or bgirl if you do not show a strong preference for these songs? “Carrying of legacy”

of the pioneers seems to mean that you must listen to, like and prefer their music as well.

The jam creates an immediate ostentatious energy from dancers as they boast through

gestures and movements. Some dancers walk into a jam really slow and smooth, as if everything

should come to a stop: They have arrived. These gestures establish their identity, a reason for

other dancers to think “Oh, she must be really good.” All these gestures are subtle, resembling

the 1970s era.

322

For example, a bgirl walks in as if she is trying not to be seen, and everything

about her is reserved. To a person who is not a battler, she may come off as timid or shy; but, to

someone who battles, this may be a battling strategy. Just as identities slip and blur in

performances, another slippage occurs between battling and performing, because “jams” have

turned battling into performance. Bonita explains this blurring. “I love the feeling of being at a

jam and suddenly hearing that song that makes you want to get up and battle everyone around

you!”

323

As discussed in the previous chapter, the most recent morphing of what had originally

320

For a more thorough discussion of Foundation and music’s role in it see chapter 2 in Foundation entitled “ ‘The

Original Essence of the Dance’: History, Community, and Classic B-boy Records.”

321

Schloss, Foundation, 34.

322

These gestures are coming back from the bgirls of the 1970s and being reintegrated into the thought process of

bgirls.

323

Cooper, We B*Girlz, 57.

been spontaneous or somewhat chaotic, and loosely organized, jams or battles into huge

competitions is reshaping the vocabulary, redefining what is, and is not breaking.

These commercialized confrontations are most akin to the fixed fights in wrestling exhibitions.

Contestants lose their freedom to make decision because they are constantly adjusting their

dancing according to the judges opinions. “Like, last battle, [We] B* Girl[s] battle, I did not

know what Honey Rockwell and Rokafella were looking for, so I just did whatever I do for the

battle. But if I knew what they wanted [me] to have, I would have done it [a] different way.”

Bgirl Emiko.

324

In fact, it is the spontaneous cipher before a battle that becomes the real “virtuoso display

of style” at its best.

325

In other words, style is best recognized and shown in a non-sponsored,

non-controlled cipher than in a competition. When a dancer enters the battle cipher, however, the

gestures change, shifting codes of meaning. It is about the way you arrive and showing your

movement language as clearly as possible. As Lady K Fever explains “From there, it became

about who could stop the crowd and be the most creative.”

326

During a cipher, bboys and bgirls

take turns entering. It is in a spontaneous cipher where the wrong gestures a dancer uses will be

read as inappropriate. A gesture used while battling is inappropriate and confusing to deploy at

spontaneous cipher or jam. For example, in Tallahassee a woman at a jam entered the cipher to

dance. She already had an aggressive stance -- which is confusing because she is not battling

anyone, much less challenging another dancer. At the end of her set, she runs her hand across her

throat to signify that she decapitated someone’s head.

327

Battle modes are always associated with looking confident and arrogant with a sort of

“fuck you” attitude. Battling strategies are performative -- especially in battling events -- because

the judges base decisions on how contestants present themselves. Bahar

328

states, “The way you

dance in a battle depends on the situation and your mood. It depends on if you’re aggressive or

chillin’. If you’re stressed out, and want to let out your anger, you’ll dance to that effect.”

329

Competitions are transforming all the gestures, making them homogenized and generic, and the

battle-emphasis today has pushed the certain gestures and burns to new levels of intensity.

324

Schloss, Foundation, 123. Brackets in the original. The second and third brackets are mine.

325

Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, 118.

326

Cooper, We B*Girlz 60.

327

But whose? In a battle this gesture would be made against an opponent, and in that context the gesture becomes

a specific burn.

328

Was not able to find her real name.

329

Cooper, We B*Girlz, 79.

Initially, battling was so crucial that it is credited with advancing the virtuosity of the movement

and the development of the form. However, the new battle manias have totally altered the

movement and the structure of improvisation -- which is/was the creative heart and expressivity

and individual commentary. Some of these alterations have been damaging, primarily in the

emphasis on vulgar gestural violence -- which when used against women degrades the female.

When bgirls begin to battle it becomes a way of life. This is where the false conciousness

manifests. Bgirls are claiming to find self – discovery through breaking. But how is this possible

when they are so restricted in creativity? “I think battling -- it’s a key, essential foundation to

progression. You can’t progress if you’re not battling.”

330

Battling bgirls experience certain

advancements and understandings of self through breaking that non-battling bgirls do not. Many

bgirls found their confidence levels lifted. “Bboying gives you a certain confidence, or swagger.

You carry and present yourself in a certain way.”

331

Vendetta explains “You know what? To be

honest with you, if I wasn’t exposed to this dance, I might not have been able to really reach or

understand the full extent of myself.”

332

Because of the experiential intensity at the battling

point, breaking has an overpowering impact. “For me, to be able to work through this dance and

learn about myself and my body movement, how I work, how I think -- and then be able to come

up with my style –- is one of the beauties I love about this dance in general. [It’s] the idea of

exploring yourself and connecting with yourself.”

333

Bgirl Squirrely describes what breaking has

done for her life. “It’s definitely taken me down a road to finding my identity. I don’t think I’ve

completely made it there but it’s definitely teaching me and showing me a way of finding out

who I am and who I want to be.”

334

Bgirls understand that battling is between a dancer and her opponent – but also a battle

with self.

335

Severe explains this. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t even really matter who you

are battling, because you’re really challenging yourself.”

336

Even though dancers see the battle as

a personal challenge with personal issues, no one cannot ignore the literal battle and what it

330

Schizo, phone interview with author, December 28, 2009.

331

Ibid.

332

Vendetta, phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

333

Ibid.

334

Squirrely, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009.

335

This layered battle with self intrigues me. What bgirls mean is the battle with personal issues. However I believe

it to be a literal battle with the female body, with self or between the female body and the panoptical male

connoisseur, foundation and the false consciousness .

336

Severe, phone interview with the author, October 26, 2009.

represents. “When you’re battling, you’re sizing yourself up against everyone else you know? It

both motivates you or it crushes you -- which applies in both dance and in life.”

337

Although

battling is a performative and constructive tool for the dancer, it can be, at its best, a comparison

of self to others and a physical conversation between two dancers about what needs to, and what

could be, improved. As Candy Bloise and many other bgirls proclaim, “Like, for me now it’s

[battling] become something that I do if the moment calls for it. It’s not like before. I used to be

like, ‘Oh I need to battle ‘cause I have to pay dues,' or, ‘I have to battle because so and so is

better.' I guess I’ve like gotten older, and [now] I’ve stopped comparing myself so much to

others.”

338

Currently, there is an epidemic of hard-core confrontational battling, which has become

more important than dancing in the cipher for oneself and in order to be able to learn more. K8

attaches absolutely no importance to dancing in a cipher individually. “If you gave me a choice

between battling and just dancing in the cipher, I will battle every single time.”

339

As Tammy

“Kadence” Tso pointed out, she is constantly “siz[ing] herself up against everyone else,”

implying that she cannot understand herself without relation to other people. For Bgirl K8,

breaking is a part of daily life. If she is not dancing, then she is thinking about dancing. In fact,

this translates as constantly thinking about how to move and carry her body like a man, on a

daily basis. At this stage panoptic oppression is violent and dangerous to the female bgirl psyche.

Through male-reproduction power battle burns, bgirls diminish their worth and value.

Bgirls use precisely the same gestures in the same ways that bboys use them, sometimes fully

conscious of the many negative allusions they are portraying, but most of the time emotionally

and intellectually desensitized about the real visual messages of the gesture, burning bad out of

habit. Bgirls mindlessly “cock” people while dancing. “You know people do it so much, people

do it to the point where you wonder if their trying to make up for something they’re lacking.”

340

Here, the queer girl desire for the phallus becomes the catalyst for the abject body. “I

expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which ‘I’ claim to

337

Kadence, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009.

338

Candy, phone interview with the author, September 29, 2009.

339

K8, phone interview with author, May 7, 2009. This maybe a result of the lack of self-expression in Foundation.

Ciphering is self-expression, however new age competition battling is not necessarily about expression. It is about

comparing your moves to others and/or doing what is expected of you by the judges.

340

Kadence, phone interview with the author, September 5, 2009.

establish myself.”

341

Julia Kristeva, author of Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection is

defining the abjection of self. One has to abject herself to “be” self. This theory directly

correlates with bgirls when they “cock” each other: They suppress themselves in order to

“express themselves” -- the paradox of self-expression for bgirls in breaking.

Kristeva explains that the same way we gag at (are repulsed by) the various excretions of

our body (an essential part of us as human beings), we define our femaleness and maleness by

how much we “abject” (are revolted by) them. Bgirls may not necessarily “gag” at their bodies

and vaginas but they definitely severely oppress themselves through this idea of abjection. They

abject the female body as they use the non-existent penis to assert domination over their

opponent and simultaneously themselves. Abjection encompasses fear and want: Fearing for

what the vagina can do to their identity and wanting the penis to obtain power. The bgirl

physically enacts Freudian ideas about the girl-child’s desire for the penis by “cocking.” Putting

a racialized iteration on Judith Butler’s theory or “actionable assertions,” DeFrantz defines

“black performativity as gestures of black expressive culture, including movement and dance

that perform actionable assertions.”

342

But what are the actionable assertions of throwing the

dick? Bryant Keith Alexander states “Aggression of men is used often as dominance over

women (and gay men) in ways that diminish worth and value.”

343

Most bboys and bgirls

disingenuously proclaim that gestures don’t actually mean what they imply. However, the sexual

dominating ideology of cocking is a vivid motion that represents rape of (the man) but more

commonly defilement of womanhood and the female body. Bboys often hip thrust their genitals

to suggest an elevated power over other bboys, and with females, they use it as their biological

advantage over bgirls.

Janet Wolff theorizes that the body has been systematically repressed and marginalized in

Western culture, through specific discourses controlling and defining the female corporeality. As

stated earlier, bgirl Mona Lisa unequivocally said, “ I feel like, to me, the word ‘feminine’ comes

across, um, ‘not as strong.’ Um, like it’s a little weaker -- like it’s the word ‘weaker.’” Most

bgirls believe that feminine gestures relayed “weakness” and usually stayed away from any

movements/gestures classified as such. But without exception, the gestures and body parts every

bgirl mentioned as being “feminine” involved the hips and buttocks. Looked at in reverse, they

341

Kristeva, Powers of Horror, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

342

DeFrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible,” 66.

343

Alexander, Performing Black Masculinity, 84.

also define precisely the body parts through which women can be empowered. Stereotypes can

be mediated by breaking. Women of color have different experiences in how they reach their

identity. Stephanie “Seoul Assassin” Aasen uses hip hop to intervene in any preconceptions. “I

am constantly struggling and constantly pushing to have acceptance in my community, whether

it’s a community of color [or] a community of, um uh sexuality you know? They [all] play a part

when I hit that cipher….I try to make everything just kinda like uh… leave all the B.S. on the

outside of the circle, and then show everybody in the circle what I can be. Show everybody,

whatever they think… the opposite you know?...Open their minds, in a sense, through

movement.”

344

She goes on to explain her struggles in the community and how breaking helps

her cope because it makes her feel free. “I’m a Korean adoptee so I have Caucasian parents, but

I’m Korean. And, I’m also a Queer woman in the community. So, I’m a woman of color but I’m

also crossing the crossroads at every, you know, little turn.…Like I’m not white enough, or,

white people aren’t Korean enough…and you know like people overlook me because…of my

sexual preference… um… so Hip Hop like definitely lets me, allows me, to just be who I wanna

be and not really… you know… give two craps about what people think about me.”

345

Bgirls are suspended in a binary dilemma. When enacting the phallic-dominate

movement she is also subverting her femininity -- regardless of whether she chose to cock her

opponent with full realization of what she is embodying or whether she does it as an unconscious

gesture that is part of the vocabulary. Do bgirls understand throwing the dick as “tradition?” Or,

is it taught as pure movement stripped of meaning? All of these issues and questions about

gestures and meanings and Foundation will be transferred to New Millennium bgirls, from the

phallic to the panoptic-male connoisseur to the meaning of the clothing and right down to the

genitals. But some of these new bgirls will try to formulate new responses to the old legacy.

“You know I’m not one of those chicks that’s gonna go out there and cock people. Because,

what’s that about? Not like to say that I’ve never done that before…. Playing around in practice

with the homies, that’s one thing. But I don’t think it’s necessary to include very graphic

gestures or mannerisms.”

346

344

Bgirl Seoul Assassin, phone interview with author, March 4, 2009.

345

Ibid.

346

Bgirl Divine, phone interview with author, March 1, 2009.

CHAPTER 6

BGIRLS AS DRAG KINGS

Bgirls as drag kings may appear to be an outrageous theory but it is through the

embodiment of black masculinity and “genderfuck,” presented in the styles of movement,

clothing, and battling that bgirls resemble Drag Kings.

347

In Kathryn Rosenfeld’s Drag King

Magic: Performing/Becoming the Other she states “by performing/becoming the other, drag

kings engage in a practice of magic which transforms both the margin and center.”

348

The magic

that Rosenfeld recognizes in drag performance is the magic that bgirls experience when battling.

Part of this magic incorporates androgyny, which encompasses all genders in a single entity.

Through liminal androgyny, they not only transcend the adolescent bboy’s sexist ideology in that

“girls can’t do this,” but they concurrently challenge the larger patriarchal society’s gender

norms by gaining power through battling and empowering themselves.

According to Rosenfeld, some drag kings represent specific types of maleness while

others emphasize a fluidity of gender, so Rosenfeld separates drag kings into two categories:

“mimetic” and “liminal.” I am borrowing these two categories of drag kings to describe how

bgirls transform the margin and the center of traditional gender norms, especially concerning

female sexuality and reproductive power through battling. When drag kings appear macho, they

are more layered and nuanced than the macho in the mainstream.

349

Rosenfeld argues, “By drag

kings performing maleness—by performatively/mimetically “becoming” men—drag kings

simultaneously alter the nature of power-over [sic] as it operates in the general culture, and claim

power for themselves.”

350

On the positive side of empowerment, bgirls performing masculinity (whether queer or

straight) can create new possibilities for a number of different masculinities and femininities

within breaking. Through mimesis, many bgirls, especially bgirls who identify with queer

culture, recognize this and claim power for themselves. Paradoxically however, mimesis is just

as disempowering as it is empowering. As Rosenfeld states, “ It is important to add race as

treated by drag kings to the discussion not only because it makes for a more complete picture,

347

Rosenfeld, “ Drag King Magic,” 208.

348

Ibid., 201.

349

Ibid., 206.

350

Ibid., 203.

but because it further exemplifies drag kings’ ‘power play.’”

351

Mimesis is limiting in its

empowerment because many of the ideas bgirls mimic are misogynistic, and therefore oppress

womanhood. According to Rosenfeld, white drag kings have both no power and some power

when they mimetically embody masculinity. Race problematizes things in the matter of degree

because the black drag king is caught in a potent double-bind. First, the black drag king’s

mimesis of male whiteness (that also subsumes the “privilege of whiteness”) is disempowering

because of its impossibility: biologically black cannot be biologically white. Second, the black

drag king’s mimesis has more power because of its intracultural mirroring -- they are black

females mimicking black males. Thirdly, and this applies to both black and white drag kings,

disempowerment resides in biology. A biologic female is still a biologic female -- even with a

dildo.

The practice of breaking has unique parameters of power-privileges. It is the domain of

black masculinity that all bgirls enter, which includes certain behaviors that all bgirls must

attempt to embody. If the bgirls buy into the full masculinity of breaking, at the expense of

femininity, they de facto become mimetic drag kings, taking part in their own suppression.

Rosenfeld explains that drag is a performance of gender, but it also extends into race, at

least stylistically and through performative characteristics.

352

In hip hop, the stylistic and

performative characteristics are predominately black and male. Mimetic bgirls dress exactly like

men, effectively disguising parts of the body to pass as male, such as dressing in oversized all-

male clothing, de-emphasizing (flattening) their breasts, locking or braiding their hair in male

African/black styles (if they are not black), wearing typical bboy hats or tying back their hair in

the gang scarf, and walking in a black male fashion. Rosenfeld discusses in her article that

“passing” -- historically in reference to the black community -- has double meaning. As Bryant

Keith Alexander argues in his book, Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer

Identity, “passing is a performance of suppression that is associated with the origin of denial.”

353

There, the glorification of black masculinity and suppression of black femininity is racially

coded. Bgirls perform suppression through “throwing the dick” which denies the female body

351

Rosenfeld, “Drag King Magic,” 210.

352

Ibid.

353

Bryant Keith Alexander, Performing Black Masculinity: Race, Culture, and Queer Identity (Maryland: AltaMira

Press, 2006).

power. However, the phallic link of “becoming/performing male” within battling represses the

option of womb-power within battling.

For example, certain clothes have become iconic symbols of hip hop and black

masculinity. Some black men describe any tight pants (considered uncomfortable) as “nut

huggers.”

354

This idea references the stereotyped aggressive sexuality that the black male

supposedly possesses an “enormous penis” (it even needs room to swing). Many emcees even

talk/rap about walking with a limp -- as if their penises are so huge that they are incapable of

walking correctly. For example in the song, “ I’m So Hood” the rapper proudly states that his

“pants hangin' off my ass cuz my dick is heavy."

355

Bgirls also wear baggy pants that embody

this “heavy penis” idea enhanced by grabbing the crotch and thrusting. Does the bgirl

unconsciously do this because she feels the need to wear baggy pants? Or, is there another

reason, such as the “gangsta” rapper look?

356

As Alexander states, “We can recognize the

“gangsta” concept as a culturally indigenous example of black masculine fashioning.”

357

Because

of this image, many bgirls feel that walking in a certain way, even throwing up hand signs that

symbolize where they are from (much like gangs) becomes a part of their identity. For example,

the peace sign (fingers form the “V”) is thrown in a certain way by African-Americans called

“deuces” (the “V” to the side like scissors means “see you later” as opposed to the upright peace

sign, meaning exactly that). Many bgirls have adopted these specific ways of representing their

neighbor hoods or crews. Nicole “Severe” Rateau states that one of her favorite gestures is the

“A town-down” (the index finger and the middle finger form an upside down peace sign with the

thumb between the two) “because she is from Atlanta,” and it was made popular by Usher

“Usher” Raymond, Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges and Lil’John in their song entitled “

Yeah.”

358

There is also a general stereotype of black men as sexually lustful, “the black rapist.”

354

The practical reason for bboys wearing baggy pants is that they are more comfortable to dance in and they refer

to the “gangsta” rappers’ style.

355

Rapper Ludacris in the song “Beamer, Benz and Bentley” (Beamer is a BMW car; Benz is a Mercedes Benz, and

Bentley is a Bentley) states the same thing. See the lyric book).

356

Baggy pants do not echo gang life. There is a stylistic difference between baggy pants, and pants hanging off the

ass. One of the many mythical stories surrounding the origin of the style of pants hanging off the ass is that it copies

prison clothes where the men were denied any kind of belt to keep up their pants, hence the “hang down the ass”

style. It’s a myth, because prison clothes, at least since the 70s, has been the one-piece jump suit. Also, sweats loose

pants (not hanging off the ass) are easy to hide things in and because they are loose, the wearer can run when

necessary. Gangstas don’t wear hang down the ass pants because they can’t move quickly. If they wear jeans they

are loose jeans, but not the extreme street style where the crotch reaches the knees.

357

Alexander, Performing Black Masculinity, 221.

358

Severe, phone interview with the author, October 26, 2009.

Bgirls are performing this “angry” masculinity when they dance, as well as performing other

stereotypes of black masculinity.

As Rosenfeld states, “The centrality to drag of costuming and style leads back to

questions of mimesis and desire.”

359

For example, mimetic bgirls do not experiment with or

reference femininity in their styles, or significantly in the gestures they use in battling. Gestures

within battles are monitored by the panoptic-bboy in the consciousness of the mimetic bgirl.

When mimetic bgirls use battle gestures, they either become the object of the male gaze/ the

dominant male, or the phallic-gesturing male.

360

Gestures by bgirls that elicit the male gaze are

usually flirtatious or incorporate themes of seduction. The index finger is used as a seductive tool

(“co’ mon, baby”), which bgirls claim they use in order to “catch the attention of’” or “throw the

bboys off of their game.” Bgirls gave examples of other female gesturing. For example, blowing

kisses was a very popular gesture that at least six bgirls labeled as a “feminine gesture.” Bgirls

also become the male through phallic gesturing.

For example bgirls Kadence and Dawnette “Patience” Joseph explain that there are more

creative ways to use the “cock” for women. Kadence states that turning the guys around on

themselves is a way of getting back at the bboys. Patience gives a more detailed account of what

is done. “If there are two guys battling each other you can go up to one guy and chop his off and

then use that to cock the other dude.”

361

Although this is “alternative,” the bgirl acting as if she

has a cock is still using male anatomy as an instrument of power. And in using this power it

references the domination and ultimately the power of rape. In an interview with bgirl Ellz, she

explains her viewpoint about the use of phallic gestures. “I try not to use anything [pause] too

crazy. I try to avoid stuff like that. It’s just -- I don’t have to do that in order to let someone know

I’m gonna wipe the floor with ‘em. I can just look at ‘em in the face and do that.”

362

Even though

Bgirl Ellz does not use the phallic gestures per se, she uses patriarchy to battle. Bgirl Ellz says, “

Like, if I’m battling against a guy I will definitely use…um… flirtation in the dancing to try and

throw them off…because they get distracted easily or stuff like that. But if I am battling a girl,

359

Rosenfeld, “Drag King Magic,” 204.

360

Refer to Laura Mulvey’s theory of male gaze, that although is used as a jumping off point for discussion.

361

Patience, phone interview with the author, October 6, 2009.

362

Bgirl Ellz, phone interview with the author, March 2, 2009.

it’s just…you know…kinda making sure that they feel over-powered and making sure they feel

that I am the dominant one.”

363

As a woman battling a man she focuses on becoming a sexual object to “throw off” the

bboy. However, bboys are not always thrown off by the sexual gestures because of the

androgynous appearance that most women present. If they were thrown off, this refocusing of the

bboy’s attentions -- away from the bgirl’s skill and talent -- to her body as a sexual object,

contradicts the purpose of why bgirls assume androgyny in the first place. When bgirl Ellz

discusses battling women, she strives to be “dominant” while her female opponent is

“dominated.” This domination replicates the panoptic view of patriarchy; someone has to be the

“man” and someone has to be the “woman.” Hence, bgirls are oppressing womb-power within

themselves, reverting to the idea of the male gaze and the overall patriarchal view that men are

dominant-superior and women are submissive-inferior.

The phallic-gesturing male uses power over bboys and bgirls, so mimetic bgirls find

power in being able to use phallic gesturing against bboys. In one scenario, the mimetic bgirl

dances up to her male opponent and humps his face (fucks his mouth). This gesture is symbolic

of male-sexual dominance. Bgirls have a power they previously did not own (through throwing

the dick) but they reinforce male dominance through them. Devastatingly, phallic gestures used

against bgirls by bgirls are one of the ultimate suppressions of female sexual and reproductive

power. For example, a bgirl may mime raping another bgirl with her imaginary penis. In this

case, the bgirl is suppressing -- through rape -- her sexual and reproductive power as well as the

power of all women. In referring back to the drag king’s “power play” Rosenfeld discusses, the

power struggle within a battle, at its most extreme, is between men and women’s power of

sexuality and reproduction. Bgirls are not only performing/becoming male, they are fighting

against their own bodies’ possibility of power. This becomes problematic not only because of the

possibilities of queer-girl power but for all types of feminine power manifested in battling.

Rosenfeld ultimately states that the power of drag kings lies in mimesis because they

invoke change by taking back power and empowering themselves. Because they are not

biologically trying to change into men, be men, they embody that power and use it for

themselves. However, the fact that the mimetic bgirls are striving to be accepted/pass as men by

363

Ibid.

battling with the male gaze/phallic gestures, they reinforce the patriarchal standpoint. This again

begs the question “How is mimesis empowering bgirls?”

I am theorizing that it only works to a certain extent when women battle against men

with an imaginary penis. My theorization is the opposite of Rosenfeld’s mimetic power: I believe

that the power exists with the “liminal” bgirl who becomes androgynous -- and the liminal is the

genderfuck that occurs here. Rosenfeld believes genderfuck to be a way to successfully

masculinize and therefore concludes that mimesis is empowering. However, I think of it as the

equivalent to liminality rather than mimesis and a way to successfully merge femininity and

masculinity into the unrecognizable -- again which expands both femininity and masculinity and

creates more options for the bgirl and ultimately the “b-world.” Because “Elements of

masculinity are clearly evident, yet concealed in extremely feminine packaging,” androgyny

allows the liminal bgirl to battle against traditional patriarchal gender roles with feminine

power.

364

Bgirls who float between the gendered states and play with the ideas of femininity and

masculinity through dance are categorized as liminal. As Dara Milovanovic states, “Male clothes

liberate women. Their sex is not concealed, rather it is emphasized.”

365

It is important to note

that it is not male clothing itself but the appropriation of it that allows for this freedom. For

instance, Milovanovic in her reading of Fosse’s clothing choice for his female dancers explains,

“male attire is appropriated by women with their repeated use of bowler hats, highly stylized

jackets, or pinstriped bikini-briefs” and “Hats are male: they conceal the face and introduce an

air of austerity or playfulness.”

366

In addition, liminal bgirls tend to play with the masculine and

feminine consciously through their gestures in battling, thus expanding definitions of both.

Liminal bgirls utilize traditional feminine qualities mediated through liminal, comedic means

female reproductive-power gestures dancing out the power of the mother, as well as the

generative mother.

For liminal bgirls, appropriated black male attire may consist of pink trucker hats, baggy

pants that display panties instead of boxers, and jerseys that show the mid section. For example,

a liminal bgirl would pair men’s pants with a bikini top or wear all men’s clothing while wearing

364

Dara Milovanovic, “.Androgyny,Glamour, Fetishism, and Urbanity: An Analysis of Bob Fosse’s Choreography”

(master’s thesis, Florida State University, 2003).

365

Ibid., 7.

366

Ibid., 12.

large earrings and heavy makeup. For example Moanne81

367

states “when I see a b-girl who

perfectly manages the tightrope walk between tight and baggy, sporty and feminine, I admire

that.”

368

Liminal bgirls do not use phallic gestures. Instead, they use gestures that comment on

the power of femininity and the female body. Milovanovic states that “An androgynous looking

woman becomes associated with masculine elements of mind and reason, rather than the

feminine elements of nature, feelings and emotions, which are often connected to instability and

weakness.”

369

For example Monica “TahXic” Kelly states “I completely embrace the fact that I

am a woman and I use it to my advantage. I think my masculine qualities are manifested in my

mind and personality, while my feminine qualities are manifested more physically.”

370

For this reason, liminal bgirls use mind and reason through strategies within a battle and

are able to recognize the advantages of using feminine gestures against men. The fact that

women can play multiple sexual identities and switch from one second to the next, that they can

and do use feminine and masculine gestures, becomes strength.

Like, a lot of times I’ll dance very aggressive or what people will call ‘like a guy’ and use

a lot of aggressive gestures like guns and knives. And then, all of a sudden I’ll twist, and

do a shimmy that’s more feminine…like grab my breasts you know like ‘bam!’ like ‘I

can play your game and I can play my game? Can you play my game? ‘Cause I know you

don’t wanna step in my area. But I can play your game as a man and I’ll smack you too

and then you know hold my breasts and be like what!”

371

As Adrienne “Vendetta” Lee explains, many of the “feminine” burns that liminal bgirls use are

not merely traditional gestures of femininity but things that women can use that men will not.

Severe explains a gesture that she uses for men. “Um, if I’m battling a guy and he’s doing a lot

of derogatory gestures because I’m a female I’ll do something like he has a small dick.”

372

TahXic also creates gestures related to this idea. “I came up with some good burns when I did

battle. With one I would get down on my knees in front of the guy I was battling, and pretend to

367

Not able to get family name.

368

Cooper, We B*Girlz, 121.

369

Milovanovic, “ Androgyny and Glamour,”7.

370

TahXic, email interview with the author, January 1, 2010.

371

Vendetta, phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

372

Ibid.

pull out a telescope from behind me, extend it al-ll-ll-ll [her emphasis] the way close to their

‘you know what’ and kinda scratch my head like ‘Huh? What am I looking at? And where is

it?’”

373

Feminine sensibility has tweaked the gestures with comical liminality. Liminal bgirls do

not subject themselves to the male gaze but gain agency by placing themselves in liminal roles of

power. Severe states “Sometimes you can play up being ‘girly’ in a smart and comical way by

like looking at your nails or checkin’ your hair just to be kinda like ‘There’s no sweat.’”

374

In a

personal battle I engaged in against Timothy “K.T. (Killer Tim)” Langston, I also won by being

bored and “painting my nails” as he vigorously danced full-out. The liminal androgynous bgirl is

not yet “pretty,” and she is therefore using the transitional state before she is “pretty” as a

comical battle strategy. The gesture is potent, amusing and belittling because it is “in-between.”

Liminal bgirls also transfer the power of the male gaze to themselves. Vendetta describes “I

know some girls blow kisses, but um, I’d rather not. If I did, I’d say like, ‘You called me? Or,

‘Let me write down your number. You call me.’”

375

The power of women and mother is used as well. In women gestures, women may grab

their breasts to symbolize power in the female anatomy (much like that of the bboy crotch-

grabbing). In all power-mother gestures, women transform bboys into their children. For

example, the breasts are used to “feed” the bboy, from which he gains all of his power (this is

used by Rokafella). In another example of a power-mother gesture by a liminal bgirl, a bboy

enters the cipher to battle. While he toprocks he mimes masturbating and ejaculating on her. The

liminal bgirl’s approach may be that she wipes the mimed ejaculatory fluids off and signals him

to her belly. She mimes that she is pregnant, gives birth (by using facial expressions), rocks the

baby (which signifies raising the baby) and as the baby grows up, she is metaphorically stating

that everything he does is just an extension (literally the offspring) of how good she is. Therefore

his power will never overpower the fact that she created and “raised” him.

376

Examples of

liminal bgirls in battling such as this one show the magic that exists in these burns.

373

TahXic, email interview with the author, January 1, 2010.

374

Severe, phone interview with the author, October 26, 2009.

375

Vendetta, phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

376

Though this interpretation is long, a burn colorfully explains the action and it happens within seconds. It does not

work unless it is on the beat and happens quickly at the right moment. There is no time for prolonged pantomime.

Marilyn Francus, author of “The Monstrous Mother: Reproductive Anxiety in Swift and

Pope,” discusses the negative image of the “fecund female” in the West.

377

These traditionally

negative ideas about the female body are reversed and made powerful through female

reproductive gestures. The Liminal bgirl uses the power of the generative mother to battle

bboys.

378

Bboys have a very peculiar relationship with their sexual-reproductive gestures and

claiming power to be “men.”

Considering that bboys originally were pre-adolescents when they created

“Foundational” bboy movement, there is a strong fundamental attachment to the mother that has

power over the boy and is represented in the movements. This is also enacted in the basics of

breaking. Bboys work on the floor, like the crawling baby, then they change instantly from the

baby to the man, perfectly playing what it is to be in the pre-adolescent then adolescent state.

Bboys, in a sense, have not grown up. These gestures turn the bboy into the “child” and subject

him to the entire range of power that the generative mother possesses. Bboys, in fact, represent

that sexual state between baby and man.

379

Another macho-yet-childlike example of the bboy is

the constant pride they take in enduring bruises, cuts and scrapes. For example in the

documentary The Freshest Kids, the Nigga Twins state: “We didn’t dance on linoleum, we didn’t

dance on cardboard. We danced on the cement!”

380

Hard or rough surfaces can be understood as

a challenge to face down in order to become a man, or, what signified a real bboy. It is glorified

as a state of manhood, especially for boys. It is apparent through this behavior that he is trying

to separate from that need of the mother through enduring bruises. As Marilyn Francus explains,

“The female is dangerous because by making herself instrumental to the satisfaction of male

377

Francus, “The Monstrous Mother,” 829.

378

Sally Banes, “Breaking,” in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, edited by Forman Murray and Mark

Anthony Neal (New York: Routledge, 2004) 13-20. Bboys also use the power of the mother through their status as

creators of the form. As Banes states, “bboys learned a system of master apprentice, referring to each other as father

and son… and chose names that reflected their relationship.” For example, there are “Crazy Legs” and “Little Crazy

Legs.” This is disguised as a paternal relationship when in fact it is not. The undertones of this relationship refer to

generative power through the mother because, really, it is she who has the ultimate power to claim/name the baby.

379

In heterosexual normative society men learn that they own women’s bodies, or have the power (penis) to take that

body. Sexual immaturity becomes sexual domination as they age. The connections between the names of

movements like the baby and power moves today is intriguing. This name is interesting because this freeze or

power move is named after a stage in childhood development, and the form used to assert “manly” power shows

their in-between state of being.

380

The Freshest Kids.

need, she enforces male stasis and dependence; the nurturing mother is the exemplary instance of

this phenomenon.”

381

By performing the liminal not-yet-but-mother-to-be, women hold varying powers over

bboys. For example, a bgirl is battling a bboy who throws the dick at her. She may take his body,

signal putting him in her womb while miming a pregnant belly. She decides to eliminate him by

taking abortion pills or simply jumping onto her belly and waving goodbye. Within the same

motions she may make a “mistake” by slipping and falling, aborting/miscarrying the bboy/baby

as well. Another example of what the generative mother could do is while pregnant with her

bboy, she may blithely smoke a cigarette and drink alcohol. She will give birth to the bboy she is

battling within seconds of her bad actions, but he is not developed enough to battle her. Women

have the power to choose to mother a child or not -- a paradoxical interplay of male negativity,

concepts defined by sexism about the female body, pro-choice, and child-neglect are the stuff of

female reproductive burns. Francus explains. “The refusal to mother is the only active

monstrosity available to the domesticated mother, for unlike the self-empowered fertile female

who has many options, the domesticated mother has all too few.”

382

Although this may have

been true in a society governed by normative gender stereotypes, in breaking, the liminal bgirl

can choose and refuse to nurture or not -- and both hold significant power.

In female reproductive power gestures, the vagina is portrayed as powerful. The

stereotypical “mystery” of the vagina is used against the bboy. Her vagina may become a “black

hole,” be deadly as quick sand, or resemble the vagina dentata that Freud postulated as the

fearful tool of castration. For example a bgirl is “cocked” by a bboy. She then runs two fingers

up her vagina lips and her fingers turn into scissors, she then cuts his dick off. Excretions

associated with the vagina as well are imagined as toxic liquids, like acid rain, much like the

bboy uses his semen against his opponent. Bgirls may mime using menstrual blood as acid

thrown in the eyes of the bboy. Bgirls may also use the lack of fluids to signify that she is

sexually uninterested if the bboy uses the penis against her and her vagina may be mimed as if it

was sandpaper or was an old-style winding pencil sharpener, that sharpen and files down the

penis. She finishes it off by blowing the excess dust off of the now pencil-thin penis.

381

Francus, “The Monstrous Mother,” 839.

382

Ibid., 845.

Liminal gestures create a voice for women in breaking. But neither the gestures nor the

voice that they create is the ultimate goal. Rather it is the possibilities that the gestures open up

for self-expression that have yet to exist since the first movement on concrete to dope beats took

place. These gestures serve as an entry point to expose the myth that “…hip-hop culture gives its

participants the power to redefine themselves and their history, not by submission or selective

emphasis, but by embracing all of their previous experience as material for self-expression in the

present moment. ‘that’s why the dance form is so phenomenal.’”

383

In looking at these different

possibilities, maybe this statement will become truth rather than contradiction.

383

Schloss, Foundation, 44.

CHAPTER 7

AFTERTHOUGHTS ABOUT BGIRLS AND LIMINAL BURNS

Some of the most recent evolutions in breaking are the bgirls reclaiming space through

the invention of, and discussions about, liminal burns. Women are also regaining empowerment

by moving beyond the limitations of bboy patriarchy by taking the practical powers accorded

them as strong Black Matriarchs. Boundaries previously closed by the rules and regulations of

Foundation and competitions are being opened. Women’s breaking has new iterations of hip-hop

dance styles, such as Jamaican-dance hall influences on krumpin’, women’s house-dance

floorwork; and, for the men, multiple versions of fast-footwork, the C-Walk/Oakland Style and

the slow controlled fluidity of Brazilian break crews’ remix ideologies ad practices of “power

moves.” Performative modes purposely blur the lines between what is masculine and what is

feminine. Gender-liminality is also seen in hard-core rappers who are (amusingly) borrowing

feminized clothing and behaviors while stridently proclaiming their machismo by boasting about

how hard it is to control their enormous genital equipment. These changes are just at the

beginning of visibility and remain vulnerable.

“The obstacles that females are overcoming in breaking aren’t just physical. They are

much more cultural, mental and social expectations of their own and everyone else’s that affect

how they approach their training, their dedication—affect everything.”

384

One obstacle bgirls are

trying to analyze and overcome is the struggle with feminine freedom of expression, particularly

as expressed through burns. Initially bboys sought out and danced, in part, to elicit positive

female response for their prowress. But now that bgirls have created a space for themselves, men

are, whether intentionally or not, erasing the expressivity of women through Foundation, and

through “abjecting” the female body through battle burns like throwing the dick. Although bgirls

do narrative gestures, most of the women of this generation throw the dick. When questioned

about these battle burns, bgirls’ usual response was “I most definitely don’t throw the cock!” But

are bgirls aware of the meanings of this gesture? Are they aware of the anti-female

empowerment it wields? That by cocking they are symbolically raping?

384

Cooper, We B*Girlz,71. Quote from bgirl Catfox.

Abjection is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady: a terror that dissembles, a hatred

that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who

sells you up, a friend who stabs you…

385

Problematically, the abjection of the female body is claimed as strength because bgirls are

copying the bboys, doing like the boys in a boys’ world. The abjection of women’s bodies

through male reproductive-power gestures is, I believe, figurative physical abuse. Female

breakers constantly take abuse from male breakers, and themselves, literally, and through

physical metaphors. They “stick” with it claiming that the female who can get through the

pressures is “strong.” If this were applied to women “sticking” through domestic violence

situations, she would be considered foolish. So why is it not thought foolish and violent in the

case of the breaking community?

Bgirls suggested that “playing with the homies” -- or not doing it “seriously” -- is

different than when women use it seriously. It is only when it is intended seriously that it

becomes a problem. The same bgirls that used the gesture “playfully” are the same ones who

denied “using” the gesture at all. But what are the circumstance and the performative behaviors

that signal to the dancer, the opponent, and the watchers when a bgirl is serious or not? In battle,

all gestures become serious. Therefore, it can never be used playfully, at least not in the eyes of

the viewer or the burn’s recipient. As I continued to question, bgirls discovered that they did

throw the cock in one scenario or another. Bgirls would state feeling ashamed after they used the

gestures wondering, “Why did I just throw a cock if I don’t have one?” What propels bgirls to

use it?

Bgirls explain how the cock gesture remains an ongoing influence in their breaking

communities to the point where they end up using it involuntarily. Carla “Ill mischief” Silveira

explains, “I unfortunately am from Miami, the southeast. My natural inclination is to throw cock.

It’s like you see it so much, it just becomes a part of you.”

386

She continues, “Like for some

reason I’ll just cock -- and I’m like, ‘Why did I just do that?’” Candy explains the same thing.

“I’ve caught myself doing that a couple times.”

387

Candy speaks of “catching” herself using the

gesture, emphasizing her involuntary use. Other bgirls explain that they throw dick as a kind of

385

Kristeva, Powers of Horror.

386

Ill Mischief, phone interview with the author, September 29, 2009.

387

Candy, phone interview with the author, September 29, 2009.

mockery. “Some people don’t like it like that, but whatever. I’ll use the cock, but I do it not

because that’s what the guys do. I almost do it as a way of making fun of it.”

388

This is a perfect

example of separation between bgirls’ intented meanings of gestures and what the gestures

actually represent.

Bgirl Aruna states, “since there’s so many more b-girls coming up right now, soon you

will get a girl’s [itals mine] way of how to do it. We’re not there yet, but that’s coming.”

389

The

existence of liminal burns has begun to change the erasure of women’s expression. Bgirls are

learning from the previous generations, increasing the probability of woman-centered breaking

language. Now that we are beginning to have “a girls way of doing it,” how is it viewed in

comparison to the established canon of Foundation?

Rokafella

390

has been using liminal burns in battle since the late 1990s and has already

influenced New Millennium bgirls on the path of empowerment. “Rokafella tells the story about

somebody she saw a long time ago. They scripted the action of opening up their -- excuse me--

‘pussy lips’ and engulfed the guy in them.”

391

Rokafella did not say who the woman was that

used the burn and Severe said she did not see it firsthand. “I only used my imagination to figure

out what she was representing.” Bgirl Vendetta has witnessed Rokafella use female-oriented

burns. “I have to say, before me and Rokafella, I didn’t know what the heck would be something

that’s a hardcore-feminine gesture to throw at a man.”

392

She explained some of the feminine

gestures Rokafella used. “And, you know, one thing that she did was, where she shimmy’s down,

and grabs the breast you know? And then, she did this one where she was battle rocking

393

; she

would lift up her leg, and grab her lips [vulva] and [mime] cover[ing] the person, and throw them

on their back, like, ‘You’re back in my womb. Shut your mouth!’”

394

After Vendetta described

the movement, she reflected on how it made her feel. “I was like ‘OK!’ It was funny. I kinda

liked it! I mean, it’s grotesque, but I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty raw, I kinda like that.’ I mean, to

be honest with you, you know, I need to think more about that because that’s actually an

388

Vendetta, Phone interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

389

Cooper, We B*Girlz, 144. Quote from bgirl Aruna

390

I consider Rokafella the ambassador of female language in breaking because she is the only women I interviewed

who illustrated pride in ebing women through battle gestures. She organizes projects around women and their

involvement in hip hop. Rokafella is creating a documentary entitled “All the Ladies Say” that highlights women in

breaking.

391

Severe, phone interview with the author, October 26, 2009.

392

Vendetta, phones interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

393

Battle rocking is the new generation’s term for the battle dance form known as Uprocking.

394

Vendetta, phones interview with the author, November 1, 2009.

100

interesting avenue to try to venture down, and try to come up with more feminine gestures.”

395

Vendetta also listed specific movements she has learned from Rokafella that reference the

mother’s generative power. “Something I learned from her: she would go to them [the bboy],

grab them, cradle them like a baby, pat them, you know, let them suck on her breasts.” This

passing of knowledge from woman-to-woman is what bgirls need to establish female gestures in

breaking.

K8, who used the cock gesture in battle, was met with contempt by a bboy who mocked

“You don’t have one!” when she used it against him. The next second she tried a feminine

gesture. “I pretended to grab my uterus and threw that on his head.” Because it didn’t work, she

gave up on it -- until she went to a workshop where the topic of burns was brought up. Now K8

is rethinking gestures. “I went to a workshop with Alien Ness and he talked about like, burners

[burns] being something that comes from you, and is true to life, to your everyday existence. I’m

trying to be more like that now and not, um, throwing dicks and penises everywhere -- because

that’s kinda weird.”

396

On the other hand, there are bgirls who do not agree with liminal burns. Bgirl Mohawk

asks, “How would that even work? Pull a tampon out of my vagina and fling it? Not as easy of a

feat. I just don’t see it working, and since I’m masculine, I would rather throw a dick.”

397

Later,

Mohawk explains that she will never be “THAT competitive [where] things like gestures, pre-

battle meditations and other routines become serious or deep to me.”

398

Bgirl Candy states that Rokafella encouraged her to “throw her boobs” when battling.

However, Candy chose not to, perceiving this as “flaunting herself to the guys,” which she

considers “sleazy.”

399

Bgirl Dura explains her perception of liminal burns. “I went out west and

the girls are like grabbing their chest and pushing themselves at the guys, and I’m like ‘Yeah I

don’t really dig that.’ I don’t like when girls grab themselves or their stuff.”

400

A recent example of a women being transformed and then used as a sex object was told

to me by Peaches. “At one of the battles recently I just saw a girl get down on her knees in front

395

Ibid.

396

K8, phone interview with the author, May 7 2009.

397

Mohawk, phone interview with the author, October 18, 2009.

398

Ibid.

399

Candy, phone interview with the author, September 29, 2009.

400

Dura, phone interview with the author, November 8, 2009.

101

of the guy, and look like she was giving head to a guy.

401

And what he did, of course, was put his

hand on the back of her head. That is a situation a woman should never put herself in.”

402

Do liminal gestures allow the female body to become a site of feminist cultural

critique?

403

Janet Wolff explains that its “preexisting meanings, as sex object, as object of the

male gaze, can always prevail and reappropriate the body, despite the intentions of the woman

herself.”

404

Both Candy and Dura perceive any feminine gestures as objects of the male gaze;

and Mohawk and Peaches do not see feminine gestures working as well as male-reproductive

gestures.

As Wolff acknowledges and as Mohawk states, female reproductive gestures are not “as

easy of a feat.” The art of female gestures is certainly an art of understanding the representations

of, and by, the female body. And because there is less of a cultural repertory of female

aggressive sexuality and gestures to draw from they are tricky. They require wit and skill ( the

first recipe of battling) to be delivered effectively . Wolff suggests that “Any body politics,

therefore, must speak about the body, stressing its materiality and its social and discursie

construction [while] at the same time disrupting and subverting existing regimes of

representation.”

405

Where does female expressivity reign? While liminal burns are still working their way

into the vocabulary of breaking and bgirls, other dance forms, such as Jamaican Dancehall,

House, locking, popping, and Krumpin’ have been practiced and perfected by the women from

the beginning. Dance-hall krumpin’, uses powerful hip movements assertively to express a

femaleness that seems not allowed in breaking. In Krumpin,’ women dance with power, speed

and energy. They aren’t seen as masculine, they do not take pride in “dancing like the guys” or

adopting -- possibly because of where movement stems from in the female body in their style of

dancing: the sternum and the hips. Women are allowed to move their hips any way they like and

are not shunned for doing so. Likewise, men are not seen as homosexual or less masculine when

they rotate their hips.

401

It is important to note that Peaches already interpreted the girl’s burn before the guy responded as an advantage to

the bboy because she was on her knees in front of the guy.

402

Peaches, phone interview with the author, February 11, 2010.

403

Wolff, “Reinstating Corporeality,” 81. Wolff questions whether the female body may be a site of cultural studies

and critique. I am asking whether liminal burns make this possible.

404

Ibid.

405

Wolff, “Reinstating Corporeality.”

102

Many of the “burns” in krumpin’ emphasize the open crotch and the power of femininity

with floor movements. Floor movements consist of sitting in wide open 180 degree, second-

position splits, bouncing up and down. Women will flex or vibrate one butt cheek while lying

face down in the open splits. They will use these same isolations while extending one leg up to

their heads in the “six-o’clock” position. Squatting, with their hands are on their knees, the

women will rapidly bounce up-and-down (so fast as to almost vibrate), even travelling across

space with this up-and-down motion, then rise up with using quick circulations of the hips.

Tweetie, a 1980s hip hop-party dancer recently created a piece in collaboration with her

dance partner Soraya. She uses mainly popping (contraction of the neck, chest, forearm and leg

muscles), tutting (A style that involves creating 90 degree angles with the arms, hands and

fingers), and waving (creating the illusion of a wave traveling through the body) techniques in

her choreography, accenting her piece with wonderfully executed feminine gestures. Some of

them include hands on the hips, in the infamous “runway” walk. Hands placed under the ears and

framing the face, “tease the hair.” All movements were executed with the fragmented stop-and-

go motion of popping. Tweetie states, “ ‘Below’is a piece that I am very proud of. It has been a

very looooong [her emphasis] time since I did something that made me feel more than [of] a

woman, and performing a style I truly have grown to love. Finally, with the help, inspiration,

motivation and choreography of my home girl Soraya (eeiiooww) featuring our friend Cicely of

Nu-Stylz, (middle girl) this was truly a nice collaboration from the both of us.”

406

With this

piece, Tweetie demonstrates her love for the woman she has grown to be. At Hard Body’s (an

all-female house dance crew based in NYC) party “The House Warming” in New York City,

their gestures included a wide variety of femininity represented in the dance. Women mimed

mirrors, applying makeup, playing with hair and all danced with an upwardness I never see in

breaking. [These gestures are like the gestures of the women from the 1980s, self referential of

women’s history in breaking.]

Anxious Patriarchy is certainly being voiced and acted out among the bboys today. “You

are not doing real hip hop [or being a real emcee] if you do not have bboys in your videos [take

out the booty dancers]” and “if you want to keep it real, you will call the dance bboying.”

407

These statements are the start of “taking back and redefining the dance” with Foundation, which,

406

Email from Tweetie.

407

The Freshest Kids.

103

for women, is both admirable and destructive. Foundation creates the idea of “authenticity” by

establishing traditions that are totally male-oriented. In terms of performative modes, it depends

on the teacher. Many unfortunately, are simply “inventing tradition.” Daniel J. Wolkowitz, who

also deals with folklorism and the analysis of invented tradition states, “Dancing bodies in

couple dances also express social relations of power—who leads and who follows….” The social

relation being established in hip hop is one of the pioneers leading, and the new generation

following. The social order must be followed, and “pioneering” is the validation used. This

reinstates power back to the leaders of the subculture. The students learn the movements -- along

with the ideas of the pioneers and their experiences in New York during their prime time. The

question is: Do these strictures leave room for new inventions and changes in the future? Or is

Foundation’s job to keep it static? Or can both exist like traditional ballet and new forms?

Struggling against this order of truth are the liminal bgirls who reflect values of the Black

Matriarch re-appropriating the traditionally negative stereotypes and changing them into power.

She is subsequently labeled unfeminine, too strong, aggressive and assertive.

408

bell hooks

explains, historically, how the strength, manly endurance and resiliency is a retained legacy that

holds credence today. Black female power challenges masculinity and traditional family

structures -- especially today with the numerous young and single black mothers -- undercutting

black masculinity. Decidedly, “many Black men reject Black women as marital partners,

claiming that Black women are less desirable than White ones because we are too assertive.”

409

Black women were/are considered a “failure to the true cult of womanhood” (also an invented

legacy about white female propriety), a failure to “the submissiveness of the White woman.”

410

White women are considered “nicer” or more “obedient.” This is the rationale that some

black girls have reported as being the reason given about why pioneers did not teach them.

“They teach the white girls [how to break] because they do what they want.”

411

(I have personal

experiences with another black woman in Savannah, Georgia. It was much harder for us to get

the bboys to teach us, but when white women were around, or even remarked “Oooh that’s

cool!” they (the bboys) quickly offered to teach them). At this point, the white bgirls have the

ability to use their traditional stereotypical “submissiveness” to flirt their way into power (that is,

408

Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 77.

409

Ibid.

410

Ibid.

411

Discussion with Amanda.

104

make the men teach them the moves). However as non-black bgirls get into breaking, they also

experience the same discrimination and ridicule for being manly. Now they are subsuming the

power of the bgirl “Black Matriarch-ness.” Just as the stereotypes of the female body (white

submissiveness) can be used in battle by all bgirls, so can the Black Matriarch (strong, powerful)

be used in battle by all bgirls. It just takes careful attention to details.

Since the New Millennium women have begun to take power in hip hop, now the men

are beginning to take their position of liminality as well. For example, women are integral in

organizing, hosting and sponsoring community events nationally as well as internationally. Yet

the emcee/rappers and the men who follow their “swagger” are pouncing at the opportunity to

gain back power in hip hop.

412

They have become fashionable young ladies without even

realizing it! The emcee has been putting on feminine identities in their dress and movement.

Rappers outfit themselves in oversized clothing to the extreme -- in fact, it resembles women’s

dresses and skirts. The oversized white T-shirt called a “tall T” comes down to the knees and

past the elbows. They are sold in popular sporting-goods stores that market the “hip hop”

fashions of today. In various “Urban Wear” stores, ankle-brushing shorts can be purchased. More

recently, bright neon colors (something considered very feminine to previous gangsta-macho

generations) have become the main hue of “hip hop fashion.” For example the “New Boys” who

released the popular song-dance hit “The Jerk” sport bright colors and skinny jeans (form-fitting

jeans)

413

in their videos. The popular New Orleanean rapper, Lil’ Wayne, also wears skinny

jeans in his video, My Leather ‘So Soft. Rappers have begun to lash out at the skinny-jeans trend

claiming that real rappers do not wear skinny jeans. Rapper Plies connects skinny jeans to race

stating, “ I don’t wear tight jeans like the white boys, but I do get wasted like the white boys,”

which is featured in Gucci Mane’s song, “Wasted” off of the album The State VS. Radric Davis.

JayZ

414

boldly connects femininity with skinny jeans and bright colors, scornfully stating “You

niggas jeans too tight, colors too bright, voices too light” in the song “D.O.A (Death of

Autotunes)” from his album The Blue Print 3 (affiliated with rapper “50 cent”). 50 cent created a

412

Particularly since the demise of the record industry with the rise of the internet.

413

The New Boys even created a song entitled “ Skinny Jeans and a Mic” about their choice to wear skinny jeans.

414

The L Magazine.com notes that JayZ “ mentioned the issue [the skinny jeans trend] on [the song] swagger like us

off rapper T.I.’s album Paper Trails, ‘ I can’t wear skinny jeans ‘cuz my knots don’t fit…’” In the Texan rapper

Chamillionaire’s song “ Swagger like Coup” he agrees with JayZ stating “…tried to put on skinny jeans couldn’t zip

my zipper, now let me be blunt real quick, I don’t wear skinny jeans cuz my dick don’t fit.”

105

tank top whose cut and shape resembled a woman’s blouse with thin little straps, a kind of thick-

spaghetti strapped tank.

In the mainstream, new hip hop dance evolutions have become increasingly feminine.

Another instructional song dance called the “Stanky Leg” showcases a feminine style of dance

that is reminiscent of whacking and vogueing. An example of a feminine movement in the

“stanky-leg” style occurs when the hand circles around the head as if the dancer is slicking the

hair down the neck.

Interestingly, all this feminization is satirically captured and interpreted on “tape,” in the

popular comic strip turned video cartoon, The Boondocks created by Aaron McGruder. His

second season features the rise of the Anxious Patriarch through liminality. The cartoon depicts

the current state of generational black life in America from slavery to hip hop America. Rappers

help depict their own materialistic lives through sardonic storylines -- since the hip hop story is

narrated from multiple perspectives by different “stars” even while the trends are being played

out in society at large. A few sharply funny episodes focused specifically on the feminization of

male rappers in their fashion choices of dress and movements. In their outfits, rappers in the

cartoon-videos wore the same oversized shirts and dress-length flowing shorts as they do in real

life. Rappers in The Boondocks followed the instructional song-dances of hip hop through

mocking videos such as “Homies over Ho’s.” The dance is done as the two men face each other,

arms positioned in a half rectangular shape. Then the men begin to “bump” chests repeatedly,

like celebratory football players do after scoring a touchdown. The rappers chant “homies over

ho’s” as they execute the dance to the same tune of a very popular song, entitled “Shake that

Laffy Taffy” by the popular rap group, D4L. In the cartoon, the sensible character “Huey” is

looking at and analyzing the video remarking to his commercially-influenced little brother

“Riley,” “Co‘mon Riley the song? The dance? I mean, ‘do the homie?’” as he watches the rapper

“Gangstalicious” shake a bottle of champagne until it overflows like a super big man ejaculating

super semen on other men.

415

Of course, Riley denies that he sees any gay tendencies with his

favorite rapper Gangstalicious. This “music video” sends a message to The Boondocks’ viewers

that rappers are beginning to have more bodily contact with men than women, highlighting the

feminized, homosexualized and eroticized tendencies of rappers today. Their anxiety has led

415

“The Story of Gangstalicious,Part 2,” The Boondocks, DVD, directed by Seung Eun Kim (Culver City,CA:

Adelaide Productions, 2008).

106

them to take on both masculinity and femininity (i.e., the feminization of hip hop through

clothing and behaviors). The Anxious Patriarch is attempting to assume both genders-- so the

women may assume none.

As Tricia Rose argues, “These public sphere contests must involve more than responses

to sexist male speech; they must also entail the development of sustained, strong female voices

that stake claim to public space generally.”

416

Women must begin to claim spaces for themselves

within the male territories to access the freedom of expression that hip hop culture pledges to its

practitioners. Fighting the oppression of women on literal, figurative and metaphorical fronts is

an important mission for women in hip hop. Women must connect in order to fight oppression.

The Liminal bgirls have already begun to accomplish this goal. Liminal gestures are not

simply responses. They transcend traditional stereotypes and beliefs of the female body and

femininity. Utilizing these traditional, essentialist ideas

417

as a symbol of power critiques

ultimately usurps male-reproductive phallic gestures. Wolff “raises the question of whether, or

how, women can engage in a critical politics of the body in a culture which so comprehensively

codes and defines women’s bodies as subordinate and passive and as objects of the male

gaze.”

418

This is already a triumph for liminal burns.

How do we fight abjection and ultimately oppression in the breaking battle and in the hip

hop world at large? Again Wolff points out, “The general question raised by ‘the monstrous-

feminine,’ whatever its presumed origins, is whether it renders the (abject) body a potential site

of transgression and feminist intervention.”

419

In the New Millennium the courage that women may possibly gain from female

reproductive gestures will give them the daring to enter the ciphers, to stop comparing

themselves to men, and to begin to cultivate the strength to believe in themselves.

416

Rose, Black Noise, 163.

417

For example, the vagina dentata was a depiction of women’s vaginas as a castration tool of the male anatomy.

Utilizing this image and many others (like that of quick sand) as an entity of power.

418

Wolff, “Reinstating Corporeality.”

419

Ibid.

107

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(accessed January 9, 2011).

Pabon, Jorge “Pop Master Fabel.” “APACHE LINE: From Gangs to Hip Hop,”

youtube.com/watch?v=mdmQludvzBQ (accessed September 16, 2009).

Pabon, Jorge “Pop Master Fabel.” “The Last Bboys in New York,”

youtube.com/watch?v=ftj0l3MMEOs (accessed September 5, 2009).

POPMASTERFABEL, “Rock Dance History: The Untold Story of Up-Rockin’ = Papo Luv on

“Outlaw” Sisters that rock.mov,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR_MULaVMg0

(accessed December 21, 2010).

Picker, David V. Harry Belafonte and Stan Lathan. Beat Street. DVD. Directed by Stan Lathan.

Santa Monica, CA: MGM Home Entertainment, 2003.

Silver Tony and Henry Chalfant. “The Film/The Film Makers Disc 1 and ‘Hall Of Fame’” Disc

2. Style Wars. DVD. Directed by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant. Los Angeles, CA:

Public Art Films, 2004.

Soulshatterer1. “vendetta hybrid vs. extra credit,”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1XrrLekpds (accessed January 9, 2011).

Urich, Jules “b-girl,” Missy Yager, Drew Sidora, Aimee Garcia, James Martinez, Richard

Yniguez, Jenny Gago, Wesley Jonathan. B-girl. DVD. Directed by Emily Dell. Screen

Media Films, 2009.

WEBSITES

Anattitude Magazine: Europe’s only female hip hop magazine, www.anattitude.net (Accessed

November 15, 2010).

Mr. Wiggles Hip Hop Page. “Hip hop timeline,” http://www.mrwiggles.biz (accessed September

10, 2009).

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Old School Hip Hop website. “The Dynamic Rockers Biography,”

http://www.oldschoolhiphop.com/artists/bboys/dynamicrockers.htm (accessed September

4, 2009).

The Dynasty Rockers Website. “What is it? History and Biography sections,”

http://www.dynastyrockers.com/index.html (accessed September 5, 2009).

The U.S. Department of Labor Website. “The Negro Family- The Case For National Action,”

www.dol.gov (accessed December 23, 2010).

We B*Girlz. “We B*Girlz:Women in Hip-Hop,” http://b-girlz-berlin.com/ (accessed January 3,

2011).

INTERVIEWS

Published

Garcia, Ana “Bgirl Rokafella.” “The Boogie Down Bronx Presents… LA ROKA.” By Sara

Rosen. Word Press.com weblog, http://missrosen.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/the-boogie-

down-bronx-presents-la-roka (October 1, 2009): 1-6.

Unpublished

Aiko Shirakawa, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, February 23, 2010, interview.

Asia-One aka Asia Yu, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 5, 2010, interview.

Bboy Radio aka Ciprian Constantine Gontea, interview by Ansley Joye Jones, November 12,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Beyond Bgirl aka Mandi Shavon, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 20,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Candy aka Candy Bloise, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, September 29, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Ill Mischief aka Carla Silveira, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, September 29,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Dura aka Misty Dawn White, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, November 8, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Dvine aka Riyanna Hartley, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, March 1, 2009,

interview.

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Bgirl Ellz aka Lauren Rodeheaver, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, March 2, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Evil Lynn aka Jocelyn Eckhout, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, November 1, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl K8 aka Kate Morrissey, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, May 7, 2009, interview

Bgirl Cadence aka Tammy Tso, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, September 5, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Mohawk aka Kellye Danielle Greene, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 18,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Mona Lisa aka Lisa Berman, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, February 26, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Patience aka Dawnette E. Joseph, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 6, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Pretty Sick aka Charlotte Schultz, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 25,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Rokafella aka Ana Garcia, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 18, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Schizo aka Tiffany Hines, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December 28, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Seoul Assassin aka Stephanie Aasen, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, March 4,

2009, interview.

Bgirl Seoul Sonyck aka Miri Park, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, interview.

Bgirl Severe aka Nicole Rateau, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 26, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Smalls aka Sarah Saltzman, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December 25, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Squirrely aka April Vaughn, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, September 5, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Stash-One aka Stasha Sampson, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, September 5,

2009, interview.

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Bgirl TahXic aka Monica Kelly, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 1, 2010,

interview.

Bgirl Vendetta aka Adrienne Lee, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, November 1, 2009,

interview.

Bgirl Yoda Laneski aka Lane Pogue Davey, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December

23, 2009, interview.

Brenda K. Starr, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, February 24, 2010, interview.

Bubbles aka Hanifa McQueen Hudson, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, October 25, 2009,

interview.

Fire Starter aka Violeta Galagarza, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 27, 2010,

interview.

Honey Rockwell aka Ereina Valencia , email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 25, 2010,

interview.

Kim-A-Kazi aka Kim Valente, email and phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, interview.

Lady Champ aka Auristela Nunez, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 7, 2010,

interview.

Miss Twist aka Colleen Soto, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December, 23, 2009,

interview.

Naomi Bragin, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December 26, 2009, interview.

Ne Ne aka Nadine Sylbestre, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, interview.

Olopop aka Nicole Guess, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, February 3, 2010, interview.

Peaches aka Mariette Rodriguez, phone interview by Ansley Joye Jones, February 11, 2010,

interview.

Pebblee Poo aka Pebbles Riley, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 6, 2010,

interview.

SnapShot aka Doreene (Deena) Clemente and WandeePOP aka Wanda Candelario, email

interview by Ansley Joye Jones, December 2, 2009, interview.

Tweetie or TweetBoogie aka Lenaya Straker, email interview by Ansley Joye Jones, January 12,

2010, interview.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Ansley Joye Jones aka Jukeboxx is a bgirl, capoeirista, hip hop feminist,

dancer/choreographer, writer/researcher, student, educator, artist and foremost, activist. Born

and raised in Augusta, Georgia she began her journey as a Hip Hop dancer at the age of eight. It

was in her first year of college when she acquired a love for dance history and decided to go to

school for dance. She earned her BFA in Visual and Performing Arts at Savannah State

University in 2004. She is currently a master’s candidate in the American Dance Studies

program at Florida State University. In the future she plans to pursue a doctorate in dance

studies, direct a hip hop dance degree program and continues her community activist work with

young people through hip hop culture.