Dark matter in b-boying cyphers: race and global connection in hip hop

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Content DARK MATTER IN B-BOYING CYPHERS: RACE AND GLOBAL CONNECTION IN HIP HOP by Imani Kai Johnson A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (AMERICAN STUDIES AND ETHNICITY) December 2009 Copyright 2009 Imani Kai Johnson Epigraph “Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic…. [C]ommunity must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.” -Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” “…the most radical art is not protest art but works that take us to another place, envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.” -Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams ii Acknowledgements They say it takes a village…to complete a dissertation. I can attest to that. I recognize that I am very blessed, and that these blessings have come to me through the people in my life. I write this in honor of two people in particular. First is my grandma, Mary Pearson, who passed just prior to my finishing the degree. Her faith in and love for me has been my bedrock. Second is my beautiful nephew RaKhem Ajani. I love you more than I knew was possible and I marvel at your daily discoveries. I hope to add to them through my own work. My family has made it possible for me to pursue my dreams without hesitation. I want to thank my mother Carole R. Hopkins for always taking care of me; my father Rev. C. Danny Johnson for your enthusiastic response to my work and your willingness to learn more; and of course my brother Dr. T. Hasan Johnson. Despite what I do, I follow in your footsteps. You remain someone who understands me in an incomparable ways. I appreciate that I can always reach out to you when I am in need of a lifesaver. You’re there for me even when I forget to ask. As well, I’d like to thank my two honorary sisters: my best friend Crizella Wallace; and Desiree Lowe-Johnson, my sister-in-law and friend. I have found great strength in knowing you both and seeing your struggles. You inspire me to live fully. Criz, you have gotten me through a lot of tough times and I hope you know how thankful I am for our friendship. I’d like to thank my brother (from another mother) Jihad Betts. You were the first person I interviewed when this project was just a paper on cyphers and I am grateful for your willingness to jump in whenever and wherever you were needed without iii question. I am blessed with a loving family that in addition to those above, includes Floyd Pearson, George Hopkins, Patricia Johnson, and Garrett Johnson. Thank you as well. My dissertation committee has been incredibly supportive, and I am forever grateful for being able to work with them through this process. They have modeled how to be committed, generous scholars. To my co-advisors, Dorinne Kondo and Fred Moten, thank you for allowing me to pursue my work without restraint, while continuing to push me to recognize its true depths and the wealth of meaning therein. To Ruth Gilmore, you have guided me through multiple breakdowns and have pushed me to be a stronger scholar, teacher, and woman. I deeply appreciate your working with me. To Lanita Jacobs-Huey, I thank you for your time, feedback, constant encouragement, and friendship. You made me start my research when I was too afraid to do it on my own and I have matured as a result. And to Priya Jaikumar, thank you for coming on last minute and ensuring that I finish! To Sionne Neeley, Michelle Commander, Terrion Williamson, Aisha Finch, Perla Guerrero, and Aracelie Esparza: you all have kept me grounded and supported on the most basic levels—everything from feeding me, to getting me out of the house, and making me laugh. You have been essential to my psychological and emotional health. As well, I am stronger for having friends with which to share ideas, complaints, concerns, joys, and all of the little things (movies, music, etc.). To Charnjeet “Mini” Bhogal and Neetu Badhan—you as well have watched after me like wine-pouring-dinner-preparing angels. I’m grateful for our friendships. And to Reina Prado, thank you for being my mentor and guide through the doctoral program hustle. I love you all. To my official and unofficial writing groups, I extend a great THANK YOU! To Nisha Kunte, Jesús Hernández, Kyle Livie, Orlando Serrano, María Villaseñor, and Suzel iv Bozada-Días—your feedback was phenomenal, as was the turnover on lots of writing. As much work as there still is on this project, it has come far as a result of your generous and thoughtful feedback. I am so grateful to know that I have people in my life that I can depend, even last minute. As well, Kyle, thank you for making me laugh even through the delirium of those last days. I needed it! I thank my cohort as a whole for being such an incredibly smart, supportive, and intellectually generous group. You made grad school less hectic, less chaotic, and even…dare I say…fun. Much appreciation! And a special thank you to Wendy Chang for recommending I look into this concept called dark matter. To Tedward!, I mean Ted Sammons—you continue to be a great friend and a wonderful support. Be brave; you’re turn soon comes. Speaking of soon finishing, I want to extend a huge thank you to the brilliant Rich Blint. I’m lucky to be able to call you a friend and I hope you remember me when you’re a famous and sought after scholar. I would also like to thank good friends Sadio Jonas and Risë Wilson. You two have been inspiring on multiple levels. First of course as great friends and stalwart support, but also as amazing women that continually model an unwavering commitment to your goals looks like. While I have had opportunities to meet a number of amazing dancers—not all of whom I will be able to thank here—there have been some in particular who have made it possible for me to learn about b-boying and cyphering in ways that ultimately made this project possible. Namely, I want to thank Edmundo “PoeOne” Loayza, who always made a point of directing my attention to the hidden dimensions of the culture, the beauty of its nuances and subtleties, and the spiritual force that drives it all. To Raphael “Viazeen” Xavier, I am grateful for our friendship, our talks, and your dependability. And to Moncel v “Ill Kosby” Durden and Aiko Shirakawa, thank you for always including me in your work and thereby helping me with my own. I really appreciate your generosity. To Julio “Lil’ Cesar” Rivas—the first b-boy I interviewed—thank you for being so generous with your time and energy. Roberto Martinez, aka Ness4/Alien Ness, thank you for introducing me to people and of course for your willingness to speaking frankly about your art. I would especially like to thank b-boys Erick “Aby” Diaz and Luis “Trac2” Matos, whose insight into b-boying culture, into Bronx history, and cyphering have provided some of the most illuminating perspectives I have had the privilege to hear. Our conversations guided my work in inexplicable ways such that, even when you’re not mentioned directly, you can feel the resonances of your stories throughout this project. To Dr. T.J. Desch-Obi and Dr. Raquel Rivera—like it or not, you are my personal role models. At any given moment, you demonstrate the possibilities of researching and writing about your inspirations with rigor, care, and respect. I would like to thank Jane Iwamura for helping me talk about my project well enough to get funding. And I am grateful for all of the help and attention that Jorge Matos has offered me during my research at El Centro. I would also like to formally thank the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, as well as the USC Urban & Global Initiative, the Irvine Foundation, and the Ford Foundation for funding my research at various stages and ensuring its timely completion. I extend a general thank you to H. Saron D. Anglon, Edwina Ashie-Nikoi, Micaela Smith, Carloyn Dunn, Emily Hobson, Anton Smith, Jungmihwa Bullock, Dorla McIntosh, Shirley Campbell, d. Sabela grimes, Cream Monk, Triple Seven, Queen Hanifa, Buddha Stretch, Tweetie Bird, and Fadayz. vi This project was written with respect and admiration for Hip Hop, for street dance in all of its forms, and for the practitioners who keep the culture flowing. Thank you. vii Table of Contents Epigraph ii Acknowledgments iii List of Figures ix Abstract x Chapter 1 The Practice and Politics of Cyphering 1 Chapter 1 Endnotes 33 Chapter 2 Kinesthetic Knowledge in Battling Cyphers 38 Chapter 2 Endnotes 73 Chapter 3 Dark Matter & Diaspora 78 Chapter 3 Endnotes 121 Chapter 4 The Dark Matter of Race 127 Chapter 4 Endnotes 160 Chapter 5 Ethnographies of Cyphers: Three Scenarios 163 Chapter 5 Endnotes 198 Chapter 6 Notes Toward a Cypher Theory 201 Chapter 6 Endnotes 214 References 216 Bibliography 221 Appendix A. List of Interview Questions 250 Appendix B. List of B-Boying Events Attended 252 viii List of Figures Figure 2.1 Two common “God stances” 41 Figure 2.2 B-boy stances 41 Figure 3.1 Yowa cross 103 ix Abstract This multi-sited, inter-disciplinary project analyzes the ubiquitous practice within breaking (or b-boying) culture of cyphering—improvisational and competitive dance circles. Through oral histories, participant observation, and live performance and archival analysis across the U.S. and parts of Europe from 2005 to 2009, this work focuses on the unseen elements of cyphers, sometimes manifesting as cultural knowledge, the import of history, or cypher “energy”. In exchanges between dancers and in relationship to the surrounding spectators, cyphers cultivate a force that becomes their defining characteristic. While described in a number of ways—such as highs, spiritual connection, or energy—the physics concept of dark matter acts as an umbrella for its unseen, multi-dimensional, and material influences. Dark matter is the non-luminous material glue that holds together galaxies and “appears” only by way of its gravitational influence on surrounding visible matter. This project considers the multiple dimensions of competitive collaborations in relation to other collectivities, including diaspora and notions of the global. As cyphers perform multi-racial and transnational connection though movement, they act as resources to consider ideas of the whole that are attuned to internal differentiation and conflicting interests, particularly with respect to race and national difference. Chapter One examines the brief history, and the layers of meaning apparent in the unseen qualities of a single cypher. Chapter Two explores the changing cultural context of b-boying such that past historicizations of movement become a part of current struggles over cultural meaning. Battles remind us that the whole of b-boying is constituted through difference, akin to “rhizomatic” relations. Chapter Three compares the multiple depictions x xi of the cypher’s dark matter to similar forces within other African diasporic circles, demonstrating the overlapping cultural influences on b-boying movement and practices. Chapter Four examines the racial discourse on breaking in ‘80s media and in the contemporary moment among breakers in relationship to ideas of the dance’s “universal appeal.” Chapter Five provide thick descriptions of different field experiences, illustrating dimensions unaddressed in earlier analyses. Chapter Six examines b-boying as a social movement, wherein the virtual expansion of cyphering demands we consider global connection in a different manner. Chapter 1. The Practice & Politics of Cyphering In the early 1980s, dance was popular on television and in the movies. I liked to imagine myself dancing with my older classmates in the New York City streets, leaping off the top of a taxi like in the movie Fame. Dance TV shows and dance-themed movies were my favorites. When I saw breaking for the first time, I was enthralled by the group of young black and brown teenage boys, wearing tight cut-off jean shorts and knee high tube socks. They were spinning on New York City streets. I was instantly hooked. Whenever possible, I caught them on the news talk shows, speaking to relatively stiff reporters while tying to hide their nervousness behind adolescent bravado. They were cute, cool, and doing something I had never seen before. I desperately wanted to be a part of their scene, except I was in elementary school all the way in California. I did what I could. By the end of first grade I had taught myself what I thought was a decent six-step. 1 But I didn’t know where to look for support, dashing my hopes to dance yet again. By the third grade I was satisfied with the breaking movies that started coming out. As a child, it was easy to enjoy them without noticing the weak acting and even weaker storylines. Breakers seemed to express a joy and freedom that I found inspiring. Now we are in another moment, when dance in general and especially breaking are once again popular. And though the recent dance movies and television shows do not move me as they once did, I imagine that new generations of kids are learning to appreciate movement and the stories people tell with their bodies. I’m still inspired by it. Breaking is a hard work. It demands a great deal of upper body strength to balance the body, while creating intricate patterns on the floor and in the air with one’s legs and feet 1 (footwork). Everybody has her or his own style but typically, the body moves in swift, rhythmic, and circular motions with sharp, staccato-like changes in direction. “Power moves” are acrobatic and spinning combinations that represent the most spectacular aspect of the dance. While the incredible theatricality of these moves tends to garner the most attention, I always really liked the toprocking: the rhythmic dancing that opens a breaker’s entrance in a dance circle. I like watching people play with the music before dropping to the floor and representing the music through their footwork. It is like watching the music instead of just listening to it. As exciting as breaking is to watch, dance circles or cyphers amplify its thrill. Circles are improvisational, social, competitive, and potentially very exciting. They are formed as people surround a dancer who then trades turns with others in the circle. Circles are unscripted, and as a result, you never know what might happen next. Even as a spectator, I am involved in the dynamic exchange of the whole circle. I decided to focus on studying cyphers to better understand the power they held over me in my youth. In many ways, the collectivity of a cypher is a microcosm of breaking culture in general. It brings together disparate groups, competing interests, and artistic innovation in a shared cultural space where these elements mingle and sometimes clash. It also contains its own energy or force that breakers talk about as a necessary component to the cypher. Some breakers have stated that a circle’s energy has gotten them to dance though they had not planned to, or stopped them from dancing when they already were. A cypher’s force is invisible but impactful. This project explores this force and other unseen influences on the cyphers: the back stories, debates, and individual/group histories that contribute to the meaning of the movement. By understanding this force, we can begin to consider the invisible dimensions of connection that cyphering in some ways represents on the larger 2 scale of the social circle of b-boying worldwide. Thus my analysis begins at the level of particular cyphers and extends to the broader dynamics of connection within and beyond b- boying culture. My work ultimately addresses two questions that capture the spectrum of my analysis: 1. What is the force that holds cyphers together?; and 2. what can cyphers tell us about global connection? Dark Matter in B-Boying Cyphers brings Performance Studies and Cultural Anthropology to bear on Hip Hop, race, and global connection. A CIRCLE OR A CYPHER? ¹cypher [s ī′·fer]: n. at least two practitioners, some spectators, and a music source. (Jihad, Third Sight, Los Angeles); the imaginary space or circle a b-boy creates in his mind to battle his opponent (Trac 2, Star Child La Rock, Bronx); a self contained space, where there’s no escape for the energy (Krazy Kujo, Soul Patrol, Burbank); a cypher is when people get together, take turns, and the music’s playing non-stop (777, Street Masters Crew, Bronx); the stage where you go to show off or the battleground (Brooklyn Terry, Elite Force Crew, Brooklyn/ Tokyo). ² cypher: n. the heart of breaking. (Ana, Fraggle Rock Crew, Seattle); a meeting of souls, getting together as one, and taking over (Aby, TBB Crew, Bronx); it’s spiritual going back to the motherland, you know whether it was to communicate with gods or for better crops or something (Ness4, Zulu Kings, Bronx); energy, spirit, emotion, confronting fears, confronting your own demons, self-testing, and self-release that can make or break you OR there’s a whole circle and we’re channeling this energy (PoeOne, Style Elements/ Zulu Kings, Los Angeles). ³cypher, to: -ing v. you got to listen and know the music and also know how to break to the music where every thing you are doing is to the beat (Leanski, Floor Lords, Boston); it must entail a rawness and a powerful energy of respect, competitiveness and love and passion for what your doing or what your counterpart is doing (Genesis, Flowzaic, London); there’s always drama of some sort (Slinga, KR3Ts, Queens). There is no single definition of cyphers, just as there is no single cyphering experience. But in combination, the three sets of definitions above tell us concrete things about cyphers. As in the first set of descriptions, cyphers have practical aspects. They are dance circles and the structure for battles— head-to-head duels between breakers or crews. 3 They include musical or rhythmic accompaniment. And create a special space for performance. The qualities that make it special are apparent in the second set of descriptions, which are more affective. These descriptions pay attention to the nature of the collective experience and the invisible force of their exchange. They talk about the spiritual dimension of cyphering that comes through in their collective activity. The third definition, the verb, reminds us that cyphers are not just things but acts. They are created through the practice of breaking together while negotiating the music, opponents, past dramas, and more. The term “cypher” was adopted in the early 1990s. Before then it was simply called the circle. But the growing popularity of Hip Hop MCs schooled in the lessons with the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE) used the term to describe their own freestyle circles. Hip Hop’s use of the term comes from the NGE’s concept of a cipher. Also known as Five Percenters, they formed in the early 1960s after leaving the Nation of Islam. This group sees themselves, not as a religion but as a way of life. They bring together a complex set of lessons informed by numerology, freemasonry rites and signs, Islamic beliefs, and Black Nationalist politics. The term cipher 2 is defined by its shape, a 360º circle. The reference to degrees is important as Five Percenters define the cipher as 120º of knowledge, 120º of wisdom, and 120º of understanding, which all carry particular meaning in their philosophy. 3 Ciphering among Five Percenters also refers to standing or sitting in a circle and speaking with one another to “build” intellectually among those schooled in their “Lost-Found” 4 lessons, which incorporate a coded use of numbers and letters. The more familiar definition of cipher is mathematical, though the Five Percenter’s definition overlaps with its mathematical meaning in interesting ways. In mathematics the cipher refers to a zero, which 4 etymologically comes from the Arabic word çifr, meaning “empty” or “void.” 5 A cipher also refers to encoded writing, for which one needs a key to understand. Ideas of emptiness or a void allow us to think of the shape of a zero as if it were a kind of space. Additionally, the notion of coded language echoes the insider knowledge of the NGE lessons. But the NGE’s focus on the physical circle is not about its emptiness. The circle has the capacity to contain the knowledge shared within it, or the energy of the collectivity amongst breakers. And while breakers build on their repertoire and the force of the circle rather than on religio-political lessons of the NGE, the term still carries traces of the esoteric and spiritual qualities the NGE attached to it. Because of the meaningfulness of the term, I do not use cyphers and circle interchangeably. A circle refers to the literal shape or structure of bodies gathered around individual performers. There are a number of different types of circles, and not every circle is a cypher. 6 In this project, cyphering refers to the act of building collectively through the back and forth exchange in the circle. A circle is the structure within which the social act that could lead to cyphers takes place. As the energy is channeled among dancers and with spectators, circles become cyphers. The cypher is a collectivity where the spectators themselves are necessarily actively engaged in the moment, contributing their energy through their reactions and interest. This collaboration can be a gateway for psychic and even spiritual elevation. When cyphers are described in religious or spiritual terms, it is part of an effort to substantively name a sense of elevation and transformation coupled with a deeper connection to dancers and spectators in the circle. Though not all cyphers are battles, battles typically take place in cyphers. The language of warfare characterizes the battle—opponents are “enemies,” battles continue 5 until there is a “last man [is] standing.” 7 Breakers will more likely refer to their “arsenal” of moves rather than their repertoire. And while the rules of no (aggressive or malicious) touching tend to apply, gestures of sexual domination, shooting, chopping off heads, breaking backs, or the bouncing preparatory stance of a boxer ready to attack all signal the bubbling potentiality of violence. Battles remind us that breaking is a kind of combative dance art that borrows from various fighting techniques to expand the dance’s repertoire. 8 While some have argued that breaking supplanted gang fights for young practitioners, Jeff Chang contends that growing popularity of breaking in the 1970s reflected a shift in the “hierarchy of cool,” once dominated by gangs. 9 And, to the degree that b-boying took the place of gang activity, it was an alternative that has itself led to fights. 10 Thus, b-boying is not an innocent dance even in staged battles because it signifies on violence. Yet, cyphers are not always battles. They are nonetheless always competitive, even if only with oneself. Competitiveness fuels innovations in movement, thereby acting as another means of expanding the repertoire. This is not only about bigger and better moves, but about better style and sense of rhythm, and a greater capacity to improvise with the music. In fact, in their ideal form, they are called raw cyphers. The phrasing is as much about improvisation as it is about a kind of unbridled intensity of single-minded presence in the moment. “Raw” speak to ciphers as uncooked or unprocessed—i.e. the freshness of improvisation. Or it can suggest that the performances are raw, as in unrestrained or unbridled. The rawness is eternally present tense, an unrepeatable combination of overt yet controlled performative aggression. 6 INSIDE A CYPHER: DARK MATTER AND KINESTHETIC KNOWLEDGE Any given circle enacts layers of meaning. For example, I witnessed a circle at an after party held at the local train station in Braunschweig, Germany in October 2006. Thousands of attendees flooded the train station, forming little cyphers throughout the spacious main corridor. By 3:30 am, not too long after I arrived, the DJ packed up, leaving only a drummer to provide the rhythms for the cyphers. I arrived in time to catch the end of a battle between Ardit, an Albanian b-boy from TNT Cru living in Germany against b- boy Kiprana from Soul Runnings Crew, of Mexico City. The battle first caught my eye because of Ardit’s familiar face. I had met him at the UK B-Boy Championships two weeks prior through b-girl Genesis. I watched him and his opponent go back and forth, taking turns in the circle as if it were a debate. Each move seemed so say: “I see your point, but what about THIS!” Then someone would end up with all of his body weight balancing on his head or on one hand. One of the most intriguing things about their exchange was how the language gap between the two was bridged by the gestural and verbal terminology of the dance. From the outset Ardit spoke the language of power moves. Each turn in the circle was his opportunity to display those skills. He used his hands like most people used their feet. He would spin on one hand with his body extended vertically above him (a move called a 1990); bounce from one hand to the other while moving his body around the circle’s floor; or he would pull a leg over one shoulder while balancing on one hand. Ardit was a crowd pleaser, and not just because he had a lot of friends surrounding him. He was incredibly dynamic and undeniably skilled. Both breakers made verbal demands on the other in limited English: “Power, do power!” What they were able to communicate indicated their understanding of b-boying culture rather than 7 necessarily a familiarity with English, as everyone understood on what terms Ardit wanted the battle to proceed. His opponent Kiprana, had demands of his own. He skipped into the circle right on beat and began making cutting and stabbing motions towards Ardit’s head, gestures of an impending massacre. Kiprana quickly shifted to the floor, incorporating traditional footwork in an unexpected combination that culminated in several crouched cartwheels that balanced on his head rather than his hands. The diversity of his movement in a single set represented another approach to the dance. Kiprana moved his arms in the air like an off- balance scale, mimicking Ardit’s arm stylings and thus mocking him. “Power move?,” he questioned out loud, and then waved away Ardit as if to dismiss him and began dancing again without going to the floor, denying TNT Cru’s demands to see more power while performatively accusing Ardit of being unable to just dance. Each run in the circle lasted 20 to 30 seconds but communicated volumes. I had seen these ideas played out on the floor numerous times before. Kiprana and Ardit performed a larger, on-going debate about the politics of moves versus movement: what has been called power moves versus dance style or “foundation.” Some see power moves as tricks that reduce b-boying to a sport. Others see them as the predominant mode of contemporary breaking culture. The stakes of this debate are, for some, the continuation of the culture itself, and for others the elevation of the dance to new heights. While ultimately most believe that both dancing to the music and power moves matter, often the debate is reiterated in battles over style. Then an unexpected turn of events shifted this familiar exchange into something else. The terms of cultural inclusion up to this point had been about skills. Then a number of white German breakers and one b-girl in particular started obnoxiously bellowing, 8 “Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!” at each of his turns in the circle, invoking the racist stereotypes of the Warner Brothers Speedy Gonzalez character. 11 Kiprana—decked out in green, white, and red, with “Mexico” air brushed across his back—initially let their taunts pass. People laughed, and the taunting continued. The tone of the cypher got decidedly tenser. As he became noticeably frustrated, his tormentors got louder. Eventually, he reached his limit. When one b-girl in particular kept chanting “Andale!,” he finally thrust his middle finger in her face. The crowd’s “Ohhh!” encouraged a confrontation, and we all enclosed in on the circle. Because the gesture seemed unwarranted, many presumed he had just lost his cool and instead of confronting Ardit, he took his frustrations out on a woman. Kiprana’s gesture implied that perhaps she was an easier target as a woman. The crowd’s overly dramatic response only fueled the flames as she stood up, took off her jacket, and demanded he take his issues to the floor. She never acknowledged her initial verbal assault on ethnic-racial terms. The tension in the circle grew dramatically in a matter of seconds. We waited with bated breath to see what would happen next. The frustration on Kiprana’s face was obvious, I was tempted to walk over to him as a gesture of recognition of his true frustrations, but a couple of other breakers had the same idea. Someone patted his back as he left the circle and another b-girl who had been on the sidelines took up the woman’s challenge. The two b-girls began to battle, appearing to take up the original opposition between Soul Runnings and TNT Cru, but the tension dissipated as the players changed hands. Since her original opponent had left the circle, he likely also left her wondering why. It is not uncommon for some b-boys to shy away from battling b-girls. Some b-boys believe 9 that their personal mores around gender would impede on their battle approach, and anything less than their most aggressive efforts make them vulnerable to losing. Other men consider it beneath them, an insult, or a too easy win to battle a woman. Others too may battle but spend the bulk of the time focused on overly-sexual gestures of domination. While certainly not all b-boys share these opinions and would happily (and unmercifully) battle a woman who challenged him, b-girls are aware that gender differences sometimes play a role in the cypher. In any case, to not battle a b-girl in a culture that thrives on competition undermines the willingness of b-girls to compete on the same plane. I presumed the young man left because the situation seemed to get out of hand, and few recognized his grievances. And I guessed that she intended to piss him off but had failed to grasp the severity of such a breach. Despite the intensions of either party, they brought the most insidious aspects of the culture to bear on the battle. And with that, the cypher fell apart. The layers of discourse at work, signaled by the various gestural and verbal cues, are clear. There were elements of this battle that I could see and hear and those that I could not. The antagonism on racial terms seemed obvious, though few noticed. And though teasing through racialized insults is not uncommon—particularly among friends—its impact on circles is typically more subtle and even convivial. Furthermore, because b-boying is still largely a male-dominated dance, the politics of gender are not typically as obvious as they were in this case. Equally pertinent are the cypher’s unseen forces, manifesting on the surrounding bodies as tension, frustration, and anger that hampered one breaker’s dancing and incited others. At the same time, allies were established, such that at least one person seemed to befriend and defend a stranger. Because of the drama and the degree to which we 10 all enacted it, the tension swelled. Yet each person manifested a sense of the cypher’s energy individually. In addition, their performed debate historicized breaking in a distinct way. That is, they represented ideas of history wherein power moves are a contemporary phenomenon. Power moves have in fact been around since the dance’s incorporation of floor work in the mid- to late 1970s. While admittedly they have advanced greatly since then, it is inaccurate to posit power moves as new. Thus, history shapes the way the dance is read and, in turn, the movement shapes conceptions of history Movement as a language, the politics of race, ethnicity, gender (and class), and even that I was in Germany looking at a dance form that originated among African American and Afro-Caribbean peoples in New York more than 30 years ago all illuminate the scope of my project. This project addresses the complexity of any given cypher particularly through two theoretical interventions: dark matter and kinesthetic knowledge. Dark matter is a concept from physics describing the non-luminous matter comprising the majority of the universe. Because it has no light, the force of dark matter is “seen” and understood only by way of its gravitational influence on surrounding visible matter. It is thus a metaphor for the invisible force in cyphers that helps hold them together. To the degree that I can explain step-by-step what transpired in the previous example, the narrative cannot totally account for why I stayed. In the simplest of terms, dark matter accounts for that which compels me to stay with a circle or compels a dancer to keep going in. Sometimes I am fueled by frustration, other times by deep curiosity. I have been moved by lighthearted, celebratory feelings and at other times by appreciation, pride, desire, or a sense of connection. Ultimately, my project attempts to account for and articulate the nature of that force that compels us to stay, and by extension signifies on the 11 expanse of the circle’s influence beyond the immediate performance. The cypher is a collective action forged through individual artistic endeavors, out of which grows a dynamic between individuals and surrounding spectator-dancers. Some interviewees call this an “energy exchange.” It is recognized, shared, and engaged through dancing in the circle. I use dark matter as a metaphor for such a force. Dark matter is a metaphor for the energy of a circle because that energy is also a kind of a materiality that shapes what happens in cyphers and thereby shapes the reality of people’s experiences. Any circle’s energy is as real as the things we can see. Thus, the cypher’s dark matter is a kind of non-empirical materiality described by those I have interviewed. Physicists consider dark matter to have the capacity to hold galaxies together. Likewise, I consider the role of this invisible material force in holding cyphers together. By extending cyphers as representations of global connection, I consider the influence of the cypher’s dark matter in holding together the larger social circle of global b-boying culture, of Hip Hop, and of global connections in general. Ideas of the whole—whether that be in immediate circles or as a transnational culture—necessarily negotiate meanings of difference and sameness. Dark matter also becomes useful metaphor to account for other unmarked influences on the circle’s hold, such as racial differences that are both invoked and ignored in claims to breaking’s universality. But in a culture founded on the battle, difference can cultivate productive frictions. I also explore the concept of kinesthetic knowledge. Kinesthesia is a type of perception through movement. It is akin to kinesiology and the kinetic in that they all contain the root Greek word kinein, meaning to move. While kinesiology is about the study of motion and kinetic describes motion, kinesthesia specifies the sensory perception derived 12 from a particular type of motion. Its focus on the tendons, joints, and muscles complements the type of movement of the range of Hip Hop dances. This concept follows in the work of embodied knowledge, embodied praxis, and corporeal intelligence, terms coined and used by performance and dance scholars Diana Taylor, Barbara Browning, and Yvonne Daniel respectively to represent forms of knowing through the body. Dance, like gesturing, is communicative—physical signs that transmit meaning. I focus on kinesthetic embodiment specifically to orient my analysis towards the communicative capacity within the approach of breaking’s movement, specifically with respect to cultural knowledge. The term addresses the confluence of b-boying history, physical movement, and cultural understanding. Thus, I define kinesthetic knowledge as cultural understanding manifest in and born from b-boying movement. Kinesthetic knowledge refers to the embodiment and processes of historicization preserved in the dance. For example, inasmuch as certain cultural debates—like the one between power moves and dancing—-may play out in breaking battles, the discursive terms attached to the battle represent ideas about breaking’s history and the direction in which the culture is going or should take. Histories inform movement, and movement can carry histories. In turn, movement can in turn influence how certain histories are understood. Kinesthetic knowledge reproduces historical narratives or cultural debates through acts of breaking and battling. Dancing is in fact the main mode through which to tackle such issues. As a result, kinesthetic knowledge changes over time as old battles are settled and new ones take shape. HISTORICIZING BREAKING: BEGINNINGS AND MISINFORMATION The contestation around history reminds me of how little people actually know of breaking culture, despite its spectacular presence in pop culture. Breaking’s history is still 13 largely an oral history. There is little documentation of the details of the culture. There are no epic tales written down of the battles between Crazy Commandos Crew and Star Child La Rock, though Trac2 could tell you some stories. On the other hand, there is sufficient documentarian work on Hip Hop’s early days to shape a dominant narrative of these roots. The dance began in the early 1970s among African Americans in poor and working class areas of the New York City boroughs, particularly the South Bronx. Breaking’s foundation was the result of a potent combination of 1960s and 1970s soul, funk, and rock. Hip Hop formed out of the eclectic mix of the outlaw graffiti writers decorating the city’s subways and up and coming DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc, who incorporated Jamaican dancehall elements such as giant speakers and rhyming on the microphone. Kids began “going off”, “rocking”, or “burning”—terms for the early forms of breaking. By the mid- to late-1970s, adolescents and teenagers of various backgrounds began to break, though it became particularly prominent among young Puerto Rican males. This new generation of breakers shifted the dance to the floor with dynamic, dangerous, and acrobatic moves that increasingly became the norm. By the early 1980s, graffiti, rap, breakbeats, and b-boying spread out of the boroughs that fostered growth and hit the mainstream with a force that captured the imaginations of kids and marketers alike. Featuring such groups as the Rock Steady Crew and the New York City Breakers, b-boying was among the first Hip Hop elements to capture large-scale commercial appeal through movies like Flashdance and countless others that quickly flooded the market starting in 1983 and peaking in 1985. Breakdancing, as it was known in the media, became the source of criticism from health officials who warned parents against the dangers of untrained kids attempting certain moves. San Bernardino California threatened 14 to ban public breaking circles altogether. Other cities issued fines or demanded street dance permits. There are other ways to construct a history of breaking that are more cognizant of the broader dynamics of the era. 12 Even less has been written about the culture since the 1980s. Breaking grew into a worldwide cultural practice. While its life in the U.S. has ebbed and flowed, its international existence has grown progressively, retrieving many of b-boying’s “pioneers” and helping to revive its popularity in the U.S. Today, while much of the music is still the same eclectic mix with some recent additions, the repertoire has expanded with each generation and the involvement of broader spectrum of people. Breaking is now even more outrageous, dangerous, daring, and amazing. In the past breakers recounted stories of having re-watched the entirety of Flashdance in the theatre just to see a 30 second clip of the Rock Steady Crew. Others told stories of visiting cousins from New York City who taught the few moves they knew during short visits. Times have changed dramatically. Nowadays, one can more readily find out about b-boying online than anywhere else, not just in terms of information but footage. Where once people heard only rumors or saw random newspaper articles about breaking abroad, today one need only go to YouTube to see a cypher from Moscow, Gaza, Tokyo, or Mexico City. Not only is b-boying’s reach global, the means by which one can learn the movement are also more accessible. Workshops and classes abound. Respected teachers are flown in to teach, and local or regional “pioneers” bring their knowledge and expertise to bear as well. The best breaker in the world or the next dramatic shift in the culture could come from anywhere. Cultural changes over time generate concern about communicating the dance’s history along with the spectacle of the movement. Without an awareness of the past and few works to critically 15 document and analyze the culture’s changes, 13 some wonder if breaking will make it to future generations as a respected culture with a rich history or as merely a hodgepodge of acrobatics to music. Thus this is a moment of transition for b-boying, as people struggle to retain and teach a cultural foundation in the midst of inevitable and unceasing change. This project attempts to work through the changing dynamics of breaking—how it is learned, whose voices are heard—despite the scarcity of information on breaking culture after the ‘80s. Thus my work attempts to both fill in the blanks of the culture today, while examining the theoretical implications of the cultural work of breakers. Some of the battles around history are actually products of the abundance of misinformation and conflicting stories. For example, “breaking” is more popularly known as “breakdancing,” which many I have interviewed consider a misnomer. Many prefer the more “authentic” b-boying rather than breakdancing, as they were known as b-boys and b- girls (standing for break-girl/boy) before they were labeled breakdancers. Among those I interviewed, a “breakdancer” is someone deemed unschooled in the history, someone for whom breaking is a job or a fad rather than her/his life. Some contend that the term “breakdancer” was made popular by the media in the early 1980s when popular representations of the dance led to a frenzied appropriation of the dance with little regard for the culture. Thus a breakdancer is representative of a mentality of financial profit over everything else. The choice between “breaker” and “b-boy/girl” is not so simply determined. For some, there is no debate—“b-boy” and “b-girl” are the most authentic terms. For others, “breaker” is a happy medium between the over-exposed misnomer “breakdancer” and the less familiar term “b-boy/girl.” In some cases, as the music changes and younger b-girls and 16 b-boys dance to rap music starting in the early ‘90s, there is less ownership over the term break-girl/boy. I noticed too that those who work as dancers outside of b-boying spaces, for example in theatre, film, commercials, and dance companies are likely to also use the term “breaker,” as it is more publicly familiar and thus buttresses their movement through diverse performance spaces. Several b-girls I have interviewed were more concerned with being respected in the dance than they were about labels. This is not to say they do not claim b-girl status—most did. Rather, it is to suggest that the terms of this debate are more important for some than for others. Simply put, while the dismissal of “breakdancer” seems commonplace, for a variety of reasons “breaker” is more fluid. I use b-boying interchangeably with the gender neutral term “breaking,” though I use the latter with greater frequency. B-boying signals the masculinist approach of the dance. But clearly the dance is not exclusive to b-boys. B-girls have been present though largely under-represented since the dance’s inception. 14 A misnomer like “breakdancing” is a form of misinformation given life in the media that cultural insiders continue to attempt to clear up decades later. One example is the term “pop-lock.” In the media short hand for street dance in the early 1980s, “breakdancing” became a catch-all for a variety of distinct dance techniques that then lost their specificity, becoming “styles” of “breakdancing.” Thus, the public archive of Hip Hop dance is deeply flawed. “Pop-locking” was such a reduction, though no such dance actually existed. It is a term that conflates two distinct dances, whose similarities are fewer than their differences: locking and popping. Locking precedes popping. Innovated by Don “Campbellock” Campbell, locking developed in the early 1970s, when his inability to master African American social dances like the Jerk and the Funky Chicken led to the innovation of a new 17 genre altogether, whose popularity grew from the group’s recurring presence on “Soul Train” during the ‘70s. 15 Locking combines bouncy and fluid movements where the top and bottom halves of the body move in opposing directions, arm rolls and points, kicks, and sudden freezes where one tenses up the muscles and locks the joints. It is a jovial and energetic dance that carries quite a different tone than popping, a dance innovated later by Boogaloo Sam from Fresno California. Popping is a dance based in the continuous contraction of one’s muscles, juxtaposing staccato and fluid movements while playing with multiple rhythms through the body to demonstrate one’s funkiness. For some, popping is used as an umbrella term for a multitude of styles, and for others Funkstyles is a more appropriate catchall for the different dances of which popping is but one. Other styles include ticking, hitting, and strutting, among others. On the East Coast, where only snippets of popping were seen on TV, it became known as “electric boogie.” Popping is also the source of a number of popular social dances, like the robot and the moonwalk. 16 As b-boying came to the fore of Hip Hop street dances, locking and popping were subsumed under the umbrella of Hip Hop and degraded in pop culture to a series of breakdancing moves. Yet, the invention of “pop- locking” in ‘80s pop culture suggests that there was such a dance, as many who began to break in this era incorporated the different dances into their b-boying. Whether one attempts to correct this type of misinformation or not, there is no stable, authentic narrative. It is important to add that accuracy is also inevitably hampered by contrasting and sometimes contradictory narratives of the past or the pressure to take sides. My efforts to be accurate are present in my efforts to articulate the multiple sides of a given conflict as generously as possible. As well, I try to acknowledge those perspectives that may not be 18 easily generalizable or that may contradict my analysis so as to demonstrate the complexity of the culture. METHODS I employed multiple methodological approaches to effectively address the multi- dimensionality of cyphers. These included live performance analysis, participant observation as an actively engaged spectator, and oral histories. These are not necessarily methods for examining the unseen aspects of cyphers but rather, they are methodological approaches for experiencing cyphers and coming to understand b-boying culture. From there, the unseen became increasingly apparent. As I learned more about the internal debates on culture and history, then came to appreciate the energy of cyphers after spending time in them. I started my study in 2006. I based myself in New York City for the first year and a half, followed by a year and a half of research based in Los Angeles, as well as a three week trip to Europe in Fall 2006. As a multi-sited project, I chose to follow the practice via b- boying competitions, rather than follow a particular group of breakers. In total, I travelled to over a dozen cities in the U.S. and abroad. I attended over 50 events, classes, workshops, training sessions, block parties, after parties, rehearsals, performances, and countless street breaking circles, conversations, and social excursions. I also conducted over 50 interviews predominantly with breakers, but also with poppers, lockers, a house dancer, two DJs and three MCs. In support of these materials, I also gathered early written and photographic representations of Hip Hop culture in niche market and popular publications (e.g. Latino NY, Right On!, Time) from the dance holdings at the New York City Performing Arts Library at the Lincoln Center, in the general holdings at the Schomburg Center for Research in 19 Black Culture, and the special collections at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at CUNY Hunter College. I address some of my archival findings Chapter 4. My field research strategy was to travel to as many events in as many places as I could afford. My primary research sites were b-boying competitions. Though events differ in size and approach, b-boying competitions share certain qualities that speak to the nature of my field work. Such events usually last between six to ten hours a day, spanning from single day events to week-long programming. They include pre-arranged battles (one-on- ones, duos, and crew battles of five to ten members), where practitioners compete in front of a panel of judges and an audience of spectators until a winner is declared. Sometimes these battles happen on stage, other times in a large circle with the audience sitting or standing around the competitors. Events typically begin with preliminary battles that lead to final competitions, occasionally interspersed with live entertainments. My attention focused on the time in between the staged battles allotted specifically for open circles, which refers to the time and space devoted entirely to cyphering. These events provide venues for cyphering without disruption by police for blocking the flow of traffic, or club owners wary of customers watching rather than dancing. Cyphering is also the draw for many with no plans to formally compete and these events provide opportunities to see old friends, make new ones, develop skills, circulate one’s name, and witness first hand the new directions of the dance. I have attended events in San Francisco, Long Beach, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Ft. Lauderdale, New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx), London, Thun, and Braunschweig. Though most of the breakers I met made efforts to attend many events as possible, in my travels I met a particular contingent of breakers who also travelled from event to event 20 around the world. They are older (mid-to late 30s) and have made names for themselves as teachers or oral historians. They are paid and are flown worldwide on a regular basis to teach workshops, speak on panels, and judge competitions. Through my research approach I facilitated introductions to several respected members of the breaking community. Another group of traveling breakers are smaller contingents of international dancers— usually from the same crew, city, or country—who have saved their money for the expressed purpose of competing in the circuit of regional b-boying events for periods lasting from two weeks to as many as three months. For them it was an opportunity to become known in a different country, to train with local legends, or simply to engage with unfamiliar dancers outside of their home countries. These dancers have been younger (late teens and early to mid-20s) with a range of English fluency. My encounters with such groups have afforded me opportunities to make contacts prior to my research trip to Europe in October of 2006. As such, whether in the US or not, all of the events I have attended have been “international.” Interviews were held at competitions, private residences, restaurants and cafes, parks, and performance and practice venues. The goals of these interviews revolved around the speaker telling stories about cyphers or cypher-like experiences, elaborating on their personal history in the dance, and logistical and pragmatic qualities of cyphering, their thoughts on the state of the culture, and their experiences in other countries or in other types of performance spaces. Common questions included, “Do you remember your first circle?”; “What did your parents think of your dancing?”; “Is there cypher etiquette?”; “What are the necessary elements to a cypher?” The age range of interviewees has been from 19 to 44, with the over 30 of them in their 30s. Approximately 30% of the interviews are with 21 women, 20% are non-US born or based dancers, and over 90% are people of color. Methodologically, I have made the choice to approach my interviews as I would engage any scholars’ work. That is, I engage breakers as scholars’ of their art. Their discussions of their work are my primary sources both to understand the practical terms of cyphering as well as its theoretical dimensions. I use lengthy quotes to allow the reader access to as much of the interviewee’s voice as possible. LITERATURE REVIEW The literature on Hip Hop includes a broad range of work, from academic to popular; all of which helps to establish a history of Hip Hop, document primary sources, and unpack various timely debates often about the politics of representation in rap. The intellectual terrain 17 of the developing field of Hip Hop Studies is framed by two prominent works: Tricia Rose’s Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994) and Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (2005). While Black Noise is an award-winning scholarly text, and Chang’s journalistic style and its appeal to a broad audience makes it “popular,” such distinctions are not hard and fast in Hip Hop Studies. That is to say, Rose’s work also has popular appeal, and Chang’s has scholarly value. Black Noise’s focus on rap music in the context of American popular culture made a case for rap as art at a time when it was largely deemed inartistic. Rose begins her work with a look at all of the “original elements” of the culture, but ultimately emphasizes Hip Hop music production, sampling, and rap lyrics as representative of all of Hip Hop. This has since become a common practice. Chang’s work builds on and critiques Black Noise and works like Bakari Kitwana’s The Hip-Hop Generation, ultimately developing a detailed socio- 22 cultural history that starts in Kingston and the Bronx in the 1970s and moves to the present moment. His history of multiple generations of Hip Hop culture also eventually focuses on rap. With over a decade between them, both works detail the artistic and social complexities of popular culture and music. And while dance is not at the fore of their discussions, they argue for the cultural-political relevance and force of African diasporic music, which is invariably tied to African diasporic dance. My project departs from these previous studies in two ways: first, it is a sustained analysis of dance; and second, it furthers scholarly inquiry by examining Hip Hop as a source for theory. While current work on b-boying and even battling largely occurred in film, 18 my inquiry is distinctive in its analysis of cyphering beyond the confines of the battle and argues for the theoretical value of the practice. Various metaphors for diasporic, global, and cultural connection lend themselves to this project. Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relations, Brent Hayes Edwards’ The Practice of Diaspora, and Anna L. Tsing’s Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection explore ideas of transnational or diasporic connections. Their analyses of collaborative projects or cultural- political mobilizations are formulated in direct conversation with social and cultural differences, processes of othering, competition, and the “frictions” of such connections. Edwards and Tsing specifically conceive of diaspora and global projects respectively as contingent mobilizations wherein different interests and commitments are put to work for the whole. These scholars provide theoretical direction to explore cyphers as types of unities that are conceived of in the context of their own internal heterogeneity. I continually return to issues of ethnicity, nationality, and race. Works on racial formation, productions of racial identities, and recent work on race and globalization in Hip Hop have been useful as they create a context for analyzing race in the international 23 community of breakers. 19 More integral have been examinations of African elements in North and South American dance or movement arts, signaling their not-entirely-Western aesthetic and cultural commitments. 20 And other texts on samba, bomba, African American social dances, tango, and capoeira look at unchoreographed movement with distinct ties to processes of racialization, exoticization, and social formation. 21 Several studies in particular have inspired my own examination of breaking culture. Brenda Dixon Gottschild’s Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performances: Dance and Other Contexts discussion of what she names the Africanist aesthetic aspects of American dance, naming specific qualities that better situate b-boying in a history of African diasporic dance. In doing so, she highlights important dimensions to dance that have been buried as a result of the avoidance or dismissal of African qualities to American culture. Marta Savigliano’s Tango and the Political Economy of Passion is a compelling examination of the history of tango, its expropriation by colonial forces, and thus the affective component that travels in these networks of power. Her work is necessarily involves analyses of racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and intellectual decolonization. My own work examines the affective components of cyphers as a means of considering the whole of b-boying and Hip Hop culture in recognition of its diversity and the persistent debates and battles therein. Studies of performance and dance provide the groundwork for looking at b-boying as both performance and theory. While I have focused on ethnography, my approach to studying b-boying is a product of multiple theoretical directions in these fields, namely with respect to embodiment. In the past, methodological approaches to studying dance followed two trajectories: choreology and ethnography. Ethnochoreologists are folklorists who look at traditional dance and ritual practices within the larger context of a culturally specific 24 space. 22 Dance ethnologists have focused on body mechanics, developing methods of recording movement such as Labanotation—a symbol notation system developed by Rudolf Laban in the 1920s—to inscribe the exact movements of the body. The ethnography of dance carries with it concerns about recording the event, transcribing movement, studying its choreographed script, and documenting it to undermine its ephemerality. Western Enlightenment notions of a mind-body split and the primacy of written documentation as the repositories of memory and history have shaped Performance Studies. Performance supposedly privileged the body over the mind, and because it is ephemeral by nature, studying dance once posed a challenge to scholars. The “solution” was in the ideas of dance as a mode of communication. From here, linguistic analogies have long characterized work on dance. It was part of a larger effort not only to ground dance theoretically, but to rescue it from a philosophical dismissal attached to its ephemerality. 23 But performance is not text, and contemporary work on the ephemerality of dance suggests that it is not something to battle against but to embrace as a fundamental aspect of the performance itself. Dance scholars André Lepecki and Mark Franko attribute the current recognition of ephemerality to Jacques Derrida’s linguistic analyses and his theory of the trace. 24 In the project of deconstruction, the trace is a concept that names the residual mark within a text that makes apparent that which had been excluded from meaning and thus acts as the condition of meaning existence. The trace allows for a departure from Western logocentrism that demands a fixed and stable signified that speech merely represents and writing can distort, in favor of an approach that draws value from the play between representation and that which is represented. The signified and signifiers differ from each other and continually defer a fixed meaning (a concept captured in Derrida’s use of differánce). 25 Meaning is formed in part through its differences from other representations and in part by that which is excluded from its own enclosed meaning, which the trace reveals. Performance Studies draws on the notion that a performance’s existence is not necessarily bound to its sustained presence, as the trace reconstitutes absence as dislocation rather than non-existence or disappearance. A subject need not be there in a material form for its historical and political potency to exist. Thus, the attempt to preserve performance through recordings cannot capture the non-empirical energy of the moment, which, though absented in the recording is nonetheless efficacious to the scene. 25 Despite the inability to fully record and thereby freeze dance in time, its value is not solely bound to an enduring physical existence through such archives. Dance’s importance can also be found in its “irremediable disappearance.” Lepecki writes that, “[T]he motion of différance initiated by the trace opens up a whole set of possibilities for dance writing: of considering dance’s materiality not only as that physical motility temporally and spatially enclosed within the frame of the stage and the dancers’ skins, but also as a symbolically charged imaginary space.” 26 Franko and Lepecki find the trace to be a productive concept that re-conceptualizes dance’s ephemerality not as lack, but as a new possibility for writing on dance, not as documentation but as an act that is too unfixed or in motion. 27 While there has been a great deal of work on the preservation of dance, performances’ ephemerality can push forward new approaches to analysis. In The Archive and the Repertoire, Diana Taylor argues that performance constitutes a methodological lens and thus an epistemology—embodied practices as ways of knowing the world. 28 My own use of kinesthetic knowledge is inspired by the work on embodiment. Taylor situates her theory in performance itself, looking to repertoire as the vehicle of 26 memory, socio-cultural knowledge, history, and a sense of identity. 29 In the repertoire, actually being present in live performance is a necessary component in the production of knowledge and its transmission, thus resisting the standards that posit value by the degree to which a text a can endure (as with archives). She insists on writing with rather than against this principle: Performances also replicate themselves through their own structures and codes…. The process of selection, memorization or internalization, and transmission takes place within (and in turn helps constitute) specific systems of re-presentation. Multiple forms of embodied acts are always present, though in a constant state of againness. They reconstitute themselves, transmitting communal memories, histories, and values from the one group/generation to the next. Embodied and performed acts generate, record, and transmit knowledge. 30 Being there is important because repetition prompts understanding. The repertoire, as a repository of embodied practices, necessarily means that performances recur and reiterate “structures and codes” of a given socio-cultural environment. But this does not mean they simply repeat, as if playing a recording over again. Such acts are re-fashioned at each occurrence in a different form and in that difference is the memory of that which preceded it. What endures is the patterned social drama in a given performance. Its repetition is not “necessarily or primarily” mimetic but a reflection of a deeply internalized social act. The performed act itself demonstrates the wealth of understanding contained by the repertoire that makes that performance possible. That is, while every cypher is distinct, the ritual transmits knowledge through reenactment. Cyphering’s uniqueness reflects a continual re- fashioning in each new performance. But the repetition itself teaches the “structures and codes” of the cultural practice. Yvonne Daniel continues Taylor’s examination of patterns within dance to examine how they transmit cultural knowledge. She uses embodied knowledge to refer to cognitive, 27 physical kinesthetic, spiritual, and emotional forms of understanding generated within the dancing and drumming body in the various sacred ritual dance practices of Cuba, Brazil, and Haiti. 31 “Participants learn from observation, witnessing, modeling, and active participation. As worshipers perform in repetitive ritual sequences, they sense and learn. And as they continue to perform in ceremonial repetition over time, in the process of music-making and dance performance, embodied knowledge is accumulated and constantly consulted.” 32 The patterns within performance contexts are as much modes of education as they are means of worship. As such, they come to also produce a knowing community whose continued participation allows for deeper philosophical insights into such practices. Again, being there is absolutely necessary whether one is present as an observer, worshipper, or dancing participant. All learn to perform their roles in the environment. While an emphasis on linguistic analogies has subsided in Performance Studies, breakers continue to use this frame to discuss their work. They use comparisons to sentences and narratives to describe the “structures and codes” of b-boying that should be evident in repeated runs in the cypher. The linguistic analogy among breakers has nothing to do with dance’s ephemerality and is instead about underlying patterns of expression, where a broad repertoire (or lack thereof) attests to differences in cultural knowledge. The comparison attempts to convey ideas about movement in terms that are accessible to non- breakers, demonstrating that a link to written language need not eclipse performance. Trac2 and PoeOne have each explained the technique of breaking through metaphors of both a sentence and a story. PoeOne clarifies: Cuz breaking’s supposed to be like a story. It’s a sentence. You go into the circle with your top rock: that’s the beginning of the sentence. When you go down to the floor, that’s your plot. That’s your descriptions: your flows, your connections, everything is what you did in the sentence. Then your 28 freeze is the period. Or if you end with a big blow up that’s an exclamation mark. Or if you end it standing up—BAM!—that’s to be continued. You’re gonna come in again later on. You know, and that’s how we portray it. How you gonna run in with no top rock and do a hallow back freeze—you did a period—and then another freeze, another freeze, and then you walk out? You did period, exclamation mark, question mark… But you didn’t tell me who the hell you were... It’s a self-expression. You have to tell us who you are. 33 B-boying’s “vocabulary” (another useful linguistic term) merges the metaphor of sentence structure and storytelling such that a turn in the circle is a sentence and a sentence is a story of identity. Top rocking in this metaphor is the subject of the sentence, making it the part that identifies who performs the action. If a plot is a sequence of events that narrate a story line, then floor work or footwork improvises a sequence of moves that describe someone’s personal style and creative imagination. In this formulation, top rocking and foot work are instrumental to expressing “who the hell you were.” The expression of intention is exemplified in how it ends—the finality of a period, the explosiveness of the exclamation point, the implied continuation of an ellipsis. A breaker can demonstrate certain talents through a series of complicated freezes that showcases their strength, flexibility, and acrobatic or contortionist skills, yet such a dancer may unintentionally communicate his/her own limited vocabulary. 34 The metaphor also attests to the importance of a diverse repertoire. In this metaphor, PoeOne makes clear that what you say is as important as how you say it. The social act of battling is actually policed in competitions. Judges determine winners and losers, and only a generous few explain their decisions. Thus, the competition socializes breakers to conform in some ways to the demands of the structures and codes that characterize b-boying as a practice. Competitions are an opportunity to transmit this approach and re-present it to the community. In this case, the linguistic analogy represents an enduring pattern to be repeated in performance. And those performers, under the rubric 29 of competition, learn to meet those expectations. The repertoire endures, but embodied knowledge shifts as values about the dance shift. A number of these works focus on things unseen, the non-empirical components of performance that endure. Taylor’s and Daniel’s emphasis on “being there” reminds us that performances are an experience. And though it disappears, the experience of its ephemerality, of its tone, the unique presence and charisma of individual performers, and the structures and codes of the ritual are learned in the experience at the moment of performance. And after the performance, these elements certainly endure in individuals, and within the ritual itself, as rites enacted in a different time and place, perhaps under different circumstances. Still, vestiges of prior performances subsist within each new reenactment. The “trace” reminds us that sometimes absence is really a presence in a different form— perhaps as an echo or a specter. Avery Gordon’s Ghostly Matters takes on the project of detecting the empirical endurance of the presence of things unseen that draw us effectively into transformative recognition. Her work is about an empirical study of ghosts and hauntings in order to make the stories sociologists tell more attuned to the complications of life. In a similar vein, I acknowledge the impact of the unseen as a presence that is a constituent element of the socio-cultural life of b-boying, made evident through cyphering. At the same time, while Gordon focuses on the traces of the specter by way of its exclusion, I focus my attentions on the efforts to name and give form to matters unseen. In other words, though breakers acknowledge and recognize the unseen aspects of cyphers, they sometimes struggle to articulate that force though they can communicate the experience of it through dance. 30 CHAPTER OUTLINES Throughout this project, as I work through the questions of the unseen in cyphers as well as their potential relationship to understanding global connection, I repeatedly return to the broader questions that inspired the project. How might our creative commitments shape how we are, exist, live, think about, make choices, and act in this world? How do our passions create new possibilities for living and thus reimagining or changing the conditions of our existence? To re-imagine the contours of our lived reality is to change those conditions and open up new possibilities for living. I left these questions behind to get to the business of researching and writing a dissertation on dance. But in the writing, I found I continually returned to them. Each chapter is dedicated to all of the questions I ask of my project. I focus on an unseen or unmarked quality within cyphering, whether that manifests as cultural knowledge or the energy of cyphers. I use this approach to consider the multiple dimensions of the collective whole. “Chapter Two: Kinesthetic Knowledge in Battling Cyphers” applies the concept of kinesthetic knowledge to battling techniques detailed by Trac2. I read these battling techniques in direct relationship to their shared qualities with the backgrounds of several b- boys who grew up in the Bronx to demonstrate the relationship between history and movement. Finally, this chapter explores the changing cultural context of b-boying such that past historicizations of movement become a part of current struggles over cultural meaning that are attached to the movement and play out in battles. “Chapter Three: Dark Matter in Breaking Circles,” focuses on the invisible, non- empirical, and yet impactful force of the cypher that holds it together. I use dark matter as an umbrella for the range of ways cyphers are described, with a close analysis of descriptions 31 32 of a drug or runner’s high, spiritual fellowship, Christ energy, and a channeling to friends from the past. The diasporic dimensions of cyphering reveals links between my use of dark matter and other circle practices, demonstrating that this dimension of cyphers is not an anomaly but evident in other practices. “Chapter Four: The Dark Matter of Race” addresses the discourse of race in early media representations of b-boying and in the contemporary moment among breakers. Based on an archival analyses of early representations of b-boying that emphasized racial difference and an analysis of the multiple manifestations of racial discourses amongst breakers today, I explore the ways that b-boying and cyphers have been repeatedly represented as universalizing projects that purport a colorblind or transcendent quality to the culture. I use the metaphor of dark matter to demonstrate the often unnamed or hidden influence of race in ideas of the whole of b-boying. “Chapter Five: Ethnographies of Cyphers: Three Scenarios,” provide thick descriptions of different experiences in the field. One description focuses on cyphers at a large scale event, another looks at a block party cypher, and the third explores a circle that is not a cypher. Each story builds on ideas of the fantastic, call and response, and improvisation. “Chapter Six: Notes Toward a Cypher Theory,” examines the idea of b-boying as a social movement, or a movement of movement. I tie the social impulse to the virtual expansion of cyphering online. I end the chapter with sketches of a cypher theory based on the above explorations. 33 Chapter 1 Endnotes 1 A six-step is basic footwork and refers to the 6 steps it takes to circle around your body while on the ground. While probably one o the most recognizable breaking moves, it is arduous work to move swiftly and gracefully. 2 I use the spelling cypher rather than cipher, to distinguish between the practice in Hip Hop and that of Five Percenters and mathematicians. 3 The Book of the Five Percenters Edition #195 (Monticello, NY: The Original Tenets of Kedar, 1991): 348. 4 The Nation of Islam ha been called the “Lost-Found” Nation of Islam in reference to the idea that Islam, as the Nation depicts it, is “the Black man’s” true and original religion that was once “lost” and then re- introduced by the Nation’s founder W.D. Fard. The “Lost-Found lessons” were teachings supposedly learned by Clarence 13X (founder of the Nation of Gods and Earths) from Elijah Muhammad. They are said to be modeled on the catechism of Masons, and are arranged in a question-and-answer format. Ted Swedenburg, “Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent,” Paper presented at the Anthropology Colloquium, University of Arkansas 19 February 1997. Web <http://comp.uark.edu/~tsweden/5per.html>. 5 “cipher, n.” OED Online. July 2009. Oxford University Press 6 Some circles are more about technique and execution rather than dancing. Practice circles are where people enter to practice a particular move, often followed by crashing to the floor, getting up, and trying again. According to b-boy Leanski, original member of the Boston’s Floor Lords Crew, there are also power circles, or circles dedicated to the practice, execution, and display of power moves—dynamic acrobatic feats that challenge the limits of the body or the limits of perceptions of the body’s capabilities. Like practice circles, they are more about the display of particular moves rather than dancing to the music. They emphasize strength and ability, drawing attention to the illusionist aspect of b-boying. To be clear, while music may accompany practice and power circles, they do not necessarily need it, thus distinguishing them from cyphers, the focus of my attention. Leanski. Personal Interview. June 29, 2006. 7 Ness 4. Personal Interview. August 9, 2006; PoeOne. Personal Interview. January 3, 2007. 8 Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2003): 72; Aby. Personal Interview., March 18, 2007; Trac2. Personal Interview. July 28, 2007. 9 Jeff Chang Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005): 82. 10 Icey Ice. Personal Interview. March 18, 2007; Krazy Kujo. Personal Interview. September 4, 2006; Aby. Personal Interview. March, 18, 2007. See also: Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994); David Toop, Rap Attack #3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. Expanded 3 rd ed. (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2000). 11 Speedy Gonzalez is itself an update of the Go-Go Gomez character in the old “Dick Tracy” cartoon. 12 The story of b-boying need not necessarily begin in the South Bronx. There is always something prior to what we call “the beginning”. Jeff Chang begins his work Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop by looking at the Bronx alongside 1970s Kingston Jamaica, examining how the roots rebel music of Rastas accompanied by a growing nationalism prompted technological advancements in sound systems, dub music, and a soundtrack to the country’s political and economic unrest. He draws parallels between the literal and figurative fires that burned in Kingston and the Bronx. These cities were just two examples of many places suffering in the economic downturn of the era. In the 1970s, the US economy was suffering as increased gas prices, stagflation, and the 34 neglect of urban communities contradictorily in the face of urban renewal programs that led New York City into particularly hard times. This was the backdrop for the aforementioned basement parties. But again, there are multiple beginnings. One can decide to look at the socio-political factors that led New York and particularly the Bronx to be the locus for several “minority” groups living amongst each other. The African American population in New York grew after the Great Migration from the South between 1915 and the 1920s, slowing during the Depression and increasing again after the Civil Rights movement. Waves of immigration from the West Indies, first peaking in the 1920s and again after 1965 immigration reforms, dramatically increased the population of Afro-Caribbeans and particularly Jamaicans in New York by the early 1970s. This legislation also increased immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Puerto Ricans, as a part of an American “territory,” already had U.S. citizenship; hindrances to migration were more economic. Puerto Rican populations in New York grew exponentially in the 1950s and the 1960s, after the Truman Administration’s new policies reduced airfares and thus the ease of migration to demonstrate American democracy and the benefits of the American capitalist model. According to Grosfoguel, the Truman Administration wanted oppose to the link between Cuba and the Soviet Union at the beginnings of the Cold War. We can also consider the national and international social and political factors that helped shape the version of New York City that these populations convened in by the 1970s. Post-Civil Rights urban America was preceded by a decade of race riots and subsequent urban unrest throughout the 1960s, and the subsequent violent and public suppression of multiple radical organizations attached to the Black Power and Third World Liberation movements. Racial injustice was reified by neo-conservative politics and Cold War policies that helped put an end o social reform programs. Poverty and segregation continued to characterize the lives of urban dwelling people of color. 12 Hip Hop was as much a product of the South Bronx as it was a product of various global economic and political forces that created push and pull factors for migration to New York City. Ramón Grosfoguel, Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective (Berkeley: UC Press, 2003): 108; “Great Migration,” Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience eds. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr. 13 Most notably, Joseph Schloss’s recent work Foundations and Mary Fogarty’s MA thesis “’What ever happened to breakdancing?’” explore b-boying contemporary breaking culture, though Schloss’ work use the current moment to look back and detail key aspects of b-boying’s history in New York City. Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Ho Culture in New York, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Mary Fogarty “’What ever happened to breakdancing?’: Transnational b-boy/b-girl networks, underground video magazines, and imagined affinities.” Thesis Brook U., 2006. Dissertations and Theses. ProQuest. Brooks U. Coll. Information and Lib. Services. 19 June 2008 <http://www.proquest.com> 14 There is another layer to debate of naming. B-boy Trac2 of 1970s crew Star Child la Rock, openly talks about debates he has had with legendary DJ Afrika Bambaataa about the true meaning of the term “b-boy.” 14 According to Trac2, between 1975 and 1977 the dance was called rocking and dancers referred to themselves as “beat boys.” 14 This was because as far as the dancers were concerned, they danced to the beat as there was yet no common understanding of a “breakbeat.” Trac2 suggests that break-boy comes from a DJs perspective. In contrast, in an interview featured in the documentary The Freshest Kids (2002), legendary DJ Kool Herc suggests that the slang around “break” was less a reference to the break of the song than to being broke (poor) and being near the breaking point spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. But the time has passed it seems for this debate to ever truly take hold, as “break-boy” and really “b-boy” and “b-girl” live and breathe today. Freshest Kids: A History of the B-boy, dir. Israel, perf. Crazy Legs, Trac2, Kool Herc, and Popmaster Fable. DVD. QD3 Entertainment Inc., 2002. 15 Locker Ill Kosby, remarked that in multiple interviews with Campbell, the story shifted, naming the Funky Robot as the inspiration behind locking instead of the Funky Chicken. Ill Kosby implies that now it is unclear from Campbell which it was, the common understanding is of the Funky Chicken, though Ill Kosby proposes that the Funky Robot actually possesses a move akin to the “lock” motion (sudden freezes where one tenses up the muscles and locks the joints), from which locking names itself. As this indicates, a key part of the story of locking is lost to time, memory, and the lack of documentation. Ill Kosby. Personal Communication. 12 March 2008. 35 16 What we think of as the moonwalk, made popular by Michael Jackson in the early 1980s, is actually the backslide. The public’s admiration of and fascination with Jackson’s capacity to move in exciting, new ways came from African American and Latino communities in central and southern California. As it hit the mainstream through Jackson, not only was he often credited with inventing or perfecting the move, but it was misnamed and the poppers who taught him received little attention. It could have been a mistake, or the purposeful adaptation of a more marketable term. 17 These works, which include a number of documentaries, develop aspects of the cultural roots and socio- economic conditions of the South Bronx by the mid-1970s and into the 1990s. Some have looked at Hip Hop outside the US, or have looked specifically at its Jamaican and Puerto Rican roots, thus establishing Hip Hop as a multi-ethnic project from its beginnings. Other works still address debates about identity politics, pop culture, women, urban youth, political activism, and whiteness. Rose 1994; Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional: Fighting The Culture Wars In Urban America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997); Cheryl L. Keyes, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Toop 1991; Jim Fricke & Charlie Ahearn. Yes Yes Y’all: Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Oxford: Perseus Press, 2002); Chang 2005; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Peter Wade, “Working Culture: Making Cultural Identities in Cali, Columbia,” Current Anthropology. 40.4 (August 1999): 449-71; Tony Mitchell, Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the U.S.A. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002); United Nations of Hip Hop dir. Christina Choe, Perf. Awadi, Abdu Diop, Foumalade (2005); Estilo Hip Hop dir. Vee Bravo & Loira Lamball, Perf. Eli Efi, Guerrillero Okulto, and Magia (2006); Dipannita Basu & Sidney Lamelle, The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture (London: Pluto Press, 2006); James G. Spady, H. Samy Alim, & Samir Meghelli, The Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness (Philadelphia: Black History Museum Publishers, 2006); Slingshot Hip Hop dir. Jackie Salloum, Perf. Mahmoud Shalabi, WE7, Ibrahim (2008); Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, (2005); Homegrown: Hip Life in Ghana dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Perf. V.I.P. (2009), Africa’s Underground: Democracy in Dakar dir. Magee McIlvaine, Chris Moore and Ben Herson (2008). Style Wars dir. Tony Silver Perf. Stan Schacht, Wayne Frost DVD (1983). 18 Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme dir. Kevin Fitzgerald Perf. Mos Def Black Thought, Medusa (2000); Planet B-Boy dir. Benson Lee Perf. Gamblerz, Ichigeki (2007) ; Israel 2002. 19 Barbara J. Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review (1990): 95- 118; Tomas Almaguer, Racial Faultlines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Michael Omi and Howard Winant Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s Second edition (New York: Routledge 1994); Paul Gordon, “The Racialization of Statistics,” in ‘Race’ in Britain Today. Richard Skellington with Paulette Morris, editors (London: Sage Publications, 1996 [1992]); Lindon Barrett, Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Nkhil Pal Singh, Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2005); Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000 [1983]); Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2003); Hall, Stuart. “’Africa’ Is Alive and Well In the Diaspora,” unpublished manuscript presented at the UNESCO Seminar on “Social Structure, Revolutionary Change and Culture in Southern Africa,” Maputo, Mozambique, (July 1976); Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity, Community, Culture, and Difference. Edited by Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990); Norman E. Whitten & Arelene Torres (eds.). Blackness in Latin America & the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformation. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Jean Muteba Rahier & Percy C. Hintzen. Problematizing Blackness: Self Ethnographies by Black Immigrants to the United States (New York: Routledge, 2003); Livio Sansome, Blackness Without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil. (London: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2003); Deborah A. Thomas, Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Basu & Lamelle 2006; Spady 2006; Osumare 2007. 20 Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy (New York: Vintage Books, 1983); Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. (Westport, CN: Praeger 1996). 36 21 Barbara Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip Hop (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Rivera 2003; Marta Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Katrina Hazzard-Donald, “Dance in Hip Hop Culture,” Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture. Edited by William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996); Thomas F. Defrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible: Hip Hop Dance and Body Power,” in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory. Ed. by André Lepecki (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004): 64-81; T.J. Desch-Obi, “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga,” Central Africans and the Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Edited by Linda Heywood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001):353-370; Greg Downey, Learning Capoeira: Lessons in Cunning From an Afro-Brazilian Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 22 Gertrude Prokosch Kurath, “Panorama of Dance Ethnology,” Current Anthropology 1.3 (May 1960): 233-254; Anca Giurchescu, “Past and Present in Field Research: a Critical History of Personal Experience,” in Dance in the Field: Theory, Methods and Issues in Dance Ethnography. Ed. by Theresa J. Buckland (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999): 41-54; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, “The Mystique of Fieldwork,” in Dance in the Field: Theory, Methods and Issues in Dance Ethnography. Ed. by Theresa J. Buckland (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999): 13-25. 23 Qtd. in Lepecki 125. Adrienne Kaeppler names choreology as “the science of movement patterns.” (Qtd. in Kaeppler 36). While choreography—the writing or pre-scripting of dance—dates back to the 16 th century with Jean-Georges Noverre and French theorist Thoinot Arbeau to save it from its “self-erasure,” dance anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler dates the linguistic analogy from the 1960s with an appeal to structure inspired by various linguists and structural anthropologists. Choreography allowed dance to be studied supposedly as a kind of science. By inscribing dance into words or scripts, it becomes rational and precise rather than emotional. André Lepecki, “Inscribing Dance,” Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory. Ed. by André Lepecki (Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press, 2004): 124-139; Kaeppler (1999) In contrast to these formulations, in More Brilliant Than the Sun, Kodwo Eshun analyzes a relationship to the breakbeat in Hip Hop music through kinesthesia, a form of embodiment in defiance of the so-called mind-body split. With the collage of beats created by technology and the textural-sonic overlay of scratches, rhymes, and the vocal and instrumental chorus, Eshun argues that, …your perception… switches from hearing individual beats to grasping the pattern of beats. Your body is a distributed brain which flips from the sound of each intensity to the overlapping relations between intensities. Learning pattern recognition, this flipflop between rhythmelody and texturhythm drastically collapses and reorganises the sensorial hierarchy. For the 90s rhythmatician the body is a large brain that thinks and feels a sensational mathematics throughout the entire surface of its distributed mind…. The kinaesthete overrides that pre-modern binary that insists the dancefloor is all mindless bodies and the bedroom nothing but bodiless minds. Eshun elevates the kinesthetic to suggest that the mind-body split is an archaic joke. “[T]he body is a large brain that thinks and feels...” The verbal mind is only one part of a larger perceptual system of the corporeal mind that incorporates the capacity for the senses to not only inform perception but to understand in a way that the verbal mind cannot do alone. The patterns generated from the overlap of sounds rather than just individuals sounds demand that the body interpret this all over. He contrasts this with what he calls “cerebral music” such as “Abstract beatz, math rock, intelligent Techno, proper Drum’n’Bass” that celebrate the sheer mathematical complexity of the beat alone rather than a visceral response to the music and the many ways the body reacts—a sense-ational mathematics. Eshun’s is an all-encompassing analysis that privileges a full-bodied response to Hip Hop. His focus on the physical response is a means of understanding the music’s impact on our person—the foot taps, the head bobs, we mutter along to the lyrics in hypnotic appreciation. One’s response, in all of its particularities, matters as a whole in his analysis. Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than the Sun. (London: Quartet Books, 1998): 21-22. Joni Jones elaborates that the challenge that performance gives to the academy’s emphasis on the written word is in part because performance forces the inclusion of its own flaws and undermines academic commitments to resolutions and answers and performances “does not have the measurable closure and defini- 37 tive answers” the academy strives for (64). Akin to Eshun, Jones writes that performance is “physical and intellectual, visceral and cerebral” (58). Joni L. Jones. “’Sista Docta’: Performance as Critique of the Academy,” The Drama Review 41.2 (Summer 1997): 51-67. 24 Lepecki 130-131: “From a symptom of aesthetic inferiority that must be ‘corrected,’ dance's self-erasure has been recently reformulated as a powerful trope for new theoretical (as well as performative) interventions in dance and in writings on dance, beyond the documental tradition.” Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology. Trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974): 35, 47. 25 Anna Deveare Smith suggests that live performance is an intimidating site for academicians because of the inarticulable and unseen force of live performance challenges even the recording of that performance. Smith adds specifically “What many people [resist is] the idea of presence and the power of presence to transform things. So there we have this great actress or dancer who performs in front of multiple thousands of people, that is a power that is not about the work she is singing, or the dance she is doing. It is about her particular charisma, and nobody else can have that…. [I]t is the one place of real freedom and power.” Dorinne Kondo, “Shades of Twilight: Anna Deavere Smith and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992,” Connected: Engagements with the Media. Ed. J. Marcus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996): 328, 330-331. 26 Lepecki 134. 27 Lepecki 131. 28 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003): 3. 29 Taylor contrasts the repertoire with the archives—repositories of recorded (usually as text) history, knowledge, and memory—arguing that the repertoire should compel the same degree of legitimacy through different means. She goes on to challenge standards, contending that archives are also mediated, and thus meaning changes depending on their use. 30 Taylor 20-21 31 Yvonne Daniel, Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candombleé. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005): 52. 32 Daniel 265. 33 PoeOne. Personal Interview. 3 Jan 2007. 34 Breaking and street dance in general can also act as a means of communication when spoken language isn't’ there. In a February 19, 2005 interview with Lil’ Cesar, b-boy and former organizer of LA’s annual Radiotron event, Cesar tells me that learning to dance was his way of learning English. Lil’ Cesar was born in El Salvador in 1969 and came to the US with his mother and sister in 1981 at 11½ years old. At a young age, Cesar’s relationship to English, to the kids in his neighborhood in East LA, and to youth culture in the U.S. were directly related to his relationship to Hip Hop. He states, “And back then I didn't know how to communicate because I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know the language or the lingo. So to me it [street dance] was another way of actually expressing myself through the dance, of communicating to people, of relating to people.” By 1982, Lil’ Cesar was popping, learning to breakdance, and speaking “fully on… street English.” For Lil’ Cesar, dance was part of a broader social dynamic within which he became a part of a community by learning the bodily movements and “language and lingo” of the culture. Lil’ Cesar. Personal Interview. 19 February 2005. Chapter 2. Kinesthetic Knowledge in Battling Cyphers As noted in the prior chapter, movement represents more than itself. The manner and context in which a gesture or move is executed can illustrate community belonging or exclusion. Since movement is ephemeral and re-fashioned at every enactment, its meaning changes as well. Movement communicates across differences in language and cultures, yet that meaning does not remain intact. Some things can get lost in translation from one body to the next. As movement radiates new connections and meaning shifts as the culture expands, the movement itself becomes the site of contestation. Battle cyphers in particular remind us that aesthetic and discursive confrontations remain unsettled. The terms of these debates recur alongside the movement, thus enacting layers of meaning. Concerns over meaning give way to political and personal concerns over b-boying’s future. Kinesthetic knowledge represents this aspect of non-empirical yet essential cultural knowledge. I witnessed an example of the relationship between physical aesthetics and cultural meaning at the 2006 UK B-Boy Championships. Rock Steady Crew (RSC) President Crazy Legs hosted the two-day event. On a London stage, he stood in front an eclectic British audience of dancers, fans, and curiosity seekers and presented Hip Hop 101 lessons. Crazy Legs wore a black Armani suit (he told us the brand), a white t-shirt, and a black baseball cap cocked to the side and asked the audience if they knew the right posture of the b-boy stance. He confidently demonstrated by arranging his feet at a 45  angle and crossing his arms squarely in front of his chest—not, as he told the audience, so far around the body that “you look like you’re hugging yourself.” While he stood erect, he angled his head forward and to the side while boldly looking down 38 at us. The stance perpetuates a b-boying attitude—cocky and cool with hints of aggression. Like other gestures and the movement of b-boying itself, the stance is an embodied way of knowing the world. Crazy Leg’s demonstration was an attempt to reassert the meaning of the stance through the stance itself, thus retrieving something lost as the culture moves further away in distance and time from the South Bronx roots he represents. Crazy Legs projected an aura of self-assured understanding likely fueled by his own history as a b-boy. While not the first, he is certainly the most well known b-boy even outside of the culture, making him a figure of authority and authenticity. As a b-boy since the late 1970s, Crazy Legs was at the forefront of the dance’s media explosion. His declaration of how the posture is supposed to be was not simply direction; it was practically a decree. But Crazy Legs was not teaching a workshop or schooling an audience unaware of the culture. He was hosting an event where breakers came together under the banner of shared culture to perform their understanding of the dance in front of a group of judges. In other words, his lesson appeared a bit out of place except to elicit laughter. As he hugged himself on stage in an act of comic relief, Crazy Legs made an unnamed and unseen offender the butt of the joke while positioning us to laugh with him and to feel in the know too. On the other hand, he implied that we too were as ignorant as the anonymous offender and thus we were really laughing at ourselves. Crazy Legs alluded to the idea that a semblance of the posture alone was not enough. At a battle surrounded by skilled dancers, there were still some glaring absences in people’s knowledge, implying a hierarchy of cultural insiders. Crazy Legs gained his knowledge, on the other hand, by having lived breaking’s history. Crazy Legs began b-boying in the South Bronx in the latter half of the 1970s, well before the media explosion he and the culture received in the early ‘80s. Stories of the 39 borough’s history characterized it as a dead zone of social, economic, and political neglect at the hands of the state and residents alike. 1 The nation-wide economic crisis gave rise to abandoned and destroyed infrastructure, high unemployment and crime rates, and failed urban renewal schemes in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and parts of New Jersey. Incidents of arson left entire city block’s worth of families homeless, 2 but it was the South Bronx that became “a symbol of America’s woes” according to an article in the New York Times. 3 The author, Richard Severo, suggests the city’s response was a passive attempt at amputation: “[W]e could say that the Bronx, more than any part of the city and the nation, represents the total pathology of what has been happening to major cities…. Over the years parts of the Bronx have appeared to cease being a part of the city.” 4 Severo cites, as indices of the South Bronx’s exclusion from the city, the greater likelihood of dying from homicide or drugs and the lack of city services like garbage collection. As with several other articles, the implied question is what do we do about them? The social and economic markers of difference and political marginalization characterized the Bronx in a manner akin to what Devon Carbado calls “inclusive exclusion”—where racial subordination is the way in which some people are allowed to participate in the nation despite being citizens. 5 This characterization allows us to simultaneously to consider the South Bronx’s exclusion from the city as inclusion in the nation by way of representing urban blight. This outsider status helped support internal cultural identifications like b-boying, which organized these dual realities into breaking culture. The b-boy stance is an example. While Crazy Legs’ reference to a supposedly true form of the stance may have been part of an effort to preserve its historical integrity, his claim to an earlier era when the stance was stable and fixed is misleading. Photographer Jamel Shabazz has captured multiple 40 examples of this stance in New York City from 1980-1989 [See Figures 2.1 & 2.2]. In fact, one out of every five photographs in his collection Back in the Days displays people in variations of the pose. While the stance can represent particular understandings about standing in relation to the world, each variation can shift the manner of its interpretation. As a result, these photographs illuminate the complexity of shared cultural knowledge within embodied practices that evade canonization. In Figures 2.1 and 2.2 we can see different cultural knowledges at work in the poses. Fig. 2.1 © Jamel Shabazz Two common ‘God Stances’—standing on square and pointing to the brain or center of intellect 6 Fig. 2.2 B-boy stances used on the cover of Shabazz’s Back in the Days Figure 2.1 is an example of two “God stances,” postures adopted by those schooled in the coded philosophies of the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE) or Five Percenters. In this first example, the young man on the left is “standing on square” while the one on the right is “pointing to the center of intellect or the brain.” 7 “Standing on square” and a b-boy stance share basic features: arms crossed in front of the chest, body erect, feet at a right angle. The meanings attached to the stances differ in essential ways. The second pose— indicating understanding as situated both in what one sees with the physical eyes and with 41 the third eye of the mind 8 —contextualizes the first pose such that we do not need to even see his feet to know its cultural meaning. Standing on square is a gestural demonstration of freemasonry symbols. To stand on the square is to stand on the T or on truth. 9 The square alludes to a carpenter’s tool, such that living according to the measure is a representative of truthfulness and moral uprightness—to live fairly according to a greater law. 10 As Five Percenters deepen their apprenticeship by way of lessons steeped in symbols and allegories, this stance signifies a way of life not just in the presence of other members but everyday in the world. These young men attest to an identity literally by way of how they stand in the world. The stance signals shared knowledge within a particular subculture. The posture resonates in their environment in another way. From mainstream perspectives on body language, arms crossed at the chest typically represent guardedness, self-protection, and intimidation. The combination suggests a relationship to an environment that is mediated by “threat.” That they are young black men only makes arms crossed at the chest more confrontational and thus troublesome, displaying a kind of obstinacy and oppositionality that easily correlates to stereotypes of a threatening, dangerous blackness. The NGE counters the insidiousness of such stereotypes of black masculinity by positing that black men are gods, spiritually above the degradations of racism. The subway scene reminds us that they are traversing the city, moving in and out of different social spheres. At any given moment, they may be subject to intimidation by other passengers or the police, and may be intimidating subjects to others. From this perspective, intimidation itself can act as a form of protection, preemptively guarding oneself from situations where the threat of violence could become a reality. Insofar as boroughs like the Bronx or Brooklyn (where many of Shabazz’s photographs were taken) had reputations for violence 42 and criminal activity, gestures of intimidation and protection could ward off one’s own involvement in a confrontation, thus staying distanced even in the midst of a fray. As such, standing on square necessarily favors strength and hints of militancy, using the threatening possibilities of blackness rather than destabilizing it through more passive performances. Figure 2.2 features two younger, likely early teenage Latino boys. Despite obvious differences in age, ethnicity, and seasonal attire, this photo features two b-boy stances, which have the same basic qualities. The young men on the right has his arms much like those of Figure 2.1 while the one on the left has his hands tucked under his biceps so that his bracelet is on display. Their feet are at right angles and their bodies, though erect, adopt a slight lean. The conspicuousness of their accessories tell us as much about them as their stance. Both take great care to coordinate their outfits. The man on the left attempts to match the green in his hat with that of his Pumas. On the right, the fat red laces on his Nikes match the red t-shirt, hat, and even the red on the Puerto Rican flag belt buckle. He also has a blue bandana hanging from his back pocket, not suggesting gang affiliation—as the dominant color of his outfit is red—but an adoption of gang aesthetics into his look, which some have named as a central feature of early b-boying fashion. 11 The blue actually matches the flag belt buckle as well. Their careful coordination centers pieces that change simple jeans and t- shirts into something cool and distinctive of personal style. In fact, on the right, his jeans are unbuttoned and fit low on his waist as if he could not get them up further, suggesting either he has out-grown them or perhaps they were hand-me-downs, never meant to fit him exactly in the first place. To make these jeans his own, he lets shorts underneath ride high to mask that they do not fit, and then cloaks the shorts with his belt. Both wear belts that are noticeably too big but whose purpose seems solely to display their buckles. With as little 43 money as possible, they have each taken something ordinary and personalized it. In b- boying, that is the very definition of original style: taking something and adding your own twist. 12 While there is no guarantee that these are b-boys, it appears they are versed in the culture. The stance and the look come together to suggest a b-boying identity. In fact, what looks to be a mock turtleneck might be a red headband pulled down to his shirt collar. Using a headband was sometimes a way to secure one’s hat and thus their look as they break. To be ever-ready to break also meant being constantly prepared to battle. These visible markers of identification were signs to other breakers, such that when they saw each other on the street, mutual identification ironically could have led to battles—a way of sizing each other up through danced duels. In Figure 2.2, each young man attempts his own version of masculine strength and street savvy, perhaps riffing on stereotypes of dangerous Puerto Rican men. While breakers were not innocent of acts of violence, fighting became predominantly performative, refashioning youthful rebellion into dance. They stand out as distinctive from the others on the street, but they are not out of place. Even in the way Shabazz cropped the photo suggests that the young men were standing in a world that they have made conform to them. The b-boy stance is not divorced from its masonry-identified predecessor though the idea of living according to particular standards changes, defined instead by their skills in battle cyphers. It is a posture that is identifiable by its differences from standing on square and in spite of its own particular variations. Ultimately, the depths of their participation in breaking culture are only hinted at in this photo. What they can prove of themselves as dancers is not clear. Regardless, the stance reveals a subcultural understanding about the standards of cool that shaped group membership. 44 These stances are forms of embodied knowledge, understanding arising from or expressed through their posture. This knowledge infuses meaning in their manner of standing in relation to the city. Being able to distinguish one stance from the other directly determined its meaning and thus cultural membership. 13 The variations are subtle but profound, thus challenging ideas of what is “supposed to be” even back then. The different stances reflect a diversity of experiences and perspectives through their inexactness and the reach of this culture into a multitude of communities who in turn amend its practices. At the same time, because b-boying is more readily defined by movement as opposed to the verbal lessons of Five Percenters, the evolution of the stance (from something like Fig. 2.1 to “hugging herself”) reflects both shared cultural knowledge of changing cultural knowledge. In that context, the implication that there is a “right” way for a b-boy stance belies a prior diversity that did not impede on ideas of belonging. Thus, as we return to Crazy Legs on a London stage in 2006, his invocation of a prior moment when the stance looked a particular way, a single way (and thus possessed a single meaning) is less about an unfamiliar history than about the nature of b-boying’s current circulation. The stance used to pose a defiant oppositionality and macho challenge to other breakers. That today its perpetrators “hug” themselves attests to Crazy Legs’ sense that the threatening quality of the posture has diminished or is imitated rather than genuinely understood. Instead of a challenge, it is an exaggeration to the point of looking silly, implying a faulty imitation. 14 Its history is merely a trace in its current performance, an idea that is alluded to in practice. Its repetition in new places and under new cultural circumstances, wherein Crazy Legs has less influence, reads as a kind of loss though it is no less diverse than in the past. 45 Variation is not the problem. The changing conditions under which the pose is performed and the changes in the pose itself come to signify differences between members, as if movement variations stand for deeper differences in knowledge or quality of membership. So even though the stance changed and has likely lost some of its threat, the idea of a “right” way is a construction that attempts to ease anxieties about new appropriations of formerly local cultural objects. Yet ideas of “the local” were sacrificed long before the current moment, because breaking is an art form that evolves by competing outside of one’s own social circle in order to earn and retain a reputation of being the best. The dance was meant to leave the block, the borough, the city in search of different people to battle. In some respects, the anxiety about what is lost in breaking’s current circulation around the world is the confrontation between underlying principles attached to the movement and the current global moment. Popular culture enables identification across differences of nation, ethnicity, gender, and generation because it happens by way of individuals re-fashioning cultural products to their tastes and social conditions. 15 While still enacting a relationship to prior versions, any manifestation of the stance is open to reinterpretation. Its repetition guarantees only that it will happen again, but does not guarantee how. 16 As U.S. urban spaces are no longer the center of b-boying practices, there is more at stake for physical movement now forced to bear the weight of an expanding culture. For example, that so many battles take place at events that are too large to accommodate cyphers on the ground changes its context. Instead these events simulate cyphers on stages, with crews on opposite sides, the DJ and judges on one side, and the audience below completing the cypher. At the same time, large- scale competitions allow people from across the world to share in the dance and its mutual 46 cultural knowledge, which both continues the culture and complicates it. That which breakers share across lines of difference are necessarily functions of those differences. Movement and gestural variations are the conditions for the very existence of transnational b-boying identities. Insofar as these spaces can perpetuate cultural knowledge as I saw in London, they can also mark a separation between knowing and unknowing subjects. While this is a small example, there are greater contestations around cultural knowledges that played out in performance battles. And as battles over movement represent broader concerns about the present and the future of b-boying, ideas of community are also at stake. Processes of othering based on variations in movement, though problematic, are a part of battling culture. As b-boying grows through its differences, it forces a definition of community that must conceive of itself in relation to others. Embodied and kinesthetic knowledges give way to the discursive dimensions of cultural knowledges and broader concerns about the state of the culture. KINESTHETIC KNOWLEDGE OF “TRUE B-BOYS” Movement practices are far more impactful than their momentary usefulness in a performance may indicate. In the cypher, individual b-girls and b-boys can express themselves and their cultural knowledge through movement that carries traces of the past within it. Kinesthetic knowledge captures the imprint of history within movement as cultural knowledge that is integral to a knowing community. This is a dimension of embodied knowledge that manifests in the performance but is invisible to those outside of the culture. In its simplest definition, kinesthetic knowledge refers to the physical transmission of meaning through dance. Meaning is bound up with the past, not merely as its reflection but as a representation of a particular approach to understanding history within 47 the culture. Among a certain group of men, their past is b-boying’s history and the stories they tell about breaking are also stories about growing up in a challenging environment through the burgeoning culture of Hip Hop. Though battling is just one aspect of the culture, battling techniques in many ways signify broader struggles for survival. The battle cypher is a particular kind of place. Ness4 17 of the Zulu Kings describes it as a “universe”: “I’m the merciless God of anything that enters my universe.” 18 The analogy is to that of an action movie hero, a hyperbolic sense of self in terms of strength, power, confidence, and invincibility. He describes the music he battles to as his “theme music,” and models his battle technique after Bruce Lee in movies like Enter the Dragon: “The best thing is when Bruce Lee was fighting a million people. And it would be like, a million people coming at him and he’d just be like swatting ‘em off with quick, short snaps. Like, everything was like, 1-2-3-bang!, he’s out, 1-2-bang!, he’s out, 3-bang!, he’s out. So, what I like to do in the cypher is, I try to fight everybody that comes into it.” Battling distils the competitive spirit to a refined essence of someone overcoming seemingly impossible or overwhelming odds in a kind of unexpected counter attack—the strategic defense of one at the peak of his skills. This stance of invincibility has been characterized in terms of survival. As Ken Swift describes it, “I’m going to do everything I can do to survive…. If I’ma try to out-dance you, I’ma use everything I have.” 19 The language of survival would seem to bring the confrontation to a basic level of life or death. If the cypher is your universe, then you dictate the terms of the battle imaginatively. You become your own superhero, and dancing is your power. The battle circle is a psychically distinct reality. One’s consciousness shifts towards what many have called “battle mode,” the zone of a defensive strategist prepared to meet any challenge and dominate it. Ness4 succinctly characterizes battling cyphers. The 48 qualities he sees in himself represent key ideas about good battling techniques to the extent that he will soon publish a book about it. Survival and strategizing are two elements of a host of qualities that Trac2 names as essential to battling as well as to being a “true b-boy.” Trac2 defines a cypher as the imaginary circle a b-boy creates around his opponent in a battle. In the context of that imaginary space, battle cyphers become a microcosm of a b- boying approach. One learns as much if not more about b-boying from battling in cypher than from simply learning the moves. When placed in the cultural context of a battle, breakers enact a ritualistic understanding of cultural belonging. In an interview with pioneer Bronx b-boy Trac2 of Star Child la Rock Crew, he laid out nine points he considered essential for a “true b-boy” in the context of a battle. Reading his points through the filter of personal experience helps to demonstrate the meaning that kinesthetic knowledge transmits. Trac2 grew up in the Bronx and is among the first generations to identify as a b-boy, having started breaking in 1973. I met him at the 2006 Rock Steady Crew Anniversary in New York City. He agreed to speak with me after the battle ended. As the departing crowd trickled away, we were left standing on the sidewalk under a street light as night fell on Manhattan. Throughout our conversation, riddled with the details of early battles, including exact addresses of important places and details of past fashions, he would add to an unofficial list of “true b-boy” qualities. First on his list was that a true b-boy knows “the four elements of breaking” (top rocking, drops, floor work, freezes). True b-boys battle, and they do it for “ghetto celebrity status” and the respect of their peers. They are illusionists who know the difference between a new move and a variation of an already-established move. True b-boys are “gypsies” who travel to battle other people. They know their 49 opponent and especially their own repertoire. They are strategic in battle, improve as the battle continues, and know that battles are won by last one standing and not by crowd response. 20 Trac2’s list hints at the depth of understanding associated with the dance. The list is comprised of principles one must understand and put into practice. Though he names nine points, I organize them around four key figures: the nomad, the survivor, the strategist, and the illusionist. These figures do not formally exist. My figuration of Trac2’s list is a useful way to categorize and unpack aspects of the culture that are more often talked about as an attitude or approach. As figures, they represent kinesthetic knowledge and demonstrate underlying principles of the culture evident in the context of battles. These figures also demonstrate the manner in which early breakers activated these principles in their environments, as creative interventions into the social world. B-boys Aby, Kwikstep, Mr. Wiggles, Trac2, and Ness4 are all early 40s b-boys that have expressed a relationship between their approach to b-boying and having grown up in the Bronx. The nomad figure captures a number of traits that Trac2 thinks are valuable to battling: traveling, reputation building, and self-ranking. While the language of personal rank seems to individualize b-boying, the nomad figure reminds us that b-boying is a competitive social dance. To be nomadic is to constantly engage with those beyond one’s immediate social circles, to be open to critique and to anchor self-development to a constant interaction with others, whether friend or foe. The battle cypher is a testing ground to determine one’s level; it is only in competition with others that breakers learn how good they really are. Thus “good” is relative—you are only as good as who you battle and how you handle yourself in that circle. It is the difference between being a “neighborhood dancer,” known only around the block to being a “true b-boy” by Trac2’s terms, whose reputation is 50 city-wide (and today world wide). 21 This reflects a culture whose development is attached to a constant (re)negotiation of skills while entrenched in the competitive spirit of the battle and the broader competitiveness of the culture. The nomad also attests to differences in location: what makes a strong impression in one neighborhood, region, or country may barely be acknowledged in another. Trac2 describes the local space as a mere starting point. On its surface, nomadism de-centers b-boying from any one place or particular group of people, putting skills above all else. Taken from another angle, nomadism also tells us about the care involved in travelling. Kwikstep, b-boy and co-founder of Full Circle Productions, touches on the nomadic spirit in his early breaking days in the Bronx in the late-1970s. He travelled to different schools and from one borough to another. The more he danced, the more known he became in the neighborhood. He addresses the cultural context of moving through the city as a breaker: I was in the streets and I knew that there were two sides to the streets…. Um, there’s a saying in Spanish: mira pa frente, no mire palado; tu es un santo, pero tu no eres babalao. Meaning look forward, don’t look to the side; you might be a saint but you’re not God. That means mind your fucking business and don’t think you too bad for anything because you will get tested. I knew that at a young age. Where I was going, I kept focused where I was going. I didn’t look at anybody. I went to go break. That’s it. And after awhile they’d be like, ‘Yo, I seen shorty on this block all of the time. What’s he doing man?’ I mean, they saw me at the jams and block parties, in the school yard. Like, ‘Yo, money’s nice.’ ‘Cause thugs, they love dancers. [Dancers] got skills that [thugs] don’t got. Plus, girls come around you. So you know, they have a different reason why they hang around you. But it’s, part of it is admiration. So, there’s a little bit of respect there. 22 Being nomadic was a functional necessity. Not everyone used to break; thus, travelling became a way to meet, battle, and socialize with other breakers as well as to seek out different venues in which to break. At the same time, from Kwikstep’s perspective the 51 primary lesson was not to travel but how to travel—he had to mind his business. The environment demanded he keep his focus, knowing he was as susceptible as anyone else to trouble. There were “two sides of the streets”—the side that nurtured him and the side that could hurt him—and he had to negotiate both. Thus he learned at an early age to maintain his focus. His local space was a starting point to get somewhere else while navigating the potentially dangerous terrain of the city. To do so, he had to traverse it with a particularly unwavering commitment to break which garnered him respect and admiration. Being nomadic meant accounting for his environment. And in so doing, he cultivated an identity for himself within the community that straddled the “two sides of the street,” such that whether he hung with thugs or others, it did not impinge on his breaking. The second figure, the survivor, is the last person standing. It is not the crowd pleaser or the one with the most friends in the audience, but the one who does not stop. “Last b-boy standing” is indicative of an ethos of perseverance and survival, of struggle and the capacity to confront and even dominate a challenge regardless of the circumstances or the odds against you. As Trac2 explains it, the loser will begin to repeat his/her moves, give up, or even applaud the opponent. Moreover, surviving a battle is never guaranteed, even for the most skilled breaker. All circles share the common feature of unpredictability. According to Lil’ Cesar of Los Angeles’ Air Force Crew, “You go in there and you hear this music that inspires you and you might pull out something that you never thought you were going to pull out… You never know who’s gonna be there. You never know, it might not be your day. It might be your opponent’s day, and you get taken out.” 23 You never know. Even when breakers use rehearsed routines—which only last a few 8-counts at best—there is no foreseeable organization of a battle and that is part of its appeal. The key to survival is 52 persevering through the unexpected and inventing one’s way through the moment. Moreover, creatively negotiating self-control and the unexpected simultaneously attests to the value of improvisation. Surviving has a deeper urgency to it when considered in the context of Hip Hop’s history. In the forthcoming documentary Everything Remains Raw 24 directed by locker and dance historian Moncell “Ill Kosby” Durden, he interviews popper Mr. Wiggles of the Electric Boogaloos and RSC. Mr. Wiggles describes conditions of creativity in the midst of uncontrollable forces in a poignant yet disturbing way. As Durden and Mr. Wiggles sit in a restaurant looking at a series of photographs of the Bronx in the 1970s, Mr. Wiggles begins to identify the ones taken near his former home in Longwood as he discusses Hip Hop as an avenue for survival and blessings in the midst of warfare: We didn’t call nothing Hip Hop. We didn’t look at anything as culture. It was just something to do to keep our minds off of the bullshit that we had to deal with on a regular basis. And those parts of the Bronx, to me, in my opinion are the reason why Hip Hop was so important—it was that one gift that God was able to give us to help us get past all that BS. Because we had nothing. Nothing. We had zip... The landlords were burning down the buildings to collect on the insurance. The mafia was buying the buildings on purpose, burning them down with people in them, giving them very little notice. And then they would put them in a relo building. A relocation building is like—they had a relo on my block in Longwood. They had relos in different parts of the Bronx, where when your building got burnt out, they already had a building to put you in. Now don’t that look systematic to you? So relocations were common. And you know, people used to make fun of the relo people. So they’d call them—you know, they’d snap on them, “Relo! Relo!,” ‘cause you lived in a relocation building. You know, didn’t make no sense to me because…instead of prevention they had the building already, because they knew they was going to burn them buildings down and they had to put people in those [relo] buildings. That’s how it was man. It was like a war zone. 25 While in earlier parts of the interview he names incidents of local violence including rumbles in Echo Park, “Watching people walk in and crawl out,” 26 the bulk of his focus is on a 53 violence whose cause was out of his reach but whose effects hit close to home. Mr. Wiggles emphasizes systemic violence, a war zone in opposition to the state. 27 A tone of frustration and disbelief resonates throughout his discussion, especially as he talks about the irrationality of “relos” as a resolution. When he states, “they had the building already,” the word “already” echoes with two meanings: the audacity that the buildings were already in place and that they were all ready or pre-equipped for not-yet-homeless families to move in. He characterizes Hip Hop as the flip side to having “nothing,” which he immediately clarifies to mean the precariousness of the physical home. The readiness of relos in the face of the systemic and systematic disruptions of residential life—which went unpoliced from his perspective—are large scale disturbances and the primary examples of the constant “bullshit” from which Hip Hop provided refuge. Mr. Wiggles depicts a reality where survival was not a given but instead a blessing. Hip Hop became an alternative reality created by their actions in contrast to the reality imposed on them. Kwikstep reiterates this sentiment when he says, “And think about the terminology. ‘Yo I’m going to a battle.’ I mean you’re already in a war and then you’re going to a battle…. You didn’t call it a skirmish.” 28 The battle became a small-scale means of struggling through and inventing in the world, but in ways they could control more directly. This figure reminds us of the urgent necessity for creative processes of survival. Strategist figures, in contrast, are knowers. They know the culture, their opponents, and themselves. According to Trac2, strategists understand their own arsenal of moves enough to overcome any adversary. But one must assess the opponent’s capabilities as well because knowing an opponent’s signature move—whether they have good balance, or are sloppy at footwork—can make a difference in a battle. The strategist’s knowledge is useful 54 only insofar as it is put into practice. To cite Ness4, “When you at the jam and you’re in the cyphers, that is the real practice. It’s like a doctor… You never hear a doctor say, ‘I work at Bellevue Hospital.’ That doctor will say, ‘I practice at Bellevue Hospital’.… Understand what I’m saying?... Practice is the cyphers.” 29 If cyphers are the practice of b-boying rather than its rehearsal, then battles are opportunities to manipulate a situation to work for them. Aby, from TBB Crew of the South Bronx who started breaking in 1973, finds his cultural role by way of his capacity to shape a battle to his advantage: “I was like the clown Hip Hop, the clown of breaking. I’m the one, I created like uh... humping on somebody’s legs, peeing on somebody’s leg, crapping on the floor. I was the one that would take power moves away from these guys and burn ‘em with a stupid little prank. That’s what I gave to Hip Hop.” 30 Aby’s strength was in his humor, pantomimed gestures of the grotesque to unnerve or undermine his opponent’s best efforts. B-boys like Ness4 have talked about shifting a battle to their strengths or at least to their opponent’s weaknesses by teasing or ridiculing an opponent verbally as well as outperforming an adversary. 31 While the survivor creatively perseveres through difficult situations out of necessity, the strategist speaks to the ways one can change those conditions, using their imagination and knowledge to shape an environment into something personally advantageous. Strategists remind us that survival isn’t enough. Success is better. Aby describes the strategic re-shaping of a given set of conditions to his (and his crew’s) benefit in other aspects of his childhood. In his description of his crew’s clubhouse, he reveals that their refuge and sense of freedom came in the least likely of places. The term clubhouse brings to mind something out of “The Little Rascals,” but what he describes is far from that comical simplicity. His clubhouse was an abandoned building. And the freedom 55 and protection they felt by staking claim to forfeited space reconfigured a symbol of the borough’s deterioration into a place of their own. You had crews of 30 guys, 20 girls. It was a big family. That was our family…. We kinda like pushed away from [our parents] and got our own family outside—no rules. We used to go—we saw an abandoned building around our area. Nobody living, burned down. We’d go in there: everybody gets a floor. We used to go take uh, we used to steal the extension cords from our houses or we used to go into Woolworths—at that time there was a store called Woolworths—and steal power cords. And we’ll connect them to the light outside, bring it all into the building. All the way, every floor, and everybody’ll have lights, electrical lights. We’ll get crates, milk crates, and wood, and mattresses—old mattresses burnt out or trashed out—we’d go and put it and we’ll furnish our apartments. So everybody had a floor. An abandoned building, mind you. This is a building that’s been abandoned, so it’s like, it’s our building. That’d be our second home. Whoever wanted to run away, you run away you run in there. You stay there. We had shelter. In the winter we cold, but we had shelter. When it’s raining, we go in the house, we go in our apartment. That was ours. Nobody could take it away from us but the state, police. And they really never did ‘cause they was afraid to even go up in there. The only ones that we would bump into there, they were the drug addicts. That’s it you know. We’d go up our flights see one by me with a vein, you know shooting up. And, “Yo! What’s up?!,” keep on going, keep it moving. We never was scared ‘cause we had a group! We had a big group… 32 Aby’s initial emphasis is on a certain kind of independence to cultivate his own family and his own home without rules for a crew of 8-12 year olds who lived off of found objects and other trash. Much to my surprise, the overwhelming tone seemed to be that of abundance—everybody had a floor, lights, makeshift furniture, beds, shelter in poor weather, and a place to go when they ran away from home. The sense of getting one’s needs met by whatever means available reads as a kind of abundance. But it was not an excess of riches; it was the opposite—conditions of extreme lack. Mid-description Aby reminds me, “An abandoned building, mind you. This is a building that’s been abandoned…,” as if to ward off any sense of opulence in his description. I still hear the traces of his childhood pride, reflective of the ignorance of children not knowing to be scared of the building itself and not 56 just its other inhabitants. Despite that, their sense of ownership and self-possession from claiming abandoned places and things represented the stakes for them: “That was ours. Nobody could take it away from us…” Places that seemingly belonged to no one were the only ones to which they could confidently stake claim, even when it was previously occupied. And while he explicitly names the police and the state as their main threats and the only constant authorities over them, they took possession of the abandoned building anyway and turned it into their clubhouse. Their strength was partially in their numbers; it protected them from the addicts who also occupied that space. But they also found strength in the imaginative recreation of deterioration into freedom and homes. They forced the environment to work to their advantage rather than simply capitulate to the conditions surrounding them. Aby demonstrates how strategists work hard in order to claim victories under conditions that would seem to signify their defeat. The strategist figure makes things happen through conscious effort. The final figure is that of the illusionist. Trac2 suggests that b-boying should be like magic—it makes spectators wonder what they saw and how it was done. He gives particular attention to the legendary b-boy Spy, dubbed “the man of 1000 moves,” who broke in the early 1970s with Crazy Commandos Crew. 33 According to Trac2 who first battled him around 1975, Spy’s ever-expanding arsenal was an illusion. He created variations that appeared to be new moves, turning one move into several as if he had a limitless repertoire. Part of the result of creating the illusion is that others have to decipher, practice, and attempt to execute those moves for themselves. Skill becomes an expertise of surprise, keeping both one’s opponent and the crowd guessing. The value is on strong technique so that the illusion holds: the better the execution, the more like an illusionist one becomes. Speed in 57 this respect is a valuable asset as quick, sharp movements aid in masking the details. So when people watch in the cypher they may be studying the body as if it were a biological cipher needing decoding. Thus b-girls and b-boys become code-breakers who can figure out the secret. The illusion is central to dance’s repertoire, and understanding it is part of cultural knowledge. Thus illusionists are also teachers whose lessons come from the practice of b-boying particularly in battle cyphers. And students learn from the illusionist, especially in defeat. Spy used to intimidate other breakers in part because he expanded their ideas of the dance’s repertoire. The figure of the illusionist is about unexpected movement through variations that demonstrate different possibilities. The illusion is not fake, it is a distinctive nuance reflective of one’s originality and inventiveness. As a result, variation is infinite. While this figure encompasses the ethos of originality in b-boying, it also brings together the other figures. Like the strategist, the illusionist is about change and manipulation, shifting his or her attention from the environment to one’s own body. As with survivors, illusionists too use improvisation as an organizing principle. And like nomads who foster community relationships through dance, illusionists use their art to create social roles within the community, in this case as teachers. In combination these figurations tell us about battling approaches that contextualize the movement in particular ways. Battling requires an unwavering focus as one traverses multiple terrains. There is an imaginative or creative labor, necessary to improvise one’s way through a given set of conditions. Moreover, there is the physical and mental labor to cajole and craft the situation to one’s personal benefit. And finally, in the midst of that work, breakers are expected both to confuse and to delude their audience but be un-trickable in 58 spectacular displays of original style. So when one sees a battle, it is a culmination of these principles of battling techniques that shape how movement is read. For example, in the first round of a battle, if someone throws his or her most amazing move and cannot match that level of dance in his or her subsequent rounds, s/he is lacking as a breaker not only because s/he could not survive the battle but because it is poor strategy. To start with your best move and fail to maintain that level of performance suggests a lack of skill and understanding. Moreover, it suggests a breaker also does not have the imagination and know how to recover from that mistake and manipulate the situation to his or her advantage some other way. While my analytic approach has brought specific narratives of the past in direct conversation with battling approaches, I am not suggesting that meaning within battling is a product of individual experiences. These narratives identify within Hip Hop already- established and culturally substantive social modes of being. This kind of cultural knowledge is buttressed by the fact that Aby, Kwikstep, Mr. Wiggles, Ness4, and Trac2 are all in their early 40s Puerto Rican men from the South Bronx. 34 These factors are meaningful as well. But kinesthetic knowledge reminds us that while the past informs movement practices, they in turn carry traces of history. Thus the past cannot dictate or guarantee that this cultural knowledge will remain as relevant today as it once was. For example, Trac2’s list attempts to name a representative or even ideal breaker, a “true b-boy.” But even as the dance is still dominated by young men, there are an increasing number of b-girls of all ages who actively break and organize competitions or community-building events. Moreover, within the circuit of breaking competitions and programming, there are a growing number of events that focus specifically on b-girling in an effort to grow their numbers. 35 As support 59 networks amongst b-girls builds, the idea of a quintessential male breaker is increasingly challenged. The invocation of “true b-boys” reflects its own failure to truly represent the culture. periences like those of Aby, Mr. Wiggles, OLD S kers. This shift has fundamentally changed the socio-cultural context of b-boying practices. B-boying’s kinesthetic knowledge reveals that cultural understanding endures in practices and traditions like battle cyphers, but that the influence of that knowledge can wane. Breaking’s South Bronx roots have been displaced as the focal point of the broader community. And while dancers from around the world still make pilgrimages to New York to learn from b-boying “pioneers” who increasingly return to breaking scenes, there are pioneers worldwide whose histories have since left their mark on the culture. As b-boy Viazeen puts it, “Everybody’s relevant.” 36 The de-centering of the South Bronx is not a betrayal to the culture, nor is it outright erasure. Its trace in b-boying reminds us that roots influence but do not hold the culture constant. They remain instead as forces whose impact is not necessarily obvious. The principles evident from this history lay the foundation for the culture: b-boying came to be by virtue of ex and Kwikstep. But they are not the whole story. CHOOL vs. NEW SCHOOL: BEYOND THE BINARY Kinesthetic knowledge is not only about movement and history. It also refers to the debates such approaches to history engender in the culture today. Nowadays, b-boying is as much a product of the past as it is shaped by the technological advances that have progressively spread the culture throughout the world. B-boying’s international dispersal through film, television, self-made DVDs by crews or event promoters are as influential to the culture as apprenticeships with more experienced brea 60 Mary Fogarty’s MA thesis titled, “’Whatever happened to breakdancing?’: Transnational B-Boy/B-Girl Networks, Underground Video Magazines and Imagined Affinities,” is one of the few works to trace international b-boying networks from the 1990s. Fogarty focuses on “imagined affinities,” or “moments of identification with another cultural producer [wherein people] share an embodied practice…through either mediated texts or travels through new places.” 37 These are forms of cultural identification made possible through shared cultural practices, particularly when it occurs external to direct social interaction. She uses this idea to articulate the transnational connections enabled by three channels of representations: touring, competitions, and videos. 38 These are forms of cultural identification made possible through shared cultural practices, particularly when outside of direct social interaction. Most importantly, Fogarty’s research clearly depicts relationships between transnational identities and the media. Similar to the increased participation in breaking as a result of movies like Flashdance and TV shows like Soul Train in the ‘80s, the digital networks of b-boying play a direct role in growing the culture from the 1990s to the present. Fogarty notes that from the 1980s through the 1990s, b-boying networks expand largely through touring shows such as those by the Rock Steady Crew, Rhythm Technicians, and Ghetto Original Dance Company. These were breakers and poppers largely from New York who were featured in early Hip Hop productions and later put together their own dance companies. Underground videos featuring their shows, interviews, and club excursions after performances began to circulate. These videos are part of the second channel of representations of b-boying. The third channel was through competitions, particularly large-scale international ones located in different countries. These events had 61 their own promotional videos and became sites to purchase such videos as well as those created by and about specific crews. Since then, videos, DVDs, online clips of battles at competitions and clubs, and compilation footage of individual dancers have only multiplied. Fogarty’s work illustrates the increased influence of mediated images in b-boying’s more recent history. And as the media life of b-boying has grown, the culture has expanded. With technological advancements came new ways of learning how to break. Everything from the ability to play back videos in slow motion to the ease of uploading one’s own footage online where viewers can easily “skip to the good part” 39 have fostered approaches to learning that allow people to decode the illusion. I think there is no coincidence that the growth of power moves coincides with the growth of b-boying’s media life. They are typically over- determined by power moves, acrobatics, and choreography. Moreover, b-boying on stage or at organized battles also promotes a focus on the most spectacular aspects of the culture. For example, stage shows typically showcase choreography rather than centering the thrust of improvisation. At competitions, breakers have only minutes to throw their most impressive moves for a panel of judges whose opinions determine the winners. Competitions do not have the time nor does it make sense to award cash prizes to the last b- boy standing. Surviving means doing what one must to get past the judges in a few rounds. Competition footage often compiles multiple performances, over-dubbing the sound with a single song so that we never really witness the relationship between the movement and the music. DVDs and videos typically truncate cyphers, encroaching on the conversation between dancers. Movies often depict b-boying in one-dimensional ways, typically featuring storylines around actresses or actors who at best are trained in jazz, modern dance, or gymnastics. Thus, they can effectively execute acrobatic moves, while backed up by 62 simplified choreography designed to make the actors look good. Spectacular performances of competitions, stage shows, and video compilations de-emphasize cultural contexts, ultimately diminishing the value placed on freestyle, musicality, and dancing for the sake of dancing. My issue is not with power moves directly, but on what they represent: a shift in cultural values. But as I stated in chapter 1, the debate between dance and power is over… in a way. Today one is more likely to hear the terms “old school” versus “new school.” These terms carry aspects of the older debate within them but in a different form. Today this debate is more about how much different styles matter in comparison to each other rather than about whether power moves or dancing styles matter more. That is, if a b-boy shows soulful versatility in dancing, can that stand up against a single daring power move? Will contorting your body like a pretzel lose out to toprocking because the latter was more on beat with the music? If a b-girl has an impressive power repertoire but weak footwork, how might she fare against an opponent with weak power and impressive footwork? The answer to all of these questions is, it depends. But these issues come up repeatedly in battles, the outcome of which often comes back to judges who make decisions depending on their tastes, preferences, and the principles they hold dear. But again, movement both carries history and can reconstitute the terms by which we understand it. Moreover, these discursive battles have sometimes been externalized to the level of national and racial differences. Not only is movement then forced to bear the weight of these debates, but dancing bodies signify aesthetic and cultural differences. One such example was in August 2007 at the Ten Year Anniversary of Freestyle Sessions in Los Angeles. 40 The culmination of this two day event was the final crew battles. 63 Two 10-member crews control opposite sides of the stage, and the DJs stands in the back beside the judges who had the best view. The final battle was between the Mighty Zulu Kings (MZK) and Gamblerz Crew. Typical of most large-scale battles attended by breakers from other countries, crews represented both themselves and their nation. MZK describes their membership as world wide but the majority of their members on stage were raised in the U.S. Moreover, MZK are the b-boying contingent of Afrika Bambaattaa’s Universal Zulu Nation, 41 revived in 2002 by Ness4 (presumably with permission from Bambaataa himself). In part because of the crew’s history in New York and under Ness4’s direction, MZK are typically thought of as “old school.” They give as much attention to individual style, footwork and burns—gestures insulting an opponent—as they do to power moves and acrobatics, which as a result take up less of their performance time. Gamblerz Crew is an internationally renowned group of b-boys from Korea. Having won International Battle of the Year in 2004, they are consistently one of the top crews in the world today. Once criticized for only doing power moves, they have since developed their footwork and have successfully wedded contortionism to their power for a seamless transition between styles. Contortionism is increasingly a given feature of b-boying; thus, it is a feature of new school b-boying. Despite the categorizations, the differences between old and new school are not always clear, especially at this level where both crews exhibit talent and skill. There are differences in their approaches. MZK members bring a sporadic, jagged aggression to battles that—when seasoned with burns, the uniqueness of individual styles, and an incomparable competitiveness—give MZK their power. They have an attitude of indifference in whatever their opponents throw out—their affect suggests that it cannot they suggest. As a group, Gamblerz Crew have a more subdued aggressiveness, letting each 64 member’s expertise build up the audience’s anticipation of what will happen next. They come together well as a crew, making them top contenders. The glaring absence of any b- girls in the final crew battles suggests that it is also a competition of masculinities: the strong, silent types versus the loud shit-talkers who will beat you down and mock you in the process. Many assumed Gamblerz would win. When the Zulu Kings were announced the victors, it surprised more than a few. I heard some suggest that Zulu won, not because they were better, but because the judges favored old school approaches. Maybe, some grumbled, the judges needed to learn to appreciate the new directions in b-boying aesthetics? The conclusion: Gamblerz were robbed. And as the battle was on U.S. soil, it seemed a product of national favoritism as well. By the end of the event, the battle came to symbolize a complex set of issues about b-boying, couched in terms of national difference. Gamblerz have been described as too clean or too precise, lacking the grittiness that MZK so artfully displays. This characterization echoes stereotypes of Asian people as methodical perfectionists lacking a soulful understanding of the dance. On the other hand, American crews (including MZK) are often described as arrogant and foolishly self-entitled even in the face of defeat, similar to critiques of American exceptionalism. The variations in dance styles seemingly gave way to fundamental differences in cultural orientations in the most stereotypical terms. Though articulated in disputes over approaches, the battle is where ideas of difference are confronted directly through performance styles. Discursive differences attempt to stand in for b-boying’s changing culture. In this example, the U.S. nation-state is a metonym for b-boying styles more expressly influenced by New York, the birthplace of b-boying. What some read as 65 entitlement or arrogance is for others a matter of necessary concern, like a parent whose child has grown up, left the nest, and appears to be heading down the wrong path. While ideas around authenticity lurk in the background of that assessment, the differences in styles, the conjecture around the judges’ decision, and even the racially and nationally-inflected interpretation of the battle all seem to struggle with changes. B-boying has long since left the nest of New York and the U.S. but in moving further from “home” the culture shifted in ways that distance it both from particular places and from particular social struggles. Some are not necessarily bothered by the de-centering of the U.S. as they are about the people who fall out of view because of this shift in perspective. For most if not all breakers, b-boying is fun and it provides opportunities to “build” with breakers outside their immediate social circles. For many, it was always more than just a dance. As with Aby, Mr. Wiggles, and Kwikstep demonstrated, b-boying offered a productive and creative social outlet that kept them out of trouble, relatively speaking. 42 And though they do not represent everyone’s experiences, their perspectives fit other urban environments today. For communities in need, breaking can be life-saving. This is no small thing though it is often an unspoken component of the dance. Its loss is wrapped up in ideas of an “old school” approach. B-girl Rokafella, co-founder of Full Circle Productions, told me of a conversation she had with an early-20s, white b-girl who seemed to have little concern for the relationship between histories of people of color in the Americas and b-boying. In their conversation, Rokafella became aware that an ignorance of the past is not uncommon in today’s culture: [Internationally] they’re not learning the history. They’re not looking to socio-political, the economical edge to this. They’re not, you know. And I think you know even me telling [her], this [dance] is something that’s coming post-Civil Rights, you know, I don’t think she knew that.... And yes, you can be the best dancer but are you helping my community express themselves as educated, as skillful, as humans, as equal people in this American society? No 66 you’re not. You come in, you get what you want, you go back to your country. And then when you go back to your country, you forget about who we are…because now you’re holding competitions, and you’re you know in all the media—you know what I’m saying? So I think that racially, I don’t feel that it applies because when we talk about this dancing community we’re talking about skills. But I think when we move away from the dance…and we start speaking, then we have these issues. 43 Rokafella names a complex interplay of underlying racial politics within a seemingly apolitical dance culture. In a certain way, an ignorance about the histories of people who were so fundamental to the culture seems to continue a larger pattern of privilege—some have the privilege of operating without an awareness of this baggage while others do not. Her challenge for breakers to be more than just skilled dancers is in some ways a challenge to continue the forms of community building among breakers into something else. Ignorance hinders the idealistic conception that b-boying can build bridges across disparate communities and uplift those in need, since after the dancing and in the course of building community, mutual understanding (or lack of it) still matters. Knowing different histories is important because it helps foster relationships in the larger social circle of breaking. In an effort to explain the relationship between race and breaking, Rokafella further touches on national, racial, and cultural differences and their potential to turn into divisions. Rokafella herself struggles to articulate that relationship, wavering between its essential relevance and irrelevance to dance: Racially. See now, this is something that... It’s, it’s... I don’t know. I don’t even know sometimes if it applies when it comes to breaking because it really is about the soul of the dance…. Because I was telling her you know, you being white, that’s never gonna go away. This being a black dance, that’s never gonna go away either. [What] you have to first become well versed at is acknowledging the fact that slavery or oppression of European countries on, you know their colonies, you have to be able to acknowledge that that shit was wrong. And it’s still wrong. So that, you know, so that when conversation comes up, you can honestly say, “Yes, that was wrong. And that has nothing to do with me.” You know, because that isn’t even your 67 generation. It’s not your mom’s or your grandmother’s generation. We’re talking eons, oh my gosh, of imperialism. So, you know? But for you to acknowledge it helps me perceive you as an ally. And the fact that you renounce your privilege in this society is, is…is helpful. What is also helpful to you is to become a soulful dancer. You have got to study this dance and be good, without a doubt. And always contribute back to the people who created it, back to the people who teach you. Because you have to give back to the communities [and not just] take from it. 44 Rokafella’s statement necessarily circles on itself, oscillating between the inapplicability of race to breaking and its inescapable qualities. Breaking is not about race, yet it is about racism, at least in part. When Rokafella calls b-boying a “black dance,” she both marks it as African diasporic and as a product of world black histories, not solely African American history. Thus, she names colonization, enslavement, and political and economic exploitation of different countries in relation to white (European and American) histories of imperialism, capitalist expansion, and social and political privilege. For that young, white b-girl to be able to engage in such conversations means developing a familiarity with various histories enough to understand the terms of the discussion and the ways that it continues to shape her own privilege and the lives of people of color today. These histories need not wholly define her, but learning them allows her to be an ally. Rokafella’s focus on being and becoming allies may not tear down the walls produced by racism, difference, and power, but the hope for alliances may solidify and organize b-boying identities. She recognizes that these histories are not simply about the past, but actively shape the lives of people today. As privilege continues, so does racism at the cost of people’s lives. 45 In naming imperialism, colonial oppression, and slavery, Rokafella focus on historically perpetuated acts of violence that racism helped to structure and organize. Thus when people speak of b- boying as having saved their lives, it is literal, not hyperbole. An ignorance of racism and its 68 impact on b-boying culture merely perpetuates a kind of cultural exploitation—e.g. continually taking from the culture and not giving back. “Giving back” to communities in need worldwide attests to the recognition of these histories, and such acts are in a way political interventions that disrupt previous patterns of exploitation and expropriation of human labor, in this case the cultural production of dance. 46 It halts patterns of ignorance that privilege spawns. This becomes part of the work of b-boying. Rokafella’s statements draw attention to a fundamental humanity that is undermined by various forms of social discrimination, ignorance, and neglect. At the same time, it always comes back to the dancing. As Rokafella reminds me, people do not get into b-boying for resistance or revolution. They do it because it is fun. Becoming a “soulful” breaker is no small endeavor. Rokafella remarks that despite her background in salsa, house, Hip Hop, and African dancing, it took her more than five years to become a “soulful” b-girl, as there are aesthetic nuances that took time to develop, even after becoming well versed in the moves. 47 Thus, being soulful is about a perpetual state of learning about moves, music, the body, and histories. This is also what makes b-boying such a politically viable art form. “It has managed to save a lot of people from depression, from loss, from drug addiction, from these things, you know. Drugs, wars. It’s such a good release. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Arabic, or French, or Chinese. This dance has a way of just allowing you to be, as long as you’re good.” 48 Again, we return to the battle, because what constitutes good or better is up for debate. The possibility for a dance culture to forge relationships among different and distant communities through dance is powerful, but it cannot avoid the conflicts of the battle and the implications of differences in style, cultural knowledge, background, and generation. The question is, then how do we harness the spirit 69 of b-boying collectivities to create political allies? The hope inherent in the question refers to something already in process: b-boying saves lives, gives direction, and facilitates world wide cultural connections. Thus, it can help build struggling urban communities. Changes in cultural milieus and standards that manifest as differences in styles may be articulated as national or racial differences, but the underlying concerns are multi-layered. Debates about the past’s relevance are ultimately concerns over the future of whole communities. Being mindful of the past need not restrict the culture’s growth. Instead it can enable deeper relationships despite the inevitable tensions that arise in moments of transition. CONCLUSION Battle cyphers are arenas of confrontation: politics, styles, moves, and ideas clash. In a competitive culture these confrontations remain unsettled, even when winners are declared. In actual battles where someone wins a prize (as with the battle between the Mighty Zulu Kings and Gamblerz), picking a side does not end the conflict but continues it in different forums. 49 Often debates over battles are picked up in online message boards, personal conversations, and at future events. In b-boying, the long term effects of discursive battles can become a cultural equilibrium, as the debate itself becomes obsolete in the face of a popular consensus or a shift in values. But the terms of the debate (e.g. old vs. new school) can recur, in large part because the movement represents more than just itself. The way the body moves gives way to a range of deeply personal and political concerns: whether the culture operates in a realm of social healing; whether the culture challenges racism, classism, and sexism; whether the dance can retain fundamental qualities that were once its foundation but have since waned in importance. These are concerns about what b-boying will become. Physical movement carries these debates within it, invisible to the naked eye 70 but impactful nonetheless. Kinesthetic knowledge is a term I use to draw attention to what we do not see in the physical movement of dance. The kinesthetic can account for the layers of discourse attached to moving bodies in battle circles, drawing particular attention to the wealth of cultural knowledge and its distinct relationship to aspects of b-boying’s histories and to its current debates. An infinitely expanding repertoire of movement constitutes b-boying culture, rather than a finite list of moves everyone must do. Cyphers provide the context for this movement, and cultural identities are effects formed in practice as well as discourse. How you dance tells us who you are—whom you emulate or idolize, who influences you, from whom you learn, how you feel at that moment, the role you imagine for yourself within the culture, etc. But because it is an identity activated in cyphers, it is also formed in competitions and battles. Whether they are literal dance combats in cyphers or discursive contestations over cultural standards, battles are representative of community formation. They do not homogenize the community despite efforts by some to ensure that there are shared qualities, information, and ideas of history. B-boying is a culture necessarily cognizant of its own heterogeneity. B-boying as a cultural identity takes shape within and across these smaller social circles. In Poetics of Relation, writer and philosopher Édouard Glissant posits a theory of the same name to articulate relational connections across different Caribbean nations in a global context. Instead of filiation that attempts to draw ties to a rooted History of itself, Glissant instead looks to “relations” which reveal the expanse of a connection that is irreducible to a sameness. 50 Glissant borrows the metaphor of the rhizome from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s use in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia. It is a subterranean stem 71 72 from which roots and shoots extend. 51 Thus the stems are always connected to other things outside of themselves. They are relational externalities. In Deleuze and Guattari’s work, rhizomes are entities continuously and heterogeneously connecting to others. Thus connections are not necessarily premised on “totalitarian roots” out of which everything is born. 52 Rather, the rhizome as a metaphor conceives of a relational connection irreducible to a single history, people, or place. Rhizomes are determined by their multiplicity. Relations happen through their extension to the Other. B-boying is likely not what Glissant or Deleuze and Guattari had in mind. But rhizomatic relations provide useful insight into a notion of community that cannot be reduced to a single people, bloodline, or even place to account for the whole. As discussed earlier, b-boying’s New York history is only part of the story when one considers the multiplicity of influences on the dance. B-boying conceives of itself as heterogeneous and comprised as much by battles and disruptions to the status quo as it is by its common traits. It is not posited as a closed system nor is there a dominant criterion for belonging. Rather, breakers are cognizant of the limitations of ideas of commonality to account for the whole. Instead of a product, the whole of b-boying culture is a process of becoming arising from continual contestation and dissemination. The culture, like its repertoire, has multiple origins and can carry different histories. Breaking draws from a wide variety of movement cultures. Even in the ‘70s and ‘80s, b-boying was inspired by and appropriated moves from kung fu movies, French pantomime, gymnastics, Russian folk dance, and more. Movement radiates connections to others. Cyphers do not produce sameness but instead can posit those differences as generative of the whole. 73 Chapter 2 Endnotes 1 Evelyn Gonzalez, The Bronx. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). 2 Jeff Chang notes that in the South Bronx alone between 1973 to 1977, there were 30,000 documented incidents of arson. Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005): 15. 3 Richard Severo, “Bronx a Symbol of America’s Woes,” New York Times (Oct. 6, 1977). 4 “Bronx a Symbol of America’s Woes” 5 Devon W. Carbado, “Racial Naturalization,” American Quarterly. 57.3 (September 2005): 638. 6 Allahsfivepercent.blogspot.com Oct. 5, 2005 archive. <http://allahsfivepercent.blogspot.com/2005_10_02_ allahsfivepercent_archive>.html last accessed on June 8, 2008. 7 Felicia Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap: God Hop’s Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005): 17-19. 8 The Book of the Five Percenters Edition #195 (Monticello, NY: The Original Tenets of Kedar, 1991): 334. 9 In the group’s Supreme Alphabet, the letter T corresponds to both truth and the square. Miyakawa 29. 10 Branch expands on this concept: “The square is an instrument of testing. It used to determine if the ashlar has been brought from rough to perfect, and thereby suitable for the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We see that there is high purpose in the use of the square. Moreover, the square is the badge of office worn by the Worshipful Master, himself a symbol of the Divinely Illumined Man. Further, the Master is symbolic of our own Inner Nature, and not of any outside authority, either secular or religious. Therefore, to be tried by the square describes an interior process by which our thoughts, words, and deeds are witnessed and validated by our own Higher Self, to which, alone, we are answerable, and which is our true guide on the journey toward our eternal goal” (2-3). Albert Gallatin Mackey, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry Part 3. (H. L. Haywood Published by Kessinger Publishing, 2003 [1909]): 1377; Roger A. Branch, “Speculative Masonry: Tools for Query,” unpublished paper Presented to Benjamin B. French Lodge No. 15, F.A.A.M., (Washington, DC, February 5, 2003). 11 In an interview with pioneer Trac2 of Star Child La Rock Crew of the 1970s, he suggests that they wanted to look tough like gangsters but cool enough to get a girl’s attention, like a pimp. “A b-boy’s look is a mixture of pimps…of pimps and drug dealers, and outlaws.” Crews wore their group and individual names on shirts, vests, and jackets. They also sported matching colors reflective of gang aesthetics. Trac2. Personal Interview (28 July, 2007). 12 Poe1’s definition of original style is as follows: “adding your own thing to something that’s already been done.” Poe1. Personal Interview (3 Jan., 2007). 13 Understanding the differences is a way of understanding the cultural context, though there is no clear indication of the degree to which the various stances came into conversation at that time as both sets engage with notions of cool and racialized masculine performances of strength and prowess. 14 Another change is that the culture is not as defined by conditions of economic lack as it was, which is not to say that its practitioners and organizers are all wealthy. It is to say that breakers have grown up, gotten jobs, 74 sport Armani suits, are thinking about their economic futures, and still break. What used to be the quitting age—late teens and early 20s because of the demands of adulthood—is today the average age. Thus turning a city street corner into a breaking space because there was little else available is now dominated by efforts to acquire corporate sponsorship or state grants—though in either instance, they are creating opportunities where there once were none. 15 The relationship between re-fashioning cultural products and their accessibleness to wider markets of consumers is not exclusive to b-boying. I’m specifically thinking of Dick Hebdige’s Cut ‘N’ Mix, a cultural history of “Caribbean” music with a particular look at Jamaica. Hebdige explores the roots of a variety of musical genres (e.g. calypso, reggae, dub, rocksteady) as syncretic manifestations of African and European musical traditions. One tradition he gives specifically acknowledges is “versioning.” Hebdige asserts that “versioning,” or the re-versioning of a song, is an African diasporic musical practice that privileges variation. He even incorporates the concept of “versioning” into the very structure of the book, dividing his narrative of Caribbean music into three “remixes.” Caribbean and particularly Jamaican practices of “versioning” are forms of intertextuality that reinterprets repetition and mimicry by cutting and mixing the original text into new contexts. For example, an African America soul song could have multiple reggae or dancehall versions that rearrange the rhythms, the melody, and even the lyrics while still enacting a relationship to the original text. So the use and re-use of the original text, even as it invokes a prior use, has cultural utility insofar as it can be taken up in particular ways that are useful in specific spaces. “Cut and mix” becomes not only a method of musical production but a form of self-fashioning for an increasingly global society. “Versioning” is a kind of cultural knowledge situated in Caribbean musical production, meaning it is a manifestation of the cultural labor that comes out of and responds to the push and pull factors of the international economy. Dick Hebdige, Cut ‘n’ Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music. (New York: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1987). 16 I am paraphrasing James Snead’s “On Repetition in Black Culture”: “That the beat is there to pick up does not mean that it must have been metronomic, but merely that it must have been at one point begun and that it must be at any point “social”—i.e., amenable to re-starting, interruption, or entry by a second or third player or to response by an additional musician. The typical polymetry of black music means that there are at least two, and usually more, rhythms going on alongside the listener's own beat.” James Snead, “On Repetition in Black Culture,” Black American Literature Forum v.15 n.4 (Winter 1981): 150. 17 Formerly known as Alien Ness. 18 Ness 4, Personal Interview, August 9, 2006. 19 Ken Swift, Panelist: “The History of Hip Hop Dance.” Style Is King Workshop Series at Dap Dance Studio, Thun Switzerland, October 13, 2006. 20 Trac2. Personal Interview (28 July, 2007). 21 Trac2. Personal Interview (28 July, 2007). 22 Kwikstep. Personal Interview (8 Aug. 2008). 23 Lil’ Cesar. Personal Interview (19 Feb. 2005). 24 Everything Remains Raw: Hip Hop’s Folkloric Lineage, dir. Moncell ‘Ill Kosby” Durden, (to be released Spring 2010). 25 Qtd. in Everything Remains Raw: Hip Hop’s Folkloric Lineage, dir. Moncell ‘Ill Kosby” Durden, (to be released Spring 2010). 26 Qtd. in Everything Remains Raw: Hip Hop’s Folkloric Lineage, dir. Moncell ‘Ill Kosby” Durden, (to be released Spring 2010). 75 27 Implicating the mob and landlords may seem conspiratorial to some, but the South Bronx’s established history only supports his story. Simply put, the violence he experienced was not just that of the streets. The prevalence of burned out and abandoned building in 1970s New York City, with the media’s particular attention on the Bronx, is a well-documented phenomenon. Evelyn Gonzalez’s The Bronx details the political and economic incentives for the temporary and unofficial abandonment of the South Bronx by the state, private owners, and residents. Her study details the housing policies that encouraged white residents move to suburbs and other parts of the city, which were only exacerbated by redlining policies beginning in previous decades that ultimately isolated poor communities of color from federally-backed mortgages. Redlining in the 1930s, the subsequent “white flight” in the 1940s and 1950s, and the social disorder in the U.S. in the 1960s set the stage for Mr. Wiggle’s South Bronx life. Those who could afford to leave and those too afraid to stay contributed to its social isolation. The South Bronx became a destination for those with few other choices— poor blacks and Spanish-speaking (im)migrants (111). The decreased motivation for residents to stay mirrors that of the state’s and private owners who lacked of incentive to invest in public property and private residences. As Gonzalez points out, landlords struggled to fill vacant apartments during a housing shortage because the area was so undesirable. The loss of city income meant city cuts of needed services like garbage collection, fire fighting facilities, and police protection. The abandonment of the South Bronx also meant a loss of businesses such as grocery stores and laundromats. The lag between when the landlord stopped paying taxes, providing services, and collecting rents and when the city acquired, demolished, and finally wiped the structure from its books often varied from years to overnight. At each stage of the process, landlords, tenants, and squatters could and often did burn their buildings... Other city policies encouraged arson. In 1969, the city installed a less reliable fire alarm system and shut down firehouses where they were most needed... Some landlords used their derelict buildings as tax shelters or transferred their properties back and forth to increase valuation for sale to the city or to acquire second mortgage loans. Others cut down on maintenance, deferred paying taxes, rented to undesirable tenants or “problem families,” aggressively collected whatever rents they could get, and “ran for the hills”... Some, however, went a step further and burned the structures. When low-premium fire insurance became available in the 1970s, many investors bought Bronx apartment buildings with the express intent of burning them… These practices accelerated the decay of individual buildings, the housing stock, and the neighborhood, but they also revealed, as the Right Rev. Paul Moore observed, that both owners and residents had “redlined the South Bronx as an area not worth saving.” (125-126) These problems were not exclusive to the Bronx. In the 1970s, the US economy was suffering as increased gas prices, stagflation, stagnant unemployment, and the neglect of urban communities contradictorily in the face of urban renewal programs contributed to New York’s downward spiral. While the short-term profits for a few politicians and landlords contributed to maintaining the status quo, 27 Gonzalez makes clear that the deterioration of the South Bronx was cumulative. A nation-wide economic crisis combined with questionable federal and city police, insurance industry changes, the dictates of capitalist accumulation, and a general social malaise about the viability of rehabilitating the area (even among one some residents who resorted to arson for priority placement in homeless hotels) all typify systemic violence. The victims of this violence were the borough itself and a sense of community. These conditions broke up familiar ties and social networks, putting the weight of survival on residents themselves. Community organizations like Advocates for Children, a non-profit educational advocacy organization, put particular focus on those families and children living in the “welfare hotels” for poor, newly- homeless families, what Wiggles knew as relos. More than a decade after the 1977 New York blackouts and President Carter’s subsequent visit to the South Bronx, homeless hotels were still being emptied. AFC issued a “Testimony on Progress Made by New York City in Emptying the ‘Welfare Hotels’ and Relocating Homeless Families” at a congressional hearing on May 8, 1989. They noted both its progress in housing 800 families the previous year, but drew attention to the offset of such progress—the inefficiency of quick moves that “caused more disruption and hardship, often leaving families stranded.” 28 The question becomes who is fighting who? His tone is a near incapacity to reconcile the havoc wreaked on his and other’s lives and the ruthlessness of someone else's profit. While three articles compare the city blocks 76 filled with the rubble of deteriorating or destroyed buildings to the result of wartime bombing, one Staff Writer compared Carter’s trip to the South Bronx to “a visit to Auschwitz.” This comparison has been reiterated among breakers. Residents felt under assault by the city and by other residents. Those on the outside looking in saw a city imploding in self-destruction. On the day-to-day basis, the war took the form of apartment fires, public ridicule in school for homeless children, the loss and sustained absence of personal networks and public resources, the immanent threat of robbery and physical assault, and the statistical rise of stabbings, shootings, and death by drugs. “Bronx a Symbol of America’s Woes”; Lee Dembart, “Carter Takes ‘Sobering’ Trip to South Bronx,” New York Times (6 Oct 1977); Joseph P. Fried, “The South Bronx, U.S.A.,” New York Times (7 Oct 1977); Staff Writer, “The Trip to the Bronx,” New York Times (6 Oct 1977); Kwikstep and Trac2. Personal Interview (26 May 2007). 29 Ness4. Personal Interview (9 Aug 2006). 30 Aby. Personal Interview (18 March 2007). 31 Ness4. Personal Interview ((9 Aug. 2006). 32 Aby. Personal Interview (18 March 2007). 33 Freshest Kids: A History of the B-boy, dir. Israel, perf. Crazy Legs, Trac2, Kool Herc, and Popmaster Fable. DVD. QD3 Entertainment Inc., 2002. 34 I cannot say that any one form of identification had the greater impact. This is not to say that shared identitarian categories make these experiences exclusive, but rather that. Ness4, for example, believes that class was a more important factor than ethnicity or race. 35 B-girl Asia One founded B-Boy Summit, a multi-day international event in Southern California. Rokafella of Full Circle Productions organized a series of “B-Girls Sit Downs” or conversational circles among women Hip Hop artists including graff writers, educators, MCs, DJs, Hip Hop dancers, and b-girls. It was a space that allowed women to share experiences, vent frustrations and jointly brainstorm potential resolutions. Aruna helped to create the Hip Hop Huis in Rotterdam Netherlands, a community arts center for Hip Hop artists. And events like B-Supreme in London, B-Girl Be in Minneapolis, and all-female crews like Collective 7 continue to work towards the collective possibility of women artists by elevating each other and thus the art form as a whole. These are just some example o events organized by and for women. Martha Cooper’s We B- Girlz is a collection of photographs and conversations among b-girls around the world about the dance, family, gender, battling, among other things. In fact, so many b-girls are featured in the book that the 25 year anniversary of the 1981 battle between Rock Steady Crew and the Dynamic Rockers at the Lincoln Center was commemorated with a b-girl crew battle. Martha Cooper and Nika Kramer, We B*Girlz (New York: Powerhouse Books, 2005). 36 Viazeen. Personal Interview (7 July 2007). 37 Mary Fogarty “’What ever happened to breakdancing?’: Transnational b-boy/b-girl networks, underground video magazines, and imagined affinities.” Thesis Brook U., 2006. Dissertations and Theses. ProQuest. Brooks U. Coll. Information and Lib. Services. 19 June 2008 <http://www.proquest.com>: 96. 38 Fogarty 58. 39 I credit d. Sabela grimes with this particular insight. d. Sablea grimes, Predictably Unprecedented: Old Shuffles in a New Paradigm, 28 Aug. 2008, July 2009. <http://socialdancemedia.blogspot.com/2008/08/predictably- unprecedented.html> 40 Freestyle Sessions are a series of events held year-round in different parts of the world by Cross1. This event began in Southern California in 1997. 77 41 An organization started by DJ Afrika Bambaataa meant to bring together former gang members, disenfranchised youth, and groups of people of all races into a collective that was about “knowledge, wisdom, and understanding as well as peace, unity, and having fun.” Zulu Nation is not a gang but an idea of community through study and Hip Hop. Qtd. in The Freshest Kids. 42 Some add that b-boying often got them in trouble too and fights were not uncommon. But ultimately it was a less troublesome culture. 43 Rokafella. Personal Interview (7 Sept. 2006). 44 Rokafella. Personal Interview (7 Sept. 2006). 45 I use geographer Ruth Gilmore’s definition of racism: “[W]hatever its place-based particularities, [racism’s] practitioners exploit and renew fatal power-difference couplings. Fatalities—premature deaths...” Ruth Gilmore, “Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography,” The Professional Geographer 54.1, (Feb. 2002): 16. 46 Dorinne Kondo’s discussion of Gayatri Spivak’s term “sanctioned ignorance” and Mary E. John’s use of “sites of privilege” fits well in my discussion. In reference to these two terms, Kondo writes that “’racism’ or ‘race privilege’ lies not simply in acts of so-called hate or membership in the Ku Klux Klan, but in zones of privilege, where we can remain unaware of the oppressions of others.” Dorinne Kondo, “(Re)Visions of Race: Contemporary Race Theory and the Cultural Politics of Racial Crossover in Documentary Theatre,” Theatre Journal, 52 (2000): 102 n.34. 47 Rokafella. Personal Interview (7 Sept. 2006). 48 Rokafella. Personal Interview (7 Sept. 2006). 49 Message boards, blogs, casual conversations, and engagements with judges are sites where debates about the outcomes of battles persist. 50 Édouard Gissant, Poetics of Relation, trans. by Betsy Wing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. 51 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia, trans. by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1987). 52 Glissant 11. Chapter 3. Dark Matter and Diaspora While battle cyphers can demonstrate rhizomatic relations across the very differences that compel the battle, cyphering in and of itself excites connections through an invisible yet compelling force that I name dark matter. Cyphering practices in general enact the presence of an extra-phenomenal force sometimes described as energy, other times as a high, and still other times as a spiritual connection. While descriptions of that force are diverse, in combination they attest to the reasons people are compelled to cypher, repeatedly returning to the practice despite having no guarantee that the experience will tap into this something more. B-boying culture does not name this force or limit the terms of these experiences. My desire to name this force is in part descriptive, meant to capture a range of experiences, and in part theoretical in recognition of the significance of those experiences. My hope is that naming this force acknowledges the essential and formative impact of a cypher’s energy. I draw on parallels to other circle practices, particularly in the African diaspora, that have acknowledged an otherworldly force. Ring shouts, capoeira rodas, and bomba circles may use pointed religious or spiritual comparisons to describe this force, while breakers make a wider array of references. In any case, reading cyphers in relation to other circle practices illuminates another layer of rhizomatic relations. Dark matter is a metaphor for this multi- dimensional force that acts as the presence of possibility for self-expression, release, spiritual connection, or a sense of liberation—even if only momentarily. Sometimes people cannot quite get there. At other times, a spark of inspiration changes a circle’s tone and stimulates the growth of a collective energy. 78 I saw the beginnings of this force of possibility in a circle at the 2008 U.S. regional finals of Battle of the Year held at a Hollywood club. I had not been at the club long. As I walked around the semi-crowded club, the mood was somewhat casual, perhaps because the preliminary battles had not yet started. It was early in the evening, still light outside, though in the darkened club it was easy to forget. People seemed to just begin to warm up to the circles in the boom. I sought out familiar faces and came upon b-boy Viazeen. He had a familiar, tense look on his face, and I already knew the struggle. B-boy Viazeen had trouble getting in the cyphering mindset. He pushed himself to try, repeatedly starting and stopping his toprock slightly removed from a cypher. I have seen Viazeen perform on and off the stage. At his best, he brings a combination of intellectual curiosity and creative intensity to the floor, attacking it with a clean diligence as he creates new angles and shapes in the invisible lines of his footwork. Though a recent transplant to Los Angeles from Philadelphia, he had a growing number of fans and friends among breakers who admired his style and dedication. Viazeen is a thoughtful breaker, but at times his pensiveness can stunt his ability to participate freely. He could not get out of his head. Viazeen stood in a circle nearest stage right watching others dance, making a move to do the same only once or twice. He told me later that he could not figure out why he was struggling. He felt that maybe he was being too contemplative to just dance and perhaps was not feeling the music the DJ opted to play. I saw his struggle on his furrowed brow. He seemed vaguely embarrassed and a bit disappointed after his efforts to break in the circle, and there were signs to attest to his difficulty. Or maybe it was the lack of signs: there was no sweat and heavy breathing from constant dancing, no unwavering focus on the floor, and no praise from admiring breakers following his turn. Finding his 79 own groove and a way to enter the cypher in an uplifting way eluded him. His frustration was noticeable. His desire to dance freely remained a possibility rather than a reality. Stage left was a different circle. I initially came to it because I saw dancers I admired but rarely get to see in the same cypher. Though they did not appear to struggle as Viazeen had, their lack of enthusiasm showed. It occurred to me that most circles are like this: comprised of people with varying degrees of interest or investment such that it does not evolve into something more. If a cypher is distinguished by the force of the exchange between dancers and spectators that builds on the energy of the collective, then this was a incipient cypher—people participated, but just barely. There were lulls between each dancer’s turn. Someone would finish…pause…pause…someone else would enter. Each set was as short as 10 or 15 seconds, as opposed to the typical 25 to 30 seconds when things are more intense. Folks in the inner circle were joking with each other rather than paying attention to the dancer on the floor. My own fascination began to wane as I considered moving on to another possibly “better” circle. But I was all too aware that regardless of which one I occupied, lackluster moments are inevitable, often eventually broken by something unexpected (though not necessarily for the better). I would either miss something here or somewhere else, so I decided to stay. It felt like we were all waiting for something. And then it happened. B-boy Smurf jumped in the circle in a precariously twisting drop to the floor— steadying himself a breath before an unrecoverable fall—only to immediately propel his body in the opposing direction, incorporate quick footwork, and end in an unwavering freeze. He moved so quickly that by the time he finished his set, I was still trying to figure out where he came from. I saw everything but could not recall anything in particular, which 80 is part of the beauty of b-boying and particularly of Smurf’s style. He regularly displays a compelling mix of easy strength in tumbling and power moves coupled with fluid and frenzied footwork that glides along the floor as if it were an oil-slick surface rather than hard wood underneath his rubber-soled Converse. Better still, Smurf dances it with a flavor and style all his own. When I think of Smurf I smile because he reminds me of “The Three Stooges.” One moment he looks like an angry Moe with an intense glare and his lips cutting a line across the lower half of his face. Then Smurf swiftly embodies Curly, whose enthusiasm bursts through him in erratic twitches and hyper fidgetiness. Smurf plays with restlessness, constantly changing gestures, characters, and movement as if on the brink of losing control over his own body while artfully maintaining the upper hand. Though small in stature, he is an eruption of kinetic energy. That combination of restlessness and confident calculation was a whirlwind. I was left feeling thrilled and breathless after this unexpected break in the monotony. I was not the only one who noticed. As soon as Smurf entered the circle, the mood changed. People were alert, instantly observant. He had barely left before another b-boy jumped in. They became, as Ness4 would characterize them, “hungry dancers” anxious for their turns to ravenously feast on this newfound intensity. 1 There were no more lulls. The pace had quickened—one b-boy would enter on the heels of the one before him without hesitation. Each breaker appeared to accept the unspoken challenge Smurf ultimately issued. It was not a battle, but the seeds of inspiration he planted were nourished by a competitive spirit typical of b-boying: they could not be out-danced. I was not sure if Smurf stayed or even noticed what he helped manifest. But the sharp contrast was palpable as dancers began to vibe off one another’s intensity. 81 And just as quickly as it began, the circle was cut: the music stopped as the MC announced that the stage shows were about to begin. A low grumble echoed throughout the venue, suggesting that this cypher was not the only one to end prematurely. Given its vibrancy, it is no wonder that breakers refer to these abrupt ends as “killing the cypher”. It would not be the last time that would happen at this event. But for a moment it was perfect. Though it lasted only a couple of minutes, the circle had become a cypher. And the urgency of maintaining that force—while likely to recur sometime that evening—had dissipated, lingering instead as disappointment. There were new circles yet to form, but this one was gone forever. Those moments of intensity that can inspire different degrees of participation are frequent but not guaranteed. One is more likely to encounter instances where the circle holds but does not grow in force or size. Cyphering necessarily entails lulls in the performance, hesitations between its potentiality under the best of circumstances and the reality of most circles—i.e. seemingly uninterested or encumbered participants. The lulls between dancers are spaces where something more can be born. While it can feel like waiting for something that has not yet manifested, instead it is useful to think of it as the presence of possibility. The status quo was a force too. People watched, danced, socialized, and stayed with the belief that it could become something more. Consequently, even these seemingly staid moments are open to the unexpected, leaving room for people like Smurf to change its tone in an instant or people like Viazeen to eventually work their way into the groove. Cyphers are spaces that nurture potentiality into a reality. The lulls and the brief moments of inspired interaction are not separate stages of expression but parts of a continuum of activity. 82 Many breakers will speak of this force as an energy that is shared with or exchanged among those in the circle. The energy exchange they speak of is shared and activated through the practice of cyphering in all of its struggles. Ness4 suggests that the energy is fundamental to cyphers. 2 Like many, he characterizes the dynamism of the exchange between dancers and spectator-dancers as a mutual focus channeled entirely to the center. According to b-boy Float, “a circle’s a circle but the cypher’s more about the energy amongst the guys and the girls…” And while people bring different kinds of energy to circles, everybody brings “a part of themselves to the cypher.” This contributes to its force. 3 Whoever dances embodies the cypher’s focal point, imbibing the entirety of others’ single- minded attention while putting their own energy onto themselves and the floor. Thus anyone brave enough to enter the cypher has the opportunity to partake in and contribute to its force. Ultimately, this energy is a defining characteristic of cyphering. Giving a part of one’s self for the welfare of the whole is necessary to create a cypher. B-girl Emiko suggests that if one does not give energy back, then there is little point to being there in the first place, suggesting that giving and receiving go hand-in-hand. 4 B-boy Dark Marc elaborates, stating simply that “[Y]ou just use each other's energy to do your thing.” 5 It carries almost a selfish connotation, though that energy flows in multiple directions. Dancers use as little as thirty seconds’ time to take in that force before another has their turn. Everyone has an opportunity to feed off each other. It is cyclical and recycled, constantly flowing in and out the circle, back and forth between spectators and dancers. Part of the work of cyphering is participating in that exchange. It is a collective endeavor. An aspect of cyphering’s strength lies in the unpredictability of this type of collaboration. Strangers or friends might contribute anger, pain, joy, reckless abandon, or 83 aggression. As b-boy Machine suggests, some people know better than others how to channel their emotions in a productive way to help create a mutually inspiring vibe in the cypher. 6 If dancers cannot build on what is already there, they need not participate because they can weaken the circle. Thus there is a responsibility implicit in cyphering. Krazy Kujo describes it as a very tangible energy that he has to be ready for because he wants to help build on the cypher; and if he cannot contribute in a productive way, he would rather not enter at all. 7 The energy exchange is a palpable force that can help or hinder the quest to experience the “something more” of cyphers and to retain that energy beyond the performance experience. Kwikstep suggests he can hold onto feelings of elation for weeks after. 8 Again, this extra-phenomenal force is the defining feature of cyphering. This force is essential to cyphering. I turn to physics—the study of matter, energy, and force—to help me articulate its impact. Specifically, the “invisible” substance known as dark matter is a valuable metaphor for the force of the circle. Dark matter refers to the non- luminous matter that comprises the majority of the universe and holds galaxies together. It continues to be a mystery for physicists, as they have yet to discover how to see it directly rather than detecting it only by way of its influence on visible matter. Thus, despite the advance of contemporary scientific inquiry, we must recognize the influence of things that we cannot see. I use dark matter as a metaphor that encompasses the energy exchange in cyphers, the psychic elevation, and the invisible force that keeps the circle together. This force can develop in intensity or lessen in strength, depending on the circle. Though it is non-empirical, it is central to the experience of cyphering. Dark matter is an apt metaphor for the non-empirical materiality that holds cyphers together. 84 In the dark matter metaphor, “matter” gives substance to the unseen force of the “energy exchange,” and it allows us to speak of the invisible force in concrete terms. Its parallels to African diasporic practices help clarify the dimension of dark matter. Yet, as beneficial as this comparison is, many breakers still bristle at the notion of such a connection. Through an analysis of an online debate about these connections and my own attempt to reframe the debate, I explore how diasporas, like rhizomatic relations, lend themselves to thinking about relations across difference. Using Brent Hayes Edwards’ discussion of diaspora as strategic mobilization enabled by differences, I argue that the dark matter of cyphers can hold together transnational networks of breakers. These are rhizomatic relations that are deepened by the influence of multiple and overlapping diasporas. THE CASE FOR DARK MATTER I borrow the concept of dark matter from physics, the study of energy, force, motion, and matter. Matter in particular is a fitting comparison, 9 defined as having mass, taking up space, and being convertible to energy is considered matter. While breakers themselves are the visible matter of a cypher, its indescribable force acts as a kind of matter too. Though we cannot see it, it is often personified or spatialized, and frequently compared to energy. Dark matter resonates with cyphering in multiple ways. In its simplest definition, dark matter is the non-luminous matter comprising the majority of the material universe. It is thought to be five times more prominent than visible matter and over six times its density, which means that it has a greater role in the universe’s formation than visible matter because its abundance produces enough gravitational force to hold together entire galaxies and even connect distant galaxies. 10 Dark matter is not related to the more familiar concept of black 85 holes, where matter cannot escape. Rather dark matter is matter. Luminous matter interacts with it. Because we cannot see it, even with the most advanced telescopes, the proof of its existence is evident only by way of the influence of its gravitational field on matter we can see. To grasp my enthusiasm for dark matter we should first consider an object physicists call a dim galaxy. 11 Larger galaxies we can see are surrounded by smaller satellite galaxies some of which went unnoticed because they lack light. While galaxies like the Milky Way appear as shimmering array of densely packed stars, dim galaxies are barely visible except for a handful of oddly clustered stars. Dim satellite galaxies once appeared as small clusters of stars, presumed to eventually absorb into the goliath they bordered. And if the visible matter was all that comprised them, they would. But the “extra gravitational glue” maintained the cluster despite the pull of the Milky Way. 12 In their persistent existence, dim galaxies demonstrate that there is more there than meets the eye. 13 That is dark matter. Dark matter is the very presence of possibility in the universe. A number of studies on dark matter reveal physicists’ enthusiasm to discover more about this substance. For example, studies have yet to prove how dark matter functions, though they have ideas as to what it is. Some argue that there could be an entire sector of dark elements and even dark chemistry. 14 And there is also the possibility that dark matter, while difficult to detect, is nothing particularly special or mysterious at all, but simply “missing in the current models of particle physics.” 15 But there are other possibilities, including the notion that dark matter emits its own dark radiation—invisible energy waves that signal an electromagnetic force in addition to its gravitational one. 16 Articles call it dark matter’s “light,” using an oxymoronic play on words to signal the possibilities of this enigmatic force. Dark matter is all about 86 what matter could be. As a metaphor, it implies a necessary faith in the unseen as an equally (if not more) powerful force than what is visible. Few works address the unique quality of cyphers beyond their circle structure and battle context. 17 For breakers, cyphering is more than just a battle. It is about the force of cyphers, which in turn often become about connection. B-boy Zero out of Philadelphia states, “A cypher could be a hundred people. A cypher could just be two people. It’s just that spark, that electricity, know what I mean, when two b-boys…know what they came there to do. That’s what they gotta do.” B-boy Aby describes it as, “a meeting of souls, getting together as one, and taking over.” These two definitions share something fundamental. Zero’s inexactness draws attention to the notion of recognition, enacting an understanding between otherwise separate individuals. Moreover, the recognition Zero describes is palpable (“that spark”), filling the space among a hundred people or between just two. Aby, on the other hand, invokes a spiritual relationship marrying individuals in their collective endeavor to dictate the terms of their conditions. What this tells us is that the force of the cypher enables a strong sense of invisible connection. Dancers I have interviewed talk about the force of cyphers in multiple ways, including comparisons to drug highs, kinetic energy, and religious fellowship. My interest is not to argue against or for any one way of depicting this force. Rather, I offer a frame that attempts to capture the various dimensions of their comparisons. In many ways, what these metaphors of cypher energy have in common is their depiction of a presence that functions in the circle and in the dancer’s memories. This force comes to be the cypher’s defining characteristic, as important as the music, the floor, the spectators, and the dancers. 87 Whatever that invisible force is, it matters. It is formative to the process of cyphering hence my interest in matter. Though there are a number of metaphors for a cypher’s force, religious fellowship and drug-like euphoria are common comparisons. These metaphors are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One can think of the high as itself spiritual. But references to feeling intoxicated in cyphers easily overlap with drug references as well. For example, Aby implies a correlation between b-boying and drugs when he states that, “For me, breakdancing, rocking, was an escape, as well as the drugs. But rocking took it to another level. With drugs I would get high, a couple hours later I’d go right back to my pain and misery…. You know? But breaking, rocking was always there. All we had to do is get somebody with a record player, throw in a [record], you got, you know we got the escape. And then we was on top of the world.” 18 Rocking and drug taking are in the same family of escapism. But in contrast, Aby implies that the high from b-boying lasted longer, was more readily available, and even cost-effective. The drug analogy often works because it captures a need to escape momentarily from daily struggles. A temporary diversion and the act of releasing pent up energies or frustrations often go hand-in-hand. Float, of the Incredible Breakers also talks about escape and release in the b-boying circles he enjoyed growing up: It was definitely a way of letting out your aggressions or of like venting out what you were feeling in other areas of your life. ‘Cause we, as poor people living in poor neighborhoods, we didn’t really have the finances to go out and have fun. Some people did; some people didn’t. I didn’t personally. So that was the way of having fun…. It was my way of just escaping…. [I]t’s like, some people did drugs to escape life. This was a positive of way of escaping, but into something that is good and positive ‘cause it was a dance…. Where we were pent up energy just being in the neighborhood doing nothing. Guys would normally end up killing each other or getting into bad things. This was a way of, you know, evolving into something more positive, you know. Getting into something that was actually, down the line, was beneficial…. It was like guys that don’t have much are able to build on 88 something… and make something that was great. Not just regular. It was something that was great, that was a great feeling that is hard to capture anywhere else. In Float’s narrative, escapism has two forms: positive (b-boying) and negative (drugs). Positivity and negativity parallel in their capacity to release someone from the moment and carry him or her to another feeling or place. To escape or to release oneself through b- boying is to free one’s mind from whatever is holding it captive, whether it is poverty or one’s own frustrations. Float was able to get around his family’s financial limitations. At the same time, his concern is not entirely financial. Notions of release or escape reveal something otherwise unseen or repressed. As he states it, “we were pent up energy.” He speaks of himself and his friends like powder kegs ready to blow. Cyphers allowed him to be productive rather than volatile for his own benefit. His emphasis on cyphering as a positive escapism contrasts with other forms, which the reference to drugs generally encompasses. He attaches b-boying’s positivity to its “evolution” into something “great.” He repeats this refrain, suggesting that b-boying became something greater than its value as a form of release. Float refers to his own euphoria from cyphering as being “in the zone,” which is perhaps the destination of his escape. He clarifies that, “The zone is the mood, the spirit, the spirit you’re in at the moment. You’re feeling the music. You have energy. You feel alive. And just, your body’s gonna take you over. Then all of sudden, you’re just, you’re somewhere else. You forget everybody around you. You’re just, you’re out there. You’re out for lunch! You’re gone.” His description draws together a sense of living fully outside of the particular time and place of the cypher. The zone is an inexact destination “out there…somewhere else.” Freedom is a mental destination through physical means. 89 Silky Jones, a former b-boy from Staten Island, spoke enthusiastically about the high of cyphering when he was in high school in the early 1980s. In contrast to Aby and Float, he compares it to a runner’s high, though his description still resonates with their versions. Silky points out the conditions that fostered his elation, the means of achieving it, and his process of reaching that level: You know how it is when you’ve got a whole bunch of people that’d be like, “Yo!, get ‘em Silk!” You know normally you might be like, you might be a little bit…it’s all that nervous energy and all that shit’s coming out and you got all the people behind you getting you geeked up. And the next thing you know you did some incredible shit that if you tried you can never repeat. And this is the best shit you’re dancing—when you’re doing your shit and you don’t know what you’re doing! And all you’re hearing is, “OOOHHHHH!!!! Oooohhh!” …Then the song’ll be over and the scene’ll fade and shit. And like, the circle’ll be over and you walk with your peoples and they're giving each other pounds. And they be like, “That’s nice Silk!” And you’ll be like, “Yeah.” And you can’t even look at ‘em. Just be sweatin’, all geeked up. Your boy gives you a pound. You can’t even look people directly in the eyes but you got the runner’s high. Like the pupils are like…this big! …Yeah man, it was like very—like a high. That was the high. Like, the rest of the night, you start to downshift. You’d be calming down but that was, that was the get high…. [E]very week at a particular place, you’re guaranteed to get high. That was my get high…. And sometimes, that’s what you lived for. I work all week…and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—fuck it all! And anybody could get it. Anybody…. There’s nothing like the feeling when—we’re talking culturally—everybody you knew, everybody you bumped into had that, that beast that was right at the tip of they tongue or right behind their eye waiting to come out. With Silk, the “get high,” even as a runner’s high, has the addictive quality of a narcotic: it fulfilled an almost desperate need. He could satisfy the need frequently—every weekend at a given club—and it was wildly accessible, as he emphasizes that “anybody” could get it. In telling his story of a cypher, Silk performed the high he once felt while dancing. The pace of his narrative jumps along with the urgency of the actual moment he recounts, paralleling how quickly he went from nervous to “geeked up” to the high that followed and lingered even after he left the cyphers and later the club. In his enthusiasm, he curses, repeats 90 himself, and stumbles over his words in a rush to express the thrill of an unprecedented and unrepeatable level of skill while simultaneously being validated by his crew. Though he describes a personal high, it was clearly shared by the crowd whose energy was equally elevated, and by his crew who pumped him up for the challenge. Everyone participated in one way or another, attesting to their capacity to experience it and to release the “beast” within. The “beast” represents a raw lust for uninhibited play in the cypher. In so doing, Silky would “get high” or achieve the “get high.” His use of this phrase suggests that it is both immediately accessible yet require a certain kind of work to reach. In this case, it is not a destination but a realization of something internal, as well as a feeling that is profoundly amplified by the environment. Between Float and Silky and through ideas of escapism and release, we can begin to see the multi-dimensionality of the force of cyphers. Others refer to this force through religious or spiritual comparisons rather than in terms of a high. In an interview, PoeOne describes a feeling of profound connection in the circle by beginning with an analogy between cyphering and church. Both are depicted as sites where their fellowship unites them through a performance that fills the community as a whole with joy. The connection that PoeOne describes wavers between a state of being and a shift in perception, awakening him to new relationships. This comparison allows him to articulate a connection that is unique to cyphers: You can even say that being in a church and praying is a cypher… You know how in church sometimes, you just…everyone’s singing a certain joyous song and you just…feel so happy inside. Or so united. So in sync. And you feel very powerful. There’s a word for it. It’s…in tune. Like in tune. When that moment comes in a cypher it’s like that. You can even look across the cypher—like, say like, I’m looking at you now, right. That could be your side of the cypher, this is my side. There’s a whole circle and everybody’s channeling, we’re channeling this energy. And we don’t even know each other, right. Let’s say we don’t know each other and you just walked to the cypher and you want to dance too. And I’m looking toward 91 the floor of the person who’s dancing and I’m feeling this beat. And a certain beat comes on, a new one and I just raise my hand like, “Whoah!,” like “This is, this is my jam!” But then it’s your jam too! And I see you raise your hand too! We’ll look at each other and we just nod our heads like… And our eyes just give this certain connection. And the next thing you know, we know each other now. We know each other…that moment of connection. We just met each other there. And it’s like that song united us. That energy united us. Then all of a sudden you throw down and I throw down. Then it’s like afterward we’re talking and the next thing you know we go eat. It’s a connection with everybody, it’s that connection. It’s like…it’s, it’s…it’s real. It’s that one moment of being real. No mask on. You’re finally out there. 19 PoeOne’s compelling description captures a spiritual component to cyphering that is often overlooked. It is not spiritual simply because he compares it to church. Rather, it invokes the spirit through the immaterial aspects of the dance—connections through music, in the eyes, being in sync, etc. That he ends with it being “real” may appear trite, given Hip Hop’s ubiquitous use of the term, but his characterization of cyphering as “real” is quite fitting. The term has two meanings here. First, it is an expression of acting without façade or pretense. Cyphering enables a kind of self-exposure, not in the sense of lacking protection but rather being devoid of his daily armor at “that one moment.” Thus there is something essential and fulfilling in cyphering that allows him to exist and to thrive. In the second sense, real refers to the genuine existence of a connection to the participants in the circle. Whether in church or on the dance floor, the act of fellowship creates something shared amongst the group, cultivating a tangible relationship to each other. For PoeOne the connection manifests by breaking together (“throwing down”), then talking, and eating—the latter of which comes after cyphering. Certainly one can intellectually recognize a sense of commonality in the mutual identification as breakers. They are connected through the culture but “united” in the act of dancing. Naming that connection “real” gestures toward grounding their bond in reality. Regardless of how long this awareness lasts, it can certainly 92 recur. As among religious faithfuls, a belief in the unseen matters in a way that is fundamental to that identification but may otherwise be lost on those without it. Ultimately, the comparison to church is useful for him both because it is a broadly accessible example for non-breakers to understand and because it establishes a degree of significance to the connection that continues to exist beyond the momentary euphoria of dancing . As in the correlation between cypher energy and religious fellowship, PoeOne uses another biblical comparison to describe the energy’s more flawed manifestations. In a continuation of his discussion of a cypher’s force, he attests to battling the negativity of life and his personal struggles in order to attain the ideal he describes above. During the course of his explanation, he depicts the negative energy as a demon, thereby giving form and motive to the force of the cypher. He re-contextualizes a b-boying battle into the act of battling personal demons, articulating a purposefulness to cyphering. I think stress, like arguing with people, trying to make ends meet, bills, maturity, injuries, work, a regular job working 9 to 5…. You know, life! That kind of [thing] holds me back. But [it] also drives me. Because when I do get the opportunity to go to a club and form that circle, that’s when I let all that that held me back out. I let it out. Sometimes it comes to memory. Sometimes the abuse of my father comes into my picture. Sometimes when there’s a circle and everybody’s afraid to go out, that’s a demon right there to me. For me that’s, that’s a negative energy trying to break a chance of positive people channeling together, trying to hold them back. And for me that’s like, it’s time to fight. Let’s do it, let’s do it now. Let’s fight it…. And it gets me, at the same time like a warrior, like BAH! …When I do, I feel I conquer something.… When there’s a positive energy and not a negative energy, that means we booted it out! It’s like the negative energy went away and went into the other little corner over there and everybody now is channeling that most happiest moment. And that’s like…that’s being free. 20 It is not simply that the negative energy has a form (demon); it has a will. The demon “tries to break a chance for positive people channeling together,” which parallels his own purpose to banish his demons. And as each individual engages in the same struggle, their efforts are 93 collectively pitted against that negative force (their own demons). His characterization turns the cypher into a different kind of battle, this time in a confrontation between his spirit and the social conditions of everyday life. If PoeOne is a warrior, the circle as a whole comprises an army that conquers its demons. For them to “boot it out” is to become a part of a dramatic and grand performance—something bigger than Hip Hop—rather than merely subject to that force. According to PoeOne, “being free” is an offshoot of this struggle. The will toward freedom enabled by cyphering de-privileges mundane concerns in favor of the dance. There is a confrontation between the concerns of life—things seemingly beyond his control—and the opportunity to let them go. In one sense, by valuing the unique quality of cyphering over his daily problems, he accesses a realm outside of the everyday. On the other hand, everything the circle can be is bound to mundane concerns, namely through his willingness and ability to release these stresses to uplift rather than weigh down his spirit. This is an important aspect of his definition of freedom. He states that freedom is “no damn worries of nothing in your life whatsoever,” which for him includes “not worrying about where you gonna get your next meal from,…not your bills or not how you gonna get home, not when you gonna get your gas money,…not worrying about: you gotta wake up in the morning early…. It’s just you, the floor, and the music... It’s NOW.” 21 Beyond a long list of worries that accompany thoughts of the past or the future, cyphering is about a true sense of living. Again, we return to ideas of an alternative consciousness as a distinct place. But for PoeOne, it is also a righteous act; not just positive but godly. And it yields a kind of self- possession that accompanies a broader connection to others in the circle. 94 Triple7 continues this theme of positive and negative energy in his characterization of Hip Hop itself. Triple7, who is both a b-boy and an MC, began talking about the influence that b-boying had on the breakbeats he chose for his music. Dance and rap converged in his analysis of this force in Hip Hop in general. In contrast to PoeOne, rather than externalizing energy into a separate entity, Triple7 privileges a practitioner’s capacity to embody that energy for positive or negative ends: [T]o me Hip Hop, if you want to get deep with it man, it’s nothin’ but an energy, man. You know what I mean? It’s an energy. And in reality to me, it’s more to me like the energy of a Christ. I’m not—I don’t want to get all religious but to me, Hip Hop is the Christ. Cuz, if there was no Hip Hop, then what would kids be doing? What would all the kids in the streets be doing if there was no Hip Hop? So, that’s why, if the Christ is—the Christ is something that…uplift[s] your spirit…. Hip Hop uplifts your spirit, [and] it could also suppress your sprit. So that means it’s antichrist when it’s doing that…[when] those who’s taking Hip Hop and doing the wrong with it. And I’m not even talking about spittin’ shit that’s wrong. I’m talking about just trying to take it and leech off of it and make money off of it and exploit it on some Malibu thug shit. 22 In naming Hip Hop “the energy of a Christ,” Triple7 suggests that it shares something essential with a Christ figure—a title given to God’s anointed leader. 23 Triple7 posits that Hip Hop is an avenue through which people can become Christ-like or antichrists (false idols). The question itself, “What would all the kids in the streets be doing if there was no Hip Hop?,” guides the comparison. His concerns are class-based. Hip Hop provides salvation for kids from the streets through opportunities for self-expression and commitment. Thus, it can cultivate an uplifting energy, like Christ, through the work that people do in its name. Though he suggestively employs familiar critiques of commercialization, materialism, and cultural betrayal, rarely do we hear them couched in these biblical terms. The comparison is more telling than the critique, for it is not about authenticity but about the capacity to help or hurt oneself and others through Hip Hop. As 95 such, the suppression of the spirit matters as well. We see this in Triple7’s oxymoronic avatar of a Hip Hop antichrist: “Malibu thugs.” This false idol performs the popular persona for the sake of sales and not from genuine experience or for a greater social good. The fake gangster criticism is present in both b-boying and rap, but the image is useful largely because of its familiar association with Hip Hop and the ease of a shorthand critique. Triple7 activates it to deliver his main point: that Hip Hop is profound in both positive and negative ways. It is as much a vehicle for people to embody Christ energy themselves as to embody its antithesis as antichrists. The energy is a person, any person who wants to use it. Cyphers are most frequently characterized by the force that fills the space. The various discussion of this force, in combination, suggest that it exists within the circle as much as it acts on those present. While not all breakers would characterize cyphering through religious language or through an analogy of getting high for a euphoric escapism, the repetition of these comparisons is telling. The gravity of that force, its degree of potency and meaning for some evokes religious comparison to articulate fully the magnitude of its role in cyphering practices. For others, the drug reference amplifies the degree to which one’s mind is altered in the experience and how satisfying it feels. While that force can be difficult to name or describe—just as it can be difficult to work with and through—it matters and is very real to those exposed to cyphers. I am not invested in replacing these other metaphors. Rather, I am interested in contextualizing them through dark matter to respectfully acknowledge the degree to which this invisible force demonstrates a presence of something invisible but formative in cyphers. The dark matter of cyphers is the force that we cannot see but experience as reality. The metaphor reminds us that the non-empirical also possesses a substantive and material 96 existence. Dark matter is visible by way of its impact on the bodies in the cypher. The sense of connection, euphoria, and even liberation are indicators of dark matter’s influence. It acts on us, pushing us to feel or behave in distinct ways. I cannot really say how it came to be, but simply that it exists in the realm of experiential knowledge, amplified in the act of cyphering among the group of people whose mutual convergence signals the presence of something more, something that was perhaps always there unrealized. Dark matter is the presence of the possibility to liberate oneself and create lasting connections to others. Though my scale of analysis has focused on circles at various events, dark matter lends itself to considering the force that excites b-boying practices worldwide. Just as cyphering materializes this unseen force, the practice excites the social circle of boying, giving substance to shared cultural identifications across differences in language, race, and national or ethnic origin. Cyphers can contain an array of people contributing aspects of themselves to make it grow. And consistent among them are their shared identifications as b-girls and b-boys. Insofar as any cypher can represent some variation of a global b-boying community, it acts as a microcosm of Hip Hop culture in general. This metaphor of dark matter can contract to the specificity of a circle or expand to the scale of Hip Hop culture, representing the force that sustains a broader cultural identity. Shared cultural practices like cyphering only foster an already existent global identification. As a result, cyphering both represents and helps to perpetuate the b-boying community. Regardless of one’s country of origin or residence, cyphers teach breakers to move freely to the music rather than to just do moves. 24 Cyphers are the site of “real” Hip Hop that they can all share. There are circles in other areas of Hip Hop that structure battles and collaborations. Cyphers among MCs are the most well known but graffiti writers, house dancers, poppers, 97 and lockers all have their versions too, though they do not all name them cyphers. It is a practice that connects Hip Hop across genres of artistic performance and across Hip Hop communities. In the introduction “Enter Tha Global Cipha,” authors James Spady, H. Samy Alim, and Samir Meghelli use cyphers as metaphors for transnational Hip Hop culture. They refer to them as symbols of the “global-cultural-linguistic-musical flow” of Hip Hop music around the world that produces multiple Hip Hop cultures rather than a single manifestation. 25 They go on to explain that the various cultural flows connecting different regions or musical genres of Hip Hop also illuminate the “bridges of sound” that signifies the existence of “Afrodiasporic connections.” 26 They borrow the term “bridges of sound” from Kamau Brathwaite’s poem “Jah,” where he parallels the slavers’ ships that transported Africans to the New World during the trans-Atlantic trade with the musical bridges of records and radio waves that continue to connect the ancestors of this trade to each other. “Enter Tha Global Cipha” posits that these bridges of cultural production (or cultural flows) demonstrate both the influence of diaspora on Hip Hop and the processes of globalization made possible by “direct encounters and media circulation.” 27 They link diaspora directly to the proliferation of Hip Hop culture globally. Not only do I share their interest in cyphers as symbols for the global-linguistic-musical-movement-cultures of Hip Hop, but I share their interest in the influence of the African diaspora within Hip Hop. Specifically, my examination of cyphers has diasporic undertones that can inform my read of dark matter. This approach can also alert us to the benefits of looking at (other) diasporic influences to better understand Hip Hop. 98 DIASPORA AND DARK MATTER Dance circles are present in many cultures but are especially ubiquitous in African diasporic communities. As dance scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild describes it, circles reign in the constellation of Africanist elements. 28 She uses the term Africanist to signify African and Afro-American 29 resonances, presences, and tendencies that linger or persist but whose cultural significance is often overlooked. Gottschild argues that these prior practices are always already active in new and syncretic forms. 30 Under this frame, acknowledging the parallels between cyphering and other circle practices in the African diaspora does not mean appealing to arguments of origins, retentions, or survivals, which can falsely suggest unidirectional, uninterrupted, or direct lines of influence. Feelings of euphoria, psychic transport and ideas of channeling some external force are recounted in other practices as well. It allows us to acknowledge that, though dark matter is a new metaphor, it is not a new concept. Thus, in the metaphor of dark matter, darkness can also pertain to the unnoticed dimensions of Africanist practices, reminding us to consider connections between the breaking world and the African diaspora. Serious and lengthy debates have arisen among breakers questioning the culture’s ties to Africa. In a December 2006 discussion thread on a popular Hip Hop dance website, locker Ill Kosby stated emphatically that Hip Hop dances in all forms are rooted in Africanist practices. Responses in support and against this claim raged on for several weeks, spilling over to other websites. 31 Folks contributed their opinions, links to other sources, and pictures to support their claims. It came down to two arguments: 1. Hip Hop dance is rooted in Africa; 2. Hip Hop dance is American and Africa has little to do with what people in the Bronx were doing in the 1970s. The faulty binary—Africanity versus Americana— 99 signals the layers of discourse attached to these terms. African-ness becomes exclusionary, likely a consequence of an argument articulated as African “roots”. American-ness, on the other hand, is somehow devoid of particular ethno-racial qualities as if the African diaspora (or any other diaspora) has no discernable influence on American cultural production. Both arguments are flawed, though they interject important points for understanding b-boying. Yet one needn’t pick a side. As stated earlier, this is about parallels not origins or roots and my interest in the comparison is to better understand dark matter. Cyphers demonstrate a relation to circle practices in the African diaspora. I will focus my analysis on the invisible force of connection or liberation in capoeira, ring shouts, and bomba that is evident in the literature. This approach will illuminate similarities between circles though not necessarily amongst all of them, meaning that cyphers may share qualities with capoeira rodas that they do not share with bomba circles. But there are features among the three that justify the comparison. My interest in comparing different circles extends beyond outward similarities. For example, the often cited likenesses between b-boying and capoeira seem obvious in that both perform combative moves to music, mixing inverted positions and acrobatics though clearly they are not the same. B-boying did not come from capoeira nor did it simply repackage Brazilian martial arts under a new name. 32 At the same time, b-boying is a dance that has always evolved by borrowing from other movement practices. So it is not far-fetched to suggest an influence. To begin, as breakers talk of cyphers transporting them to a different place, capoeira circles are articulated as worlds unto themselves. Though today capoeira is a symbol of Brazilian national culture, at its birth it was an urban centered practice amongst enslaved 100 Bantu-speaking peoples (of present day Angola) who were transported in large numbers to the country’s major cities: São Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. 33 The circle or roda (Portuguese for “wheel”) is formed by spectators, practitioners, musicians, and singers. Two martial artists “play” in the center to the melancholic and hypnotic twang of the berimbau, which replaced the drums as the primary instrument some time in the early 19 th century. 34 In Ring of Liberation, J. Lowell Lewis describes rodas as rings that set aside “special or ‘sacred’ space,” an aspect of all games where the rules of play distinguish the world inside of a circle from that of the outside. 35 Within this space, themes of harmony and freedom surface as well. The ring is a designated place where the physical demands of the moment intermingle with a spiritual or harmonious understanding of community and play: In the songs of capoeira, reference is frequently made to fellow players as camará (…‘comrade’…) or …mano (…‘brother’). These terms refer not just to one’s own close companions in the sport, but ideally should extend outward to include all capoeira players. There is a definite ethos of equality for all within the ring, similar in spirit to what Turner has called “ideological communitas,” since it should ideally transcend all social boundaries of class, color age, and the like. This ideology springs from, and is reinforced by, “spontaneous” experiences of harmony and kinship with others in the course of play…. The fact that players usually express regret over such incidents [between rivals], however, and see them as departures from the correct standard, reinforces the view that comradeship is seen as an overarching principle, a kind of communitas, even when honored by the breach…. The players themselves see in the acrobatics a form of physical liberation, a freedom of motion which gives them a sense of flight, of transcendence the acrobatic demands of the sport are a constant testing of the physical limits of the body, and they seem to create correspondingly liberating mental sensations as well. 36 Lowell suggests that relationships encapsulated in the reiteration of terms like comrade or brother, demonstrate a social principle of solidarity, even in the face of rivalries. But outside of the expectations of comradeship are the “’spontaneous’ experiences of harmony and kinship with others in the course of play” that reinforces the ideology of equality and 101 solidarity in Turner’s concept of “ideological communitas.” The principle of comradeship and feelings of harmony and kinship are mutually reinforcing, suggesting that the spontaneous and unpredictable happenings in rodas are influential enough to shape cultural codes, music, and behavior. Lowell’s focus on the visible material environment permits him to only briefly mention the heightened sensory dimension that is in accordance with their physical exertion. Thus challenges to the body’s physical limits correspond to “liberating mental sensations.” Freedom, harmony, kinship, and other general sensations intermingle in such a way as to suggest that there are dimensions to capoeira that we cannot see. Lowell goes on to write that, “Some have also suggested that going upside down is connected to African evocations of the spirit world, which is pictured as a total inversion of the everyday world in several cultural traditions.” 37 In his article “Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga,” historian Thomas Desch-Obi takes up this connection. He argues that Angola style capoeira 38 is a variation of the ngolo combat system of Central Africa, in which practitioners mainly balance on their hands or heads and pairs of combatants confront each other to music in a ritual circle. He goes on to argue that understanding a relationship between capoeira and ngolo allows us to consider the impact of Central African cosmology on contemporary capoeira practices. Descho-Obi defers to the Kongolese cosmogram, called the yowa cross [Fig. 3.1] to illustrate the relationship of the ngolo ritual circle (elola) and the roda to this cosmology. 39 The cosmogram, comprised of a cross superimposed on a circle or oval, represents the path of the soul from a physical birth and death to its subsequent re- birth as an ancestor in the sprit world, where they possess the power to affect the living. 40 The horizontal line of the cross, called the kalunga line, demarcates the physical world (above the line) from the spiritual world (below). Within this cosmology, the spirit 102 realm is inverted and thus, “The techniques of the combative system itself reflected the kalunga paradigm, with fighters predominantly using their feet to fight, often supporting their weight on their hands and kicking while upside down. In this way they ritually mirrored the Fig. 3.1 Yowa Cross The Kalunga Line Source: Robert Farris Thompson’s Flash of the Spirit. ancestors, as the other world across the kalunga was believed to be an inverted one.” 41 It is not just going upside down that evokes the spirit world as Lowell suggests. Actually entering the ritual circle activates the cosmogram, thereby allowing practitioners “to mediate power between the spiritual world of the ancestors and the world of the living.” 42 Desch-Obi ultimately demonstrates that there is a profound spiritual conception of the world underlying the physical plane of capoeira. His argument contextualizes Barbara Browning’s observations about the relationship between capoeira and candomblé: “[M]any capoeiristas feel a profound link to the orixá principles, and particularly to the idea of ancestor spirits.” 43 Feelings of harmony, kinship, ancestral forces, and freedom from the body’s limitations are dimensions of the experience, even if they are unpredictable. Though the yowa cross is an organized representation of the invisible world of the roda, these descriptions echo with those of cyphers. Specifically, I find parallels in the relationship between one’s acrobatic 103 dexterity and feeling enlivened or free and in the descriptions of spontaneous experiences of harmony and connection. In African American history, the most documented circle ritual is the ring shout—a shuffled dance in a counter-clockwise direction geared towards spiritual worship and religious conversion. Ring shouts were first witnessed among enslaved Africans in the 17th century after which they became an important practice among African Americans on into the 20 th century. Historian Sterling Stuckey argues that they too were derived from Kongolese traditions that performed rituals of continuity between a physical life and spiritual existence after death. 44 Historian Michael Gomez notes that amongst enslaved West and West Central Africans who lived in concentrated numbers throughout the South, “ring ceremonies were very much used to invoke the presence of both ancestors and deities and served as media by which human beings entered into a shared experience with them.” 45 In accordance with this perspective, ring shouts were adopted for acts of religious communion and conversion. 46 Historian Albert Raboteau argues that at their height, shouts were “the essence of religion” and essential to conversion. 47 As one shout participant proclaimed, “At campmeeting there must be a ring here, a ring there, and a ring over yonder, or sinners will not get converted.” 48 Stuckey and Gomez argue that ring shouts were instrumental in separate African ethnicities adopting identifications as African Americans or as blacks. While the archive does not focus on how ring shout participants felt in the experience, the sheer popularity of shouts suggests that they too activated a spiritual connection. Bomba, a music and dance native to Puerto Rico and credited to the country’s African ancestry dates back to the 17 th century. 49 Alma Concepción and Héctor Vega- Drouet note that bomba has a number of common traits with African diasporic dances in 104 the Americas, including its circle structure, an emphasis on the drum, sung call and response, multiple overlapping rhythms, and improvisation. 50 One of the culture’s defining features is a rhythmic performance conducted by a dancer whose movement directs the lead drummer’s playing. Dancers, in all of their expertise and skill, challenge the drummer—a play of rhythm upon rhythm as dictated by the body. 51 The relationship between dancer and drummer helps to foster what Halbert Barton calls a “palpable excitement,” a thrill so tangible it is a potent force. 52 Historian Lydia Milagros González adds that “the dancer mounts his dance until his entire body is shaking, very much in the way dancers tremble when possessed by a sprit in ritual ceremonies. Nobody interrupts the dancer; his or her time is respected and each person is allowed a space for freedom.” 53 Freedom can refer to a lack of constraint on time and space for the dancer or it can literally suggest a space to experience one’s freedom both physically in the dance or psychologically as well. Possession is not merely an act or a state of mind but an engagement with another entity altogether Alex LaSalle, bomba percussionist and Director of the Afro-Puerto Rican bomba troupe Alma Moyo, also mentions “an almost trance-like state converting him or her into a conductor of the spirit and energy.” 54 He connects bomba to Ki-Kongo terms and practices. For example, the word “bomba” is a Ki-Kongo word for “the action of spiritually cooling down a community or a member of a community.” 55 LaSalle goes on to suggest that the rhythms foster a ritual of spiritual cooling down, at times to remember the struggles one’s ancestors survived through the traditions they left us or to create balance between oneself and the ancestors. 56 Both are acts of spiritual cleansing and social healing to fortify the community against its own struggles. The comparison to possession reminds us of an otherworldly dimension. Possession is not entirely different from Float’s descriptions of 105 being “gone” or “out to lunch” when he is “in the zone” while cyphering. They do not share the same language but they share an idea of psychological departure. Moreover, as LaSalle writes about balance, I can see a parallel in descriptions of b-boying as a release. That is, as Float mentions, they were pent up energy ready to explode. Cyphering offered a means of balancing that tension and releasing that energy. LaSalle depicts that release as healing for the community or individuals preparing for struggles. Though the more recent of all of these cultural practices, b-boying possesses a quality that is perhaps much older. In combination, these practices demonstrate some sort of physical engagement in the circle to compel a feeling, mood, spiritual or ancestral connection altered consciousness, or transport to some alternative psychological plane. Each circle practice mediates its own relationship to a forceful presence. In b-boying, the explanation of this force is as varied as the individuals who experience it. Through dark matter I hope to capture the essence of these different narratives. At the same time, cyphering’s African diasporic thread can illuminate the possibilities of dark matter. Typically, b-boying is represented as a dance-sport, getting more attention for its acrobatics or power moves than anything else. What we discover in comparison is that the circle is understood to necessarily possess the possibility of an extra-phenomenal dimension. Whether that phenomenon is ancestral or spiritual or simply freeing in its expression, it acts on the space and through physical exertion. If we think about this old force through its more organized expression in the yowa cross, that dimension then is a realm that mirrors our own. That is, this world is already there and circle practices merely act as a means of opening the lines of communication. This is a powerful addition to thinking through the sense of freedom or profound connection expressed in cyphering because it suggests that these 106 connections are already there and that the revelatory experiences of freedom are ever- present and available. Dark matter isn’t the galaxy but the galaxy is held together by dark matter. It is the force that we cannot see that acts on the whole and actually makes the whole possible. Similarly, dark matter is not the cypher. But the cypher is the plane upon which the force of that mediation between the physical reality in the circle and our more connected or liberated selves takes place. Dark matter is the material but non-empirical, invisible presence of possibility, coming-to-being of potentiality into actuality by way of cyphering. And though we cannot see it, its presence is indicated by the certainty or acceptance of the unlikely or the impossible—the non-empirical realm as present and impactful. It is not the act of possession or the thing doing the mounting but the acceptance that such an act is possible. It is not the fact of physical exertion or the “mental sensations” they can conjure but the revelation of one’s liberation (however fleeting), and the tangibility of that revelation as irreducible to neurological glitches and imaginary excursions. It isn’t the claim to ancestry or the act of fellowship but the certainty that the resulting relationships are real and not just figments of the imagination. Without the veil of our daily worries and responsibilities, we are open to something more. B-boying leaves open-ended what that more or the force might be. Aby, for example, experiences the circle in a very particular way. With earnest admission, he told me of his experience of “being in the zone” on the day of our interview in 2007: I go in a zone, and I place myself in that cypher. And I remember, and instead of picturing all these different faces, I picture all my people. All my people. Like damn, I see Jimmy Lee. I see Jimmy D. I see L-Mac, I see Baz, you know. I see us when we was young, doing that. You know. And that’s what I see. And sometimes man, I get choked up. But that’s what, you know, for me. And with the music! Man… I got music that, you know I 107 sometimes, I put music on man and…it brings you back. ‘Cause, you know, you go through so much pain. And to figure out that you made it and you livin’ to see some seventh generation doing this!? And you know it brings you back. You know. It brings you back…. It’s real man... 57 As he told me this, he began to tear up, emotional because of the physical absence of old friends from the moment, but smiling from having just danced with them. The memory does not stay in the past but lives with him in the present, displaying the time that has passed from the days when he danced with them as a young boy. The music fuels the connection because much of what he heard in the 1970s continues to be played at b-boying events. The repetition of it “brings you back,” and the finality of “it’s real” in combination attest to something more than memory. Cyphering generated its own kind of transport to the past while in the present that he experienced truthfully. Seeing Jimmy Lee, Jimmy D., L-Mac, and Baz in the cypher re-visits and maybe even maintains a relationship with them and their collective b-boying legacy, even after some of them have died or simply left his life. My hope with dark matter is to capture the sincerity of such experiences in cyphers and to testify to their tangibility and importance to acts of cyphering. DIASPORA AND POWER The variety of descriptions of cypher experiences parallels other circle practices in the African diaspora in important ways. Those parallels extend beyond the structure of the circle to include the noticeable yet invisible qualities of connection and liberation. I use dark matter as an umbrella for the various depictions of an ephemeral, non-empirical yet still material force that manifests in the circle through the dancers. When viewed through a diasporic lens we can better understand why the force of cyphering’s dark matter matters. Circles structure practices that channel psychic and spiritual transport. The parallels evident in the comparisons are not coincidental but demonstrate diaspora in action. Diasporic 108 dimensions to cyphering are essential to understanding the work of dark matter and thus an aspect of cyphering’s value amongst breakers. If we can learn more about cyphering from its relationship to the African diaspora, why are some dancers concerned about the comparison? To return to the online debate that sparked much consternation, the critiques against the Africanist dimensions to b-boying were varied but could be summed up in two related arguments. The first argument, as mentioned earlier, relates to a perceived tension between Africanity and Americana. Even in cases when one might concede a connection, diaspora detractors deny Africana influences on b-boying because the notion of African roots seems like an attempt to displace b-boying’s documented American roots. As some put it, looking to Africa takes Africa (or boying) out of history. Most frequently, this stance equates chronological and spatial proximity with cultural influence, meaning that the most worthwhile influences to acknowledge happen directly within an environment or a period of overlapping time. The more direct the relationship to b-boying, the more legitimate the claim to influence. Some demanded PROOF! They wanted to know who took African dance classes?, when did they take them?, and where were these classes made available in the 1970s? Without clear and exact examples explaining the actions of young people in the Bronx, then any arguments favoring African diasporic influences were deemed meritless. There were even arguments that all of humanity “comes from Africa,” and thus everything is African on some level but not in a discernible way. History, in these cases, is a linear progression away from the origin. Anything that seemed to undermine this formulation was inconceivable. A component of the argument for b-boying’s American-ness looks to the culture’s multi-cultural and international make-up. For example, boying’s first practitioners were 109 Puerto Ricans, West Indians, and African Americans not Ghanaians, Nigerians, or Angolans. And since they were not continental Africans but Americans, so is b-boying. Besides, they argued, even if people took African dance or someone was from the continent, today b- boying is a worldwide phenomenon not at all creditable or exclusive to any one cultural influence. Much like the one-drop rule of racial blackness, their approach suggests that any Africanity is an overpowering force that negates the influences of any other cultures. And since b-boying is global, this influence must not be true. Thus, whether one acknowledged a connection, naysayers could not find a logical way to explain its presence in b-boying, and thus they denied one altogether. The second argument against Africanity was a conclusion based on the above critiques. Some decided that such claims are irrelevant, illogical, or intellectually lazy. People claimed that of course if you looked for Africa in b-boying you could find it, but that didn’t mean the influence was really there. This was a more conspiratorial position, equating claims to African influences as an unspecified agenda. Others suggested that the notion of “roots” freezes Africa in time, and if the argument is flawed then an influence is unlikely. One critique pointed out that it was thoughtless to assume an unconscious creative capacity within people of African descent. Blackness alone cannot explain b-boying (though no one in favor of diaspora made such over-simplified claims). This last point in particular began as a critique of the cultural dimensions of diaspora to and race. Nonetheless, these last two critiques are certainly valid and were likely fueled by an argument founded on retentions. Apparently some understood retentions as conscious acts of holding onto culture like sorting clothes for spring cleaning: “I’ll keep this. I’ll get rid of that.” But this interpretation is narrow. Such arguments demonstrate little understanding about the nature 110 of the relationship between Africanist embodied practices and b-boying. There is no room for interpreting movement as more informed by Africanist standards than Europeanist for example, or that this distinction can still describe syncretic cultures. Africanist elements persist in a range of practices, some of which are simply seen as American. For example, while naysayers accept that tap influenced b-boying—many early breakers talk about their admiration for The Nicholas Brothers or Sammy Davis, Jr.—those opposed to diaspora do not see any Africanist elements in tap, though they may acknowledge its Irish influences to argue against Africanity. But as dance scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild argues, All texts are intertexts. That is, forces, trends, languages, movement, modes—texts, in other words—of previous and contemporary societies influence us, live within and around us, and form the threads through which we weave our “new” patterns. They are the anonymous, unauthored codes of the culture.... Africanisms shape processes or the way that something is done, not simply the product or the fact that it is done. Concomitantly, a theory of Africanisms parallels a theory of intertextuality, which seeks to deal with the how or the process-phenomenon of the living text, rather than the text as product. 58 Whether articulated as intertextual or syncretic, Gottschild shows that “previous and contemporary societies” live in the way that movement is done. I adopt her approach to Africanisms, highlighting the common approach to circle practices as processes of channeling God, or one’s past, or each other’s energies. These qualities are recognizable through diaspora. My approach to this analysis is not meant to shut down other connections but to acknowledge an aspect of b-boying culture that remains under-explored. Such a debate matters precisely because it sparks heated exchanges, suggesting that there is more at stake than simple claims to roots or national culture. Missing from the debate was a clear assessment of the workings of power running through their exchanges. It 111 helps to account for the staunch positions on both sides of the debate: emphatic about b- boying’s African retentions on one hand, deeply invested in the denial of any influence on the other. But to paraphrase Stuart Hall, questions of culture are never far from or outside of power. 59 If, for example, we were to focus our attention solely on the Bronx, in communities comprised largely of Puerto Rican, African American, and West Indian people, how do we begin to measure the impact of generations of enslavement, colonialism, second- class citizenship, racism, segregation, poverty, and disenfranchisement? These are of course not the only or defining aspects of these different groups. But certainly, if we are to look to their cultural production as the defining feature of b-boying, then we need to account for how these histories continue to shape their lives in everyday ways. In “Negotiating Caribbean Identities,” Hall succinctly sums up why such an approach is so important: “I simply want to say that in the histories of the migration, forced or free, of these societies, whose cultural traces are everywhere intermingled with one another, there is always the stamp of historical violence and rupture.” 60 The signs of domination live on in communities that continue to operate in the margins of society. The legacies of domination—“the stamp of historical violence and rupture”—are felt and dealt with through creative practices of survival and liberation. 61 Relative to this debate, Hall’s point is especially important for two reasons. First, and as is evident above, one aspect of historical violence is the dearth of information and a popular understanding of African influences in American culture. There is little taught about how to conceive of this influence. The absence of African diasporic histories and of any sense of a continued presence in American culture is itself a function of power and a product of domination. The erasure of any common knowledge of African culture brought 112 to the New World operates as a kind of violence against and through knowledge. People of African descent are denied a history prior to enslavement. As a result, alongside the violent dislocation from one continent to another is the double violence that rips away any prior culture and knowledge that shapes their world and society as a whole. Gottschild demands simply that “we desperately need to cut through the convoluted web of racism that denies acknowledgement of the Africanist part of the whole.” 62 An argument for diaspora is at least partially a consequence of the absenting of African culture from the discussion. It is not that diaspora is the only cultural influence, but that it is an under-acknowledged, under- recognized, and repressed one. 63 That we can acknowledge within capoeira or ring shouts African religious cosmologies, or that such practices can resonate with cyphering today, this is “Africa alive and well in the diaspora.” 64 The impact of Africanisms is invisible, unmarked in the dominant narrative but still present and impactful. The African diaspora is a dark matter within American culture. The erasure of a discourse to speak of its presence is the perpetuation of violence. The “stamp of historical violence and rupture” impacts boying in a second way. Its Bronx history reminds us that in the margins of society, people were able to cultivate spiritually uplifting or psychologically liberating practices. Hip Hop started out as a neighborhood thing. In these neighborhoods, though characterized by violence and desperation, cyphers resisted everyday pressures and created potential paths to freeing the mind. Consider PoeOne’s words about not worrying about “no damn thing” including bills, gas money, or your next meal. Though experienced without its visible actualization, freedom is formulated in relation to a set of structural conditions and is practiced through cyphers without being contained by those conditions. This kind of practice, including the value 113 placed on dark matter, signals the importance of preserving a sense of one’s humanity beyond the modes and means of survival. That is, cyphering gestures toward the value of preserving the collective being (the spirit alongside the physical body), or what Cedric Robinson calls the “ontological totality” in response to repressive conditions or daily struggles. 65 The value placed on freedom, release, connection and escape in the earlier descriptions of cyphers show the importance of maintaining a sense of one’s self in the world. The diasporic connection between cyphers and other circles is just one way of thinking through b-boying’s cultural inheritances. I am by no means suggesting that this is all we need to know or that this connection is the only valuable contribution. But it is a contribution worth understanding better. Diasporic considerations do not necessitate that we interpret them only in terms of “roots.” This formulation can be inspiring to think of Africanist aesthetic practices as having grown over generations, manifesting in a wide and diverse array of distinct cultural practices like branches on a tree born from a single root. This argument is only one approach. In his work The Practice of Diaspora, Brent Hayes Edwards proposes that the work of diaspora “necessarily involves a process of linking or connecting across gaps—a practice we might term articulation.” 66 Picking up on the definition of articulation that means “joining up…as in the limbs of the body, or an anatomical structure,” 67 Edwards adopts the term to illustrate how diasporas link distinct groups together to form a complex structure “where things are related, as much through their differences as through their similarities.” 68 He argues that diasporas are unities mobilized for a purpose. For example, by looking at cyphers in relation to other circle practices, I imagine a whole that operates across inherent differences in language, national, 114 culture, history, performance style, etc. Thus for Edwards, diasporas are articulated relations of global connection “through and across difference.” Such internationalisms are internally diverse and in their variety reveal the gaps and disjunctures between groups within the whole. Edwards, much like Glissant from my discussion in Chapter 2, offers a way to think of a whole through difference. As cultures within diasporas are themselves heterogeneous, they also reflect what Earl Lewis calls “overlapping diasporas,” when diasporic identifications are themselves multivalent products of multiple positionalities—different ethno-racial-national make-ups that inform identities relationally. For example, within the African diaspora are multiple languages, nationalities, and religions that overlap with other dispersed communities. Lewis’s concept is useful for b-boying. Thus far I have focused on an African diasporic influence, but this analysis also models an approach to studying b-boying’s relation to any diaspora. Cyphering practices can be read through other diasporic links, such as an East Asian diaspora. For example, b-boying was strongly influenced very early on by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean martial arts. 69 That is, while many early breakers talk about the impact of popular kung fu movies in the 1970s and their idolization of Bruce Lee, 70 it seems that these influences can be taken much more seriously. Breakers have studied the movement and philosophy behind kung fu, karate, aikido, or tae kwan do alongside their growing up in b-boying. Ideas of apprenticeship, training, and the diversity of styles within b-boying are at least in part adopted from this influence. Moreover, Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kun Do has become the model for many to articulate the symbiotic relationship between developing an expertise in technique in order to free them from technique. 71 Lee writes: The martial arts are based upon understanding, hard work and a total comprehension of skills. Power training and the use of force are easy, but 115 total comprehension of all of the skills of the martial arts is very difficult to achieve…. To put the heart of the martial arts in your own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that you will know that there are no limits. 72 A philosophy of movement like this can very clearly overlap with an approach to cyphering that acknowledges dark matter. I refer to overlapping diasporas in part to open up a conversation about African influences that does not shut down analysis. B-boy Viazeen points out that there are moments when the absence of knowledge around Africanity becomes an empty gesture that shrouds more than it reveals to better our understanding of b-boying’s culture and movement. Viazeen argues that the appeal to Africa often stands in place of the work of studying the movement, and thus fully respecting the dance: We haven’t really understood or studied the movement enough. So we always go, “It’s origins is from Africa.” Yes and no. There’s some things that, you look… You can’t say that’s from Africa. It came from exploring what only their body can do. Falling out of something, trying to do something and it not working, umm, or just you know, pushing your limits. Using your imagination. I learned to roll around the floor because I rolled around the floor.… So, you know, a lot of that stuff doesn’t come from, doesn’t have an origin that we automatically go, “Yeah. This came from the east coast. This came from the west coast. This came from Africa.” There’s some things that we can’t put a finger on that…. We have to look at it, you understand. Even the stuff that comes from Africa or anywhere can be broken down, so it becomes influential to how things are created. Viazeen implies that some appeals to origins are more often reductionist over-simplifications to make up for not knowing enough about some aspect of the dance. Even if for example, one argues that “rolling around the floor” is an aspect of Africanist aesthetic practices—and Gottschild would argue that “Africanist dance idioms... reaffirm contact with the earth 73 — the classification does not warrant an un-nuanced and indistinct discussion of b-boying movement. Instead of saying, “It’s African” as a way of dismissing analysis, it should be a 116 point of further examination. 74 But the claim to Africanity as a means of dismissing b- boying itself represents an underlying feature of these debates. CONCLUSION As the authors of The Global Cihpa suggest, the flow of Hip Hop movement to countries around the globe has created shared yet heterogeneous b-boying identifications. That is, Hip Hop positions its practitioners as both the same and different. The connection through difference in performance allows us to decenter origins narratives in favor of an idea of the whole through the dispersal of traditions and practices (what James Clifford refers to as “portable eschatologies”) 75 that are not reducible to a single place. Clifford writes, “These decentered, partially overlapping networks of communication, travel, trade, and kinship connect the several communities of a transnational ‘people.’ ….The empowering paradox of diaspora is that dwelling here assumes a solidarity and connection there. But there is not necessarily a single place or an exclusivist nation.” 76 Transnational networks of breakers are “a people,” in a kind of way. Additionally, connections in Hip Hop also further the scope of different diasporic influences. In a way, cyphering fosters cultural literacy both in Hip Hop and in the African diaspora. In a similar vein, perhaps b-boying also encourages a degree of cultural literacy in East Asian cultures as well. As b-girls and b-boys cultivate identities through cyphering, the practice can both socialize someone into Hip Hop and multiple, overlapping diasporas. Moreover, diasporic connections demonstrate and reiterate relations to Others, as discussed in Chapter Two. Rhizomatic relations are transnational networks of b-girls and b-boys whose contributions to the culture continue to expand it both horizontally and vertically: they open the breadth of the repertoire and deepen already present ties to multiple diaspora cultures. Just as movement radiates connections, those relations radiate 117 through movement and its expansion. Dark matter continues to be a valuable metaphor to represent the invisible performance influences in cyphers and in b-boying in general. While some breakers hesitate to accept the notion of an African diasporic presence in b-boying, the aforementioned debates suggests that much of their concern is about race. Notions of Africanity are never too far from race. Long held binaries that pit Europe against Africa also pit white against black in a gross social hierarchy where the latter is subordinate to the former. The impact of race is evident in each of the circle practices discussed previously. The works on capoeira and ring shouts discuss efforts to end them both as being fueled by racism. For example, while ring shouts are today acknowledged as sacred, animated forms of worship were once looked down on as savage vestiges of Africa. 77 African-ness marked it as primitive, irrational, and degrading to the race through the lens of elite respectability. 78 Even African American community leaders like Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne sought its end to combat stereotypes of black primitivity. 79 Desch-Obi notes that until the 1930s when populist politics adopted capoeira as national culture, it was continuously criminalized and repressed by the state from the second half of the 18 th century to throughout the 19 th century in an effort to “exterminate” the martial art as a dangerous and “unsightly” remnant of Central African culture. 80 Though capoeira is now an accepted dimension of Brazilian culture, many of its origin stories are devoid of any mention of Africa, 81 re-framing what was once deemed a fact into a debate. In the case of bomba, anthropologist Isar Godreau’s “Folkloric ‘Others’: Blanqueamiento and the Celebration of Blackness as an Exception in Puerto Rico” explores the celebratory banner of Afro-Puerto Rican folk culture and a discourse that situates Africanness as an essence to be retrieved from the past for national projects that 118 simultaneously restrict this heritage to specific examples. 82 Godreau argues that the Africanist traditions like bomba support national culture from threats of U.S. imperialism. At the same time, these traditions are located in specific places like Loíza and San Antón through narratives of racial difference—depicted as sites “where black people live”—thereby constructing the rest of the country as “not black.” 83 In this case, blackness is acknowledged, contained in specific locations or traditions, and ultimately disavowed, shoring up ideologies of blanqueamiento or the whitening of Latino peoples. Godreau furthers that such ideological projects are meaningful only when they are “informed by an anxiety” over the contemporary presence of black subjects. This last point is particularly relevant because the racist discourse surrounding Africanity as primitive, criminal, or simply “not us” is about the shifting yet still exclusionary meaning attached to blackness. B-boying suffers from its own anxiety around blackness such that the discourse of race subsists in analyses of African diasporic connections. To return to the aforementioned critiques, the appeals to multiculturalism or American-ness were indirect ways of articulating concerns around race. The underlining question is, “If b-boying is a black dance (because of its African “origins”) then how do we account for its diverse cultural make-up today?” Put another way, people want to know where and if they fit into the culture if it indeed is black. Black is a socio-political and cultural identity that implies ties to continental Africa and the diaspora, but it is never just that. Michael Omi and Howard Winant define race as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies.” 84 Put another way, race is both a process of meaning-making and the inscription of that process onto actual bodies. It is not ahistorical or interpreted universally in the same way but is contextualized by the “conflicts and interests” of a 119 120 particular historical moments in particular places. Hortense Spillers states that this process turns bodies into metonyms for “an entire repertoire of human and social arrangements,” and racial categories and stereotypes inscribe these arrangements into discourse. 85 Race translates social differences into biological ones, a discursive practice that resonates in all areas of society including popular cultures. I discuss this further in Chapter Four. 121 Chapter 3 Endnotes 1 Ness4 suggests that one of the necessary components of cyphers are “hungry dancers.” Without them, there is no cypher because the energy grows more intense the more dancers desire to step into the cypher. Ness4. Personal Interview. 9 Aug 2006. 2 Ness4. Personal Interview. 9 Aug 2006. 3 Float. Personal Interview. 28 May 2007. 4 Emiko. Personal Interview. 18 Sept 2006. 5 Dark Marc. Personal Interview. 11 Aug 2006. 6 Machine. Personal Interview. 30 Aug 2007. 7 Krazy Kujo. Personal Interview. 4 Sept 2006. 8 Kwikstep. Personal Interview. 8 Aug 2007. 9 The American Heritage Dictionary 3 rd ed. (Boston: Houghlin Miflin Co., 1993). 10 Because of the simultaneous production of stars in seemingly disconnected galaxies that are otherwise expected to dissipate over time rather than grow, it was hypothesized that dark matter may connect these galaxies, thus accounting for their unexpected star formation. Such studies suggest the possibility that dark matter has a web-like or filament shape that may even flow like water, generating interactions between these galaxies. Paul Rincon, “Team finds ‘proof’ of dark matter,” BBC News 21 Aug 2006. Web. 21 Aug 2006; Stephen Battersby, “Giant ropes of dark matter found in new sky survey,” New Scientist 21 Feb 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; “X marks the spot in dark matter web,” New Scientist 29 Feb 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; “Nearby galaxies are chock-full of dark matter,” New Scientist 4 June 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; “Dark matter ‘bridge to nowhere’ found in cosmic void,” New Scientist 15 Sept 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; “Dark matter may string together starry necklace,” New Scientist 17 Sept 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; Rachel Courland, “Astronomers find universe’s dimmest known galaxy,” New Scientist 18 Sept 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; Rachel Courtland, “Is dark matter a wimp or a champ?,” New Scientist 9 Sept 2008. Web. 13 Nov 2008; Louis E. Strigari, Savvas M. Koushiappas, James S. Bullock, Manoj kaplinghat, Joshua D. Simon, Marla Geha, an Beth Willman, “The Most Dark-Matter-Dominated Galaxies: Predicted Gamma-Ray Signals from the Faintest Milky Way Dwarfs,” The Astrophysical Journal 678 (10 May 2008): 614-620; Lotty Ackerman, Mattew R. Buckley, Sean M. Carroll, and Marc Kamionkowski, “Dark Mater and Dark Radiation,” California Institute of Technology CALT-68-2704 Report. arXiv:0810.5126v1 [hep-ph] (28 Oct 2008 onward). 11 The Sloan Digital Sky Survey was an incomparable eight year (2000-2008) study taking multi-color images and three-dimensional maps of over a quarter of the sky, while performing a survey of thousands of galaxies, quasars, and stars. One study resulting from this survey discovered that what were first believed to be “overdensities” of stars were actually determined to be dimly luminous galaxies that doubled the number of perceived satellite galaxies around the Milky Way. Such galaxies appear to have more gravity than can be accounted for by visible matter alone, suggesting that dark matter is the “extra gravitational glue” holding them together. Strigari et.al.; Stephen Battersby, “Instant Expert: Cosmology,” New Scientist 4 Sept 2006. Web. 4 Nov 2008. 12 Battersby “Instant Expert: Cosmology” 13 Dark matter exists outside of dim galaxies but it is particularly prominent in them for obvious reasons. 122 14 Ackerman et.al.; Stephen Battersby, “Dark matter may shine with invisible ‘dark light,’ New Scientist 31 Oct 2008. Web. 4 Nov 2008. 15 Leonard Susskind, “Dark matter and dark energy,” Video. The Black Hole War. The Public Forum, the Commonwealth Club of California 12 Aug 2008. <http://fora.tv/2008/07/23/Leonard_Susskind_- _The_Black_Hole_War> 16 Ackerman et.al.; Battersby “Dark matter may shine with invisible ‘dark light’”. 17 Raquel Rivera’s New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone, is one of the few works to address cyphers directly. She writes: “Cyphers are spontaneous and informal gatherings where participants arrange themselves in a loose circle to rhyme or dance and where improvisational skills have a primary role.” Rivera borrows from Dawn Norfleet’s dissertation entitled ’Hip Hop Culture’ in New York City: The Role of Verbal Musical Performance in Defining a Community, where she specifies the significance of cyphers in Hip Hop culture as a space that “goes beyond rhyming, conversation and other means of communication. It’s the ultimate brainstorming session. Everything from playing congas to African spiritual dances to after school fights to group therapy to ring around the rosie to the Nation of the Gods and Earths all get down in ciphers.” While not exhaustive, these explanations reflect the depth of analysis of cyphers beyond ideas of the battle. Spady’s et. al. The Global Cipha uses them as metaphors for the global-linguistic-musical flows that create multiple Hip Hop cultures. But again, the actual discussion of cyphers are limited. Even Tricia Rose’s groundbreaking Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America never mentions them. Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2003): 199, n. 27. James G. Spady, H. Samy Alim, & Samir Meghelli, The Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness (Philadelphia, Black History Museum Publishers, 2006). Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994). 18 Aby. Personal Interview. 18 March 2007. 19 PoeOne. Personal Interview. 3 Jan 2007. 20 PoeOne. Personal Interview. 3 Jan 2007. 21 PoeOne. Personal Interview. 3 Jan 2007. 22 Triple7. Personal Interview. 3 Oct 2006. 23 MC KRS-ONE writes of this concept in an essay titled “The Milk and the Meat,” stating that the “basic idea of the Christ is not exclusively Christian, nor is Christ the family name or last name of Jesus. Christ is who Jesus became.” (his emphasis) KRS-ONE’s essay is about becoming rather than solely praising or worshipping Christ. Triple7’s brief discussion of the Christ energy of Hip Hop echoed many of the ideas KRS-ONE present in this essay. KRS-ONE, “The Milk and the Meat: An essay on Christ,” Bronx Biannual no.1 (June 2006): 145-158. 24 Field Notes. International Battle of the Year 21 Oct 2006. 25 Spady et. al. 11, 34-35. 26 Spady et. al. 34-35. 27 Spady et. al. 34. 28 Brenda Dixon Gottschild, “Crossroads, Continuities, and Contradictions: The Afro-Euro-Caribbean Triangle,” Caribbean Dance From Abakuá TO Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity. Ed. by Susanna Sloat. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002): 9. 123 29 Afro-American is a broader term representing in people of African descent in North, Central, and South Americas and the Caribbean. I use African American to specifically refer to those who identify and black Americans. 30 Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CN: Praeger 1996: xiii-xiv. 31 This conversation spanned two different dance chat rooms including a Dance.net conversation thread titled “African to Hip Hop the Connection Made Clear,” originally posted on 15 Dec 2006 <http://www.dance.net/ topic/5683709/1/Hip-Hop/african-to-hip-hop-the-connection-made-clear.html> and MrWiggles.biz conversation thread titled “Some people in this community are beyond confused,” originally posted on 20 Dec 2006 <http://p076.ezboard.com/fmrwiggleshiphopfrm1.showMessageRange?topicID=13367.topic&start= 1&stop=20> 32 I have had multiple conversations during the course of my research with people who insist that b-boying “comes from” capoeira, meaning that early would-be breakers saw capoeira in the park or took a class and copied their moves. Of course these conclusions are reached in observing both practices today, in their contemporary form. 33 Thomas Desch-Obi, Fighting for Honor: The Story of African Martial Arts in the Atlantic World. Charleston: University of South Carolina, 2008; John Lowell Lewis, Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 34 Desh-Obi 184-185. 35 Lewis 191, 193, 195. 36 Lewis 78, 84. 37 Lewis 84. 38 There are three styles of capoeira: Angola, regional, and contemporanea. 39 Desch-Obi, T.J. “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga,” Central Africans and the Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora. Edited by Linda Heywood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001: 358. 40 At each point of the cross are small circles, representing the path of the sun, in a counter clockwise motion around the circle. If one were to read the path of the sun on the cosmogram as one would read a sundial, these points can represent the four cardinal points of the earth—north, south, east, and west. But the cross has much deeper meaning in Kongolese culture. Robert Farris Thompson’s analysis of the yowa cross in Flash of the Spirit delves much further into this meaning: …“Bakongo believe and hold it true that man’s life has no end, that it constitutes a cycle. The sun, in its rising and setting, is a sign of this cycle, and death is merely a transition in the process of change.” The Kongo yowa cross does not signify the crucifixion of Jesus for the salvation of mankind; it signifies the equally compelling vision of the circular motion of human souls about the circumference of its intersecting lines. The Kongo cross refers therefore to the everlasting continuity of all righteous men and women ….[T]he four moments of the sun is the Kongo emblem of spiritual continuity and renaissance… The two lines of the cross form axes, both between the living and the spirit worlds and between the earth and the heavens, simultaneously. The horizontal line represents the ocean, a river, or dense forestation that demarcates the borders between the world of the living and the dead. It is called the kalunga line. Thomas Desch-Obi notes that kalunga is a term that refers to elements of the natural and supernatural worlds under an entire cosmological system “that understood bodies of water to be bridges between lands of the living and the 124 dead.” The points of the cross can then be read through the stages of the sun’s cycle: the right point as sunrise or birth; the top point as noon or flourishing life and the peak of one’s earthly powers; the left point as sunset or death of the physical body; and the bottom point as midnight or the height of one’s otherworldly powers. The relationships represented by the cross are polyvalent: between God and man, God and the dead, and the living and the dead. Desch-Obi Fighting for Honor 138-142; Qtd. in Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America New York: Oxford University Press, 1987: 12-13, 25; Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books, 1983: 108. 41 Desch-Obi “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga”358. 42 Desch-Obi “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga”355. 43 Browning, Barbara. Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995: 108-109. 44 Stuckey 12-13. 45 Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities I the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998): 114, 118. 46 Funerals, revivals, harvest time, and prayer meetings were also occasions for ring shouts. Gomez 266-269. 47 “The Spirit of God works upon people in different ways. At camp-meeting there must be a ring here, a ring there, a ring over yonder, or sinners will not get converted [sic].” Qtd. in Raboteau 69. 48 Qtd. in Gomez 270 49 Alicia Diaz, “Bomba, capoeira and b-boying: Embodied forms of resistance in the African diaspora,” Washington Square News (2 March 2004): 12-15. 50 Alma Concepcio ́n, “The Challenges of Puerto Rican bomba,” Caribbean Dance: From Abakuá to Zouk. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002: 168-169. 51 Halbert Barton notes that moments when the body and the primary rhythm seem incongruous, signal improvisation rather than an inability to stay on beat. Barton argues that this is counter to Europeanist expectations of synchronicity and conformity to choreography as with stage performances. Moments when the body and the primary rhythm seem incongruous, signal improvisation rather than an inability to stay on beat. Barton argues that this is counter to Europeanist expectations of synchronicity and conformity to choreography as with stage performances. Halbert Barton, “The Challenges of Puerto Rican Bomba,” Caribbean Dance: From Abakuá to Zouk. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002: 184; Concepción 169. 52 Barton 192. 53 Qtd. in Concepción 170. 54 Alex LaSalle, “Bambula,” Güiro y Maraca 11.2 (Summer 2007): 15. 55 LaSalle 11. 56 LaSalle 15. 57 Aby. Personal Interview. 18 March 2007. 58 Gottschild Digging the Africanist Presence 3-4. 125 59 Stuart Hall, “Negotiating Caribbean Identities,” Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology ed. by Gregory Castle (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2001): 284. 60 Hall 284. 61 I credit the phrase “the creative practices of survival” to Aracelie Esparza. 62 Gottschild Digging the Africanist Presence 3. 63 In “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” Stuart Hall writes that “Presence Africaine is the site of the repressed.” Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” reprinted in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader eds. P. Williams and L. Chrisman (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994): 398. 64 Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” 398. His emphasis. 65 Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, (Chapel Hill: The University Press of North Carolina, 1983): 171. 66 Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003): 11. His emphasis. 67 Stuart Hall, “Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance,” Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism (Paris: UNESCO, 1980): 328. 68 Hall “Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance” 325. 69 In an article for KoreanRoc.com, Eric Pellerin wrote “Challenge of the b-Boy Master: The Impact of Kung Fu Movies on Breakdancing” in which he traced b-boying’s 1970s and 1980s legends with popularity of kung fu movies in the U.S. He incorporates comments from members of Star Child La Rock, New York City Breakers, Floormasters, Rock Steady Crew, and Ghetto Original Productions. Eric Pellerin, “The Impact of Kung Fu Movies on Bboying,” 13 Oct 2008. <http://koreanroc.com> 70 Ness4. Personal Interview. 9 Aug 2006. 71 In an interview with Krazy Kujo, he remarks that b-boying is a form of Jeet Kun Do, though breakers may not recognize it as such. Krazy Kujo. Personal Interview. 4 Sept 2006. 72 Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, (Valencia: Black Belt Communications LLC, 1975): 3. 73 Gottschild Digging the Africanist Presence 8. 74 Viazeen believes that movement can be studied by breaking it down into intricate detail so one more can be better understood by studying the several interval postures within it. Viazeen. Personal Interview. 7 July 2007. 75 James Clifford, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology 9.3 (Aug 1994): 321. 76 Clifford 321-322. 77 Part of the critique of animated and danced worship was that it was not sufficiently respectful and devout as determined by Europeans. The impression that such dances were not religious in nature prompted socio- cultural “rules’ meant to establish a clear distinction between sacred and secular dance. In this case, the rule was that as long as the feet never crossed and were kept on the ground, this was a religious performance. Raboteau 340 n69. 78 Gomez 269-270. 126 79 Paul Harvey, “’These Untutored Masses’: The Campaign for Respectability Among White and Black Evangelicals in the American South, 1870-1930,” Journal of Religious History. 21.3 (October 1997): 315; Stuckey 94; Raboteau 68-69; Gomez 269-270. 80 Desch-Obi Fighting for Honor 157, 166-173; Desch-Obi “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga”361. 81 Desch-Obi disputes origin narratives that propose that capoeira began among shackled slaves who learned to defend themselves while their hands were chained together. He argues that most bondsmen were shackled by their legs and not their hands and that “even ritual forms of capoeiragem would have been prohibited, no to mention the fact that many of techniques would have been impossible to execute.” He times the growth of origin stories that do not acknowledge the Central African elements surfaced after its “co-optation by populist politics.” Desch-Obi “Combat and the Crossing of Kalunga” 360-361. 82 Isar P. Godreau, “Folkloric ‘Others’: Banqueamiento and the Celebration of Blackness as an Exception in Puerto Rico,” Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness eds. By Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006): 184. 83 Godreau 180. 84 Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s 2 nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1994): 55. 85 Hortense J. Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Back, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2003): 205. Chapter 4. The Dark Matter of Race Movement radiates connections across differences, widening the spectrum of b- boying’s cultural insiders and thus promoting notions of universality. The culture crosses so many social boundaries that some think these boundaries no longer matter. Put another way, if someone is a good dancer then that is all that matters. Though race is typically defined by its glaring visibility that marks certain bodies as socially distinct from others, in b- boying—which is all about signifying bodies—race is often absented as a critical dimension of cultural knowledge. Yet alongside ideas of an easy universality is the reality that such connections are messy; battles ensue. Chapters Two and Three demonstrate how difference persists in conceptions of the whole. Thus absenting race from the discourse of universality forces those unavoidable aspects of race to the fore in the form of an unmarked yet impactful presence, reminiscent of dark matter. One example in particular touches on the multiple dimensions of racial discourse in b-boying. In the summer of 2006, Dark Marc came to New York from Norway with his crew to compete in b-boying events throughout the region. I saw him battle multiple times that summer and noticed a pattern had taken shape. Each time the host announced his name and he walked to the circle, murmurs of confusion spread through the crowd asking, “Why does he call himself dark?” At one event, the host actually did a double-take as the 5’9”, blond-haired, blue-eyed b-boy stepped forward. I had the same reaction that first time. I assumed the “dark” his name was descriptive of his skin color. What else could it be? I considered the possibility that his name was ironic, or meant to align himself with people of color. I was cautious but held back judgment long enough to see him dance. To his benefit, 127 he is a talented dancer to a degree and quashed the hints of criticism in the air. I watched his performance appreciatively though it did not quell my suspicions that his name was rife with misguided intentions. Despite the praise he received, he sensed that his kudos were somewhat backhanded. People remarked that he danced well for a “white boy.” He constantly felt like he had to prove himself. In our interview I found out that he chose his name after watching Star Wars, alluding to “the dark side” in the film that Scandinavians did not immediately associate with race. He claimed innocence, perhaps naiveté, and certainly no offense. He just thought it was cool. Yet race factored into his performance anyway. With new audiences came the same cautious reception and the same insistence that he prove himself in the cypher. Ironically, being underestimated was an advantage in the circle because it left him more room to be impressive. Dark Marc made the attention work to his advantage in a crowd as he glided across the floor in a rhythmic expression of the groove. He displayed a musicality for which New York in particular (and the U.S. in general) is known. That his garnered more attention in New York than in Europe was no coincidence. He has been described as “old school,” which in Norway contrasted a sports-like approach to b-boying versus his emphasis on dancing to the music, a freestyle dictated by a song’s rhythm. Dark Marc disagreed with the old versus new school divisions as they masked a mutually beneficial relationship—the dynamism of the “new school” brought in interested participants whose dedication to the culture would lead them to “old school” foundations. In New York, Dark Marc was no longer “old school” but instead was a good dancer. He recognized that it reflected his interest in older breakbeats, original ‘70s funk music, and b-boying foundations or technique. 128 Though freed from the “old school” label, he now had to negotiate the label of “white boy”. Blackness was an invisible presence in his performance, first “appearing” as a deflated expectation when he was introduced and then interjected into his praise. Dancing well “for a white boy” implied that he danced like he was or had learned from black people. The implication that white people cannot dance, or conversely, that black people naturally can, is cultural shorthand for racial difference. It is an old stereotype that is often reiterated in popular culture. In some ways such comments are tossed around as jokes and not as serious measures of skill and talent, but they demonstrate the readily available language about dance and race. Breakers use these stereotypes to draw attention to racial and ethnic differences that may matter more than the joke may indicate. In our interview, Dark Marc pensively reflected on his time in New York and briefly considered changing his name. He shook his head in conflicted resignation, knowing that the reputation he built in Europe as Dark Marc marked his performance in the U.S. in an unshakeable way. He wanted his work as a dancer to stand above race, to transcend stereotypes. And because he worked so hard to get to New York, this unavoidable nuisance about his name was a problem. “Dark” accentuated a racial politics that he otherwise could have ignored. Race was rarely invoked in so obvious a manner, especially since white breakers are quite common. Yet, Dark Marc’s whiteness stood out because of his name. It was almost a strike against him, repeatedly bringing race to the fore. Dark Marc’s experience of racialization, though new to him, is not unique. He could not see the other ways that b-boying’s racial politics factored shaped him as a b-boy. Racialized narratives of difference are inescapably attached to his “old school” approach. For eample, Dark Marc sought out information and lessons on rocking, a late 1960s and 129 early 1970s pantomimed battle dance started in Brooklyn. Though breakers take aspects of their toprock from rocking, this is a different type of combative social dance. Rockers dance to whole songs in two parallel lines so that opponents face each other. It is a freestyle, pantomimed dance wherein rockers compete through gestures of violence; they typically dance while standing up rather than incorporating intricate footwork. The dance’s revival has generated interest in the dance and created new opportunities to learn from original rockers in Brooklyn. It was one of the reasons Dark Marc wanted to come to New York. He learned more about his own b-boying style by taking rocking classes and learning about its history. Dark Marc remarked that rocking can appear as a formulaic set of steps, but there is far more going on in the gestures than he once presumed: I know that rocking is a lot about describing. And when you battle, it’s about like, you grab somebody, and you break them in half and drop them down. ….A lot of b-boys do the same moves [but] they don’t know what it means…. Let’s say when they do the jerks for instance, it’s uh, seen when b- boys try to imitate it…they go 1-2-3-and-4 and they go down on the 4 and hit on 2…. They just do it ‘cause they seen it. And I want to know why I’m doing this. 1 Dark Marc learned that in rocking gestures narrate the performer’s actions. There was no single or necessary sequence of steps. Instead, rockers improvise their moves based on a plan of attack against an opponent. They might draw inspiration from a song’s lyrics or respond to their opponent’s actions, but the moves they employ are not prescribed. A series of improvised gestures where one performatively grabs an opponent, breaks his or her back over one knee, stands again, and throws the body across the room may appear like one move: “1-2-3-and-4 and they go down on the 4 and hit on 2.” If one does not know that the gestures tell a story, a breaker may perform them in an illogical sequence or in a formulaic way. After learning about the dance, Dark Marc can better improvise a variety of 130 meaningful sequences, demonstrating greater versatility and a deeper understanding of his repertoire. As an alternative, Dark Marc could choose pantomime, slicing his opponent up with a knife instead of breaking his or her body. He could performatively hang the body from the rafters or bat it away like a baseball hit out of the park instead of throwing it. Knowing the difference allows him to tell a story with his gestures, to personalize his approach in a battle, or to fit a particular a song all the while making each move his own. Chronology plays a key role in the ethno-racial dimensions of breaking’s historical narrative. Rocking modifies Hip Hop’s origin stories and factors into debates on who “gets credit” for creating breaking. Part of the history of rocking that Dark Marc learned was the story of its development in Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Brooklyn that spread to first African American sections of the borough and eventually to the Bronx. As Joseph G. Schloss notes in Foundations: B-boys, B-girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York, for some this branch of aesthetic influence suggests the Puerto Rican origins to b-boying. 2 While the dance’s history credits the growth of b-boying to black and Latino youth, the narrative follows that black breakers were first and Puerto Ricans joined soon after. We return to the idea of credit: if it originated among blacks then it is “a black dance”, but if Latino rockers from Brooklyn started it, then that narrative either shifts or falls apart, though some Puerto Ricans may also identify racially as black. Obviously, race is not synonymous with national or ethnic identity. Yet there are moments when racial difference acts as ethnic difference. Additionally, the stakes of credit seem to couple borough pride with ethnic identity. Geographic roots help explain the pantomimed violence of rocking or the aggressive rebellion of b-boying. Thus, origin claims might be claims to Hip Hop’s historical legacy, meaning whoever came first cannot be erased from the annals of Hip Hop. In this way, 131 however far the culture travels, part of it will always “belong” to them. Or perhaps it simply means that b-boying is not “a black dance,” thus avoiding whatever baggage one might attach to blackness. Or perhaps it is a way to ensure that people’s experiences are preserved, if not in history books, then in dance. Racialized frames of analysis among breakers are the tools with which they struggle to narrate the broad cultural diversity of b-boying without losing sight of the socio-cultural particularities that wed the culture to both communities of color and communities in struggle (sometimes seen as one and the same). B-boying is as much a product of racialized forms of economic and political exclusion as it is also about the artistic fusions across African diasporic cultures that were fostered in the margins of U.S. society. As a b-boy, it is Dark Marc’s history too. There would seem to be few other contexts in which a young man from Norway would actively seek out information about black and brown communities in New York City as if they were his own. Early in our interview, he told me that “I think every b-boy that has been breaking for more than five, maybe between five and ten years, will always get interested in the original, and going back and learning their history.” Dark Marc embodies and voices a cultural contradiction: race is an issue that he would rather ignore and yet cannot avoid in the performance space and in his own b-boying history. Race matters because it illuminates the complexities of relations across differences that people would rather avoid altogether. To conceive of a multi-ethnic and multi-racial global culture necessitates unpacking the role of race in ideas of a b-boying community. Dark matter contextualizes the impact of race even when it is rendered invisible. I explore racial narratives about b-boying as they shaped the public’s understanding of the culture in the 1980s in comparison to patterns of racialized discourse in b-boying today. Early media 132 representations of b-boying depict a strong fascination with the possibilities of racial mixing through shared cultural practices. The multiple ways that breakers invoke race in the current moment pick up on the desire for racial harmony depicted from my archive. Yet they also express anxieties about how to reconcile the racial dimensions of b-boying history with contemporary claims to universality founded on race-lessness. That is, while most support the transcendent universality of b-boying, racial discourses are the channels through which people can stake claim to the culture, articulate the meanings of difference, or account for those historical dimensions that cannot be subsumed in a transcendent narrative of dance. RACE IN THE ARCHIVES From its initial introduction to the mainstream, b-boying was often and even typically read as a microcosm for race relations. From 1981 to 1985, some analyzed b- boying’s popularity as sign of progress, while others saw it as a new stage for old racist dynamics. In both cases, b-boying’s mainstream introduction was often filtered through stories about race. In newspaper articles, dance magazines, popular periodicals, and performance reviews published between 1980 and 1985, much of this work focused on the racial dimensions of b-boying performances. 3 What is evident from the archives is that race was one of the most salient aspects of b-boying in the early 1980s. In combination, these representations tell a story of race relations within and through Hip Hop. Most early articles on breaking were introductory pieces attempting to detail in a few pages an as yet unknown culture in all of its youthful vibrancy. Dance historian and critic Sally Banes’ 1981 Village Voice cover story, “Physical Graffiti: Breaking Is Hard To Do,” introduced b-boying to the mainstream. Articles like Banes’ were largely explanatory, introducing new audiences to the dance. Banes wrote, 133 The heroes of these legends are the Break Kids, the B Boys, the Puerto Rican and black teenagers who invent and endlessly elaborate this exquisite, heady blend of dancing, acrobatics, and martial spectacle. Like other forms of ghetto street culture—graffiti, verbal dueling, rapping—breaking is a public arena for the flamboyant triumph of virility, wit, and skill. In short, of style. Breaking is a way of using your body to inscribe your identity on streets and trains, in parks and high school gyms. It is a physical version of two favorite modes of street rhetoric, the taunt and the boast…. For the current generation of B Boys, it doesn’t really matter that the Breakdown is an old name in Afro-American dance for both rapid, complex footwork and a competitive format. Or that a break in jazz means a soloist’s improvised bridge between melodies. For the B Boys, the history of breaking started six or seven years ago, maybe in the Bronx, maybe in Harlem. It started with the Zulus. Or with Charlie Rock. Or with Joe from the Casanovas, from the Bronx, who taught it to Charlie Rock. 4 Banes artfully captured the difficulty of a clear and stable history while naming the dance’s most poignant qualities. Her comparisons to similar African American cultural practices contextualized b-boying in a broader dance-music history. Moreover, her description was more nuanced than what one might read about breaking today. And while her audience may not have read the phrase “ghetto street culture” with the same sensitivity with which she employed it, her article captured many details that subsequent pieces by other authors missed. For example, while many articles focused on the battle and its allusions to gang fights, she addressed the cultural importance of using your body to “inscribe your identity” on the environment. After the initial, introductory article, Banes focuses a much more critical eye on the racial dynamics of street dance in new cultural spaces. In a 1982 Voice article titled “A House Is Not a Home,” Banes analyzed an encounter between Hip Hop and punk rock in a circle at a Manhattan club called Danceteria. She used the encounter to talk about the politics of race in popular culture. The relationship between punk rock and street dance highlighted a history of racial dynamics that unfolded in similar social dance spaces: 134 The way the white kids were dressed up in punk regalia and dancing as outrageously as possible, not partnering, just presenting themselves as dancing beings, turned social dancing from an act of personal pleasure, or a way to dance with someone, to a mode of dancing for someone, anyone. At the same time, closer to the stage, the black and Latin kids, friends or competitors of the evening’s acts, were performing in a much more conscious style, lining up in formations to mark the time of a reggae tune, in a kind of undulating marching step, or stepping out into a circle space to underscore a funk tune with a spasm of footwork…. White America has perennially turned to black America especially to black and Latin dance and dancing music, for revitalization in times of cultural exhaustion, and white punk culture is currently fascinated by black and Latin street culture precisely because of its vivid, flamboyant, energetic style. At the Negril this fascination seems to point to some kind of real fusion, some hope for the future, some alternative route to social harmony. Danceteria try as it might to be like home can’t seem to stop being a factory run by white entrepreneurs to market pleasure. And here the social relations were more reminiscent of the 19 th century minstrel show, or the Cotton Club of the ‘20s, where black performed for all-white audiences, than signposts for an uncharted future. 5 By comparing white punk dancers to black and Latino street dancers, Banes implied fundamental differences in interpretations of social dancing. At the same time, the two groups are opposed to each other in every way, thereby lending to the article’s main focus on racial relations through dance culture. Her look at Club Negril and Danceteria reflect concerns for street dance in broader historical terms. That is, in both articles b-boying was read within a chronology of black vernacular performance culture. As such, her overriding interest was to analyze the potential impact of race on the cultural life of breaking, hence her conclusion that breaking offered whites cultural revitalization. For Banes, street dance’s growing popularity indicates that it is under threat of falling victim to repeating past racial dynamics. For example, the social distance she described at the club, where white punk rockers were on one side and black and Latino street kids on the other, was evidence of this decline. She drew ties to the Cotton Club in the 1920s to remind us that this distance, legally 135 sanctioned at one time, had become socially ingrained. But there remained a spark of hope for change as Negril displayed the possibility for “real fusion.” Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle offers great insight into Banes’ transition from the social dynamics of a specific moment at Danceteria to a critique of social hierarchies as they have played out in the past and present. He writes, “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images…. At the root of the spectacle lies…the specialization of power. The specialized role played by the spectacle is that of…diplomatic representative of hierarchical society at its own court, and the source of the only discourse which that society allows itself to hear. Thus the most modern aspect of the spectacle is also at bottom the most archaic.” 6 Debord emphasizes two points. The first is that we are conditioned to see familiar social conflicts. The second point and his crucial intervention is that spectacles are really relations mediated by images. 7 Diana Taylor takes up Debord’s definition of spectacle and reaches this conclusion: spectacles are “that which we do not see, the invisible that ‘appears’ only through mediation.” 8 For Banes, the spectacle of a street dance cypher reveals the possibility of a broader “fusion.” But the reality of racial differences and its uncomfortable legacy looms larger than the cultural fusion. She writes about Danceteria, not Negril. She sacrificed an examination of the potential for socio-cultural synthesis at Negril for the familiar tensions of black-white separation perhaps because it was a dynamic within which she reluctantly complicit: white journalist consuming dancing black and brown bodies for entertainment. In other words that which fueled Banes’ initial analysis and prompted her lament over Danceteria’s failure to do more than perpetuate racist dynamics, was the failure of the spectacle to evade racial and class differences. The true spectacle of street dance was the 136 desire for racial harmony through street dance. This was the idea lurking in the shadow of many of the articles on the breaking of that era. Subsequent articles were less sensitive to the subtle complexities of breaking but they continued to engage ideas of racial fusion and conflict. With this focus, it is not surprising that breaking was increasingly represented as black and connotations of the street, thus invoking a stark contrast to middle class whiteness. Multiple articles wrote that breaking specifically and Hip Hop practitioners in general were young, often male, and always black. Though many articles also mentioned Puerto Ricans or Hispanics, often these groups were secondary or even parenthetical members of a “black culture.” The meaning of blackness was not just a statement about the racial makeup of the dance—though it was that too. Blackness meant both race and class, and calling it a black culture, ghetto culture, or street culture was synonymous with gangs, violence, and crime in general. Blackness became the polar opposite of the mainstream. Time magazine’s 1983 two-page article introducing their readership to Hip Hop provides a great example. Def. Definitely def. definitely def indeed…. Def stands from maximum cool, part of the pattern of a complex, sometimes convoluted, urban street culture that includes rap music, graffiti art and dancing that goes by a couple of generic styles and several specific names. Like spray-painted murals down the side of a New York City subway, or a ghetto blaster carried on a shoulder broadcasting 130 beats a minute all over a Bronx street, this subculture nicknamed hip hop, is about assertiveness, display, pride, status and competition, particularly among males…. Hip hop is black, young and ineffably, unflappably cool: “chilly the most.” ….While the vanguard of this scene may have passed into their 20s, the audience is largely high school. The boys may like to imitate the cocky flash of what a graffiti artist named Phase 2 calls “the stickup kids,” but most of them score their clothes as gifts from parents or—goodbye to another bit of downtown mythology—pay for them with money from part-time jobs.... All the attitudes and the looks of black teen-agers have a way of working themselves off the streets and into closets all over town…. In rap style you find not only a retro-replay of the 137 past and a sometimes ironic comment on it, but also a fast back alley to the future. 9 The awkward use of slang in Jay Cocks’ article highlighted the foreignness of this new lingo. While the five color pictures spread across the middle of the both pages of the article belie the exclusivity of Hip Hop to African Americans—his pictures include Latino and white participants—I do not think his preference for “blackness” was an oversight. Blackness was synonymous with this new styled cool, “the crime-haunted Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto…‘Do or Die’,” and their incarnations in language and “street” fashion. One can begin to craft a Hip Hop style of one’s own if s/he knows where to find the best resources. He makes a point to quote Phase 2 stating that the streets were not (just?, only?) the stereotypes of stick- up kids or drug dealers. They had jobs and parents! But stereotypes fueled his fascination with blackness as a fashionable style he could try on and play out his fantasy of blackness. Black culture exemplified the “back alley to the future,” a metaphor that reinforced the difference from the perceived mainstream of the Times readership. Thus voyeurism was part of the fantasy: Every Friday night, crews of rappers make the trip from The Bronx to the lower West Side of Manhattan, where they do their stuff at a roller disco called the Roxy. The crowd there is mostly new bohemian types. They watch with the guilty pleasure of anthropologists visiting Soul Train, as rappers pick up on little new wave style…and make their moves. Downtown however, there is a palpable difference in the proceedings. “We bring everything here from our neighborhood to put on a show” is the way Crazy Legs explains it. “But uptown it’s not a show. It’s our way of life.” 10 Gazing on the “black” dancing bodies was a “guilty pleasure”. He was among the “bohemian types” who played voyeurs, despite the fact that the “show” was just for that purpose. Many young breakers and rappers—some too young to legally enter the club— were paid or given incentives to dance for these audiences. That Cocks ends the article with 138 Crazy Legs’ testament to “our way of life,” was the validation of authenticity Cocks sought. Even if this was a show, it was real based on the bodies that are there performing a “ghetto” sensibility. Throughout these articles, blackness was described as simultaneously angry, fun, wild, avant-garde, incomprehensible, savage, and always cool. To the degree that most of the early b-boys who garnered media attention were Puerto Ricans (including Crazy Legs), the use of blackness is bigger than ethnicity. In these articles blackness told readers how to think about all things Hip Hop—far outside of anything “they” may know. As a result, they perpetuated a social distance, “the [white] anthropologist visiting Soul Train” dynamic. Cocks extended the popular narrative from fusion/conflict to racial transgression and embodiment. Most of the references to breaking’s cultural comparatives are African American practices that moved into the mainstream. Breaking and rap are tied to jazz and various accompanying social dances like the Charleston, the Lindy Hop, and the jitterbug. 11 Articles that focused on the music connected to doo wop, R&B, and rock & roll. 12 On two occasions, associations to these art forms are extended to reggae music and the growth of Jamaican culture’s popularity, but more often than not they are tied back to black American forms. 13 Thus breaking, like the forms that preceded it, also followed a trajectory of popularity from black to white people—or as one article put it, “from black to Hispanic to white.” 14 By mid-1983, these introductory articles on Hip Hop began talking about the culture abroad using similar frames of analysis. In “London Rocks, Paris Burns and the B-Boys Break a Leg,” David Hershkovits writes about the New York City Rap Tour to Europe in 1983. The tour brought together graffiti writers, b-boys, rappers, a group of double-dutch 139 jump ropers (the only girls in the group), and DJ Africa Bambaataa. The article’s was about the culture clash between the loud, cursing, impatient, and uncontrollable young New Yorkers in London, Lyon, Strasbourg, Paris, and Metz. And while his opening description of Hip Hop acknowledged the fact of their attracting “a racially-mixed crowd that includes a solid following of art-music-and-fashion folk who once championed punk but are now in love with rap,” 15 Hershkovitz was more interested in the failures of that mixture in confrontation between the group and their European audiences. He initially only hints at a growing racial tension, though he was clearly leading the story in a particular direction: Dondi White is talking about Europe 1. “They called us animals because we were cursing in the restaurant,” he says. “They wanted the New York scene and now they have it.” Futura is feeling good. “I’m a very lucky boy right now,” he says. “I wish my momma was around to check this out.” At 27, he’s one of the tour’s senior citizens. “The crowd was into it,” he says, “But not into it as fun.” ….Being in the middle of backstage madness doesn’t seem to bother double-Dutch girl Deshaun’s concentration. Hygiene, economics, English, now it’s American history. “It doesn’t make a difference where I do it as long as I get my work done,” says Deshaun…. What bothers her most is “the way people look at me—they think I’m from Mars or something. I still want to travel around more, but right now I want to go home.” 16 In their own ways, Dondi White, Futura, and Deshaun described the feeling of being watched, on display as if “animals” or aliens. Deshaun is less bothered by having to do homework while on tour than by the stares. Futura’s enigmatic yet telling statement only added to the tension the article built: “The crowd was into it, but not into it as fun.” Then how were they into it if it wasn’t “as fun”? Likely, his comment was meant to coincide with an earlier one that specified the tour as a party, not a band, meant to invoke participation. Futura’s statement lacked specificity but perhaps said more than the others. While Dondi White and Deshaun focused on their own discomfort under the gaze of Europeans, Futura expressed an awareness that even the audience’s willing presence did not mitigate their 140 voyeuristic consumption of the rap tour: American, New Yorkers, black and brown people, Others. He suggests the audience was captivated by watching but not to participating, interacting or identifying with the show in any way. This article is an example of the spectacle of race relations in early writing on Hip Hop. By the article’s end, Hershkovits finally describes the seemingly inevitable culture clash: a fight at the performance. He depicted the fight with a satisfaction not present it the rest of the article. Hershkovits implied that the promise of racial mixture depended on the tour’s acceptance by white audiences, which seemed out of reach: [T]he party is off and cooking… Then, for no reason that anyone can immediately discern, a couple of beer bottles are thrown on the stage by people in the audience. Abruptly, the music stops. “This ain’t no ------ ------- punk rock!” Fab 5 Freddie says into the microphone. “We don’t go for that - --- here. Whoever did that ain’t go no mother!” With no security in the house to protect them, the New York City Rap Tour has to take matters into its own hands. “We’re not taking no ---- from nobody because I’ll ---- 15 of you up,” say Futura, whipping off his belt and waving its huge buckle at the crowd… D. ST jumps down on the floor, breaks a beer bottle on the edge of the stage and waves it at the crowd menacingly, cutting himself in the process. Flanked by Futura, backed up by Rock Steady armed with cans of spray paint and other implements of destruction, supported by Phase II poised with a chair over his head ready for action… Punches are thrown, and in a few minutes it’s all over, just eight stitches for D. ST and a couple of unfortunate local bad boys who messed with the wrong people on their way to the hospital…. “The fight was in the air,” said one eyewitness, a Frenchman in the music business. “There were many racist people there. And I heard many racist comments about Negroes.” 17 The censored curse words are obvious; and thus their erasure only highlights the author’s sense of superior decorum. A chair, a broken bottle spray paint, a buckled belt, and fists were unfairly depicted as “implements of destruction” rather than as implements of defense. The article’s focus on the fight restores earlier notions of vulgarity and violence. And though the very last lines of the piece—“…borders melt in the heat of the soul-sonic blast”—suggest that Hip Hop’s promise has been met, the article was more invested in the 141 confrontation, suggesting that the borders between classes and races were still there and quite strong. Moreover, the problem of racism was a problem with “Negroes” and the threat to a white majority. The tense encounters between Hip Hop and white audiences repeated themselves in other international articles. 18 To the degree that these early articles used Hip Hop as a vehicle to discuss black-white race relations, the focus soon shifts. With the success of Flashdance in 1983 came a slew of opportunities in film and on television, including commercials for McDonald’s and Burger King and shows like Silver Spoons, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and That’s Incredible! Casting calls were issued for SAG and non-SAG roles for “black street smart rappers” or dangerous black gang leaders, and “South Bronx street kids (especially blacks, Hispanics, and Orientals).” 19 Reviews of movies featuring multi-racial casts forced the film industry to ask if these new pop arts could bridge the gap between blacks and whites. Descriptions of racial conflict gave way to stories of Hip Hop’s crossover appeal, which presented the promise of racial harmony as the celebratory outcome of Hip Hop dance. Early breaking moves frequently focused on white interlocutors who brought Hip Hop to the masses. 20 A good example is 1984’s Breakin’, about white upper-class acceptance of street dance and particularly of popping and locking. Ironically there is very little breaking in Breakin’. The film follows Kelly, a white modern dancer who sees a dance circle at Venice Beach for the first time and decides to learn these new and exciting dances in hopes of furthering her career by being different than other modern dancers. Together with her new partners Ozone and Turbo, she beats out her former dance instructor for a spot in a professional dance showcase. Known as the unexpected hit of the summer of 1984, the 142 film’s box office success speaks to its appeal to a mass audience. 21 Kelly or Special K (because “everybody’s gotta have a street name!”) drives the narrative forward with her strength and determination. She de-centers the black and brown men and mitigates any parental fears of street culture, making Hip Hop “safe” for its PG audience. Ozone and Turbo’s masculinity is decidedly non-threatening yet safely heterosexual as they introduced in contrast to Adam, a black man coded as gay. Yet the romantic undertones in Kelly’s relationship to Ozone are displaced by the desire and satisfaction achieved in putting together their own show. As one reviewer remarked, …the writers seem scared of any romantic relationship between the white Kelly and the Hispanic Ozone. But the dancing is great putting to rest any criticism that break-dancing is simply sidewalk acrobatics. Turbo’s magical solo number with a broom should alone take care of the doubters. Interestingly, “Breakin’” is so squeaky clean it’s almost quaint. There’s no violence, no sex, no crime and the street kids use such expletives as “You knucklehead.” What we have here is just a peachy-keen world where all our problems can be solved on the dance floor. It’s a nice change of pace form the usual exploitation fare. (sic.) 22 The overly-sanitized representation of black and brown urban spaces allows audiences to safely play in their world. This seems to be part of the agenda of crossing over. At the same time that the goal of racial harmony is achieved through dance, the taboo of interracial relationships gets reinforced as the dancing itself channels sexual passion. Desire is largely represented by intense, intimate, and steamy practice sequences where both end up sweaty and breathing heavily. But her white femininity remains unsullied by Ozone despite her foray into street culture, thus allowing her to maintain her authority, which is key. It demonstrates that a multi-racial cast in a film about urban street culture does not undermine white supremacist codes. Whether or not street culture could be translated into family friendly fare is not just the plotline to a movie. The entertainment industry was able to use 143 Breakin’ to demonstrate their own success in crossing over Hip Hop culture, so much so that they released the sequel the same year. While early on, the media’s racialization of Hip Hop signified the conflicts and struggles of racial difference and the possibilities of overcoming them through a shared, participatory Hip Hop experience, by 1984 the racialization of Hip Hop was a part of a marketing strategy. Breaking captured the media’s attention and they were able to make it synonymous with the products created in its name. By 1984, Hip Hop-themed articles were about the films, television shows, and theatre performances that featured some aspect of the culture. Breaking was everywhere, it seemed, especially in extremely unexpected combinations. Breakers performed with Raquel Welch in the Poconos and Catskills, on stage with Twyla Tharp, and at an opera house with the San Francisco Ballet Company. Breakers also performed for Queen Elizabeth and for President Reagan at the opening of the 1984 Olympics. The question of whether “a predominantly black and Hispanic world” could be marketable to white audiences seemed to be a resounding yes, though the urgency to capitalize on the culture suggested that they knew the fascination with breaking wouldn’t last. 23 Though the dance’s crossover to the mainstream was no longer a question but a reality, white youth crossing over to Hip Hop seemed to be a growing phenomenon. By 1984, articles began noting the cultures spread across the country. What started off as a fad soon became a craze and then an epidemic. The spread of the culture to suburban spaces came at a turning point in b-boying’s popularity. In a January 1984 New York Times article titled, “Dancing in the Streets with a Dream,” journalist Robert Lindsey wrote about the 144 prominence of “breakdancing,” “electric-boogie,” and “pop-locking” in urban and suburban Los Angeles and Chicago. In some suburbs of Chicago, break dancing has become students’ favorite entertainment…. Break dancing originated in the South Bronx in the early 1970’s and got its name, according to legend, when rival gang members decided to declare a break in street fighting so they could compete to determine the best street dancers. In recent months, break dancing has invaded some of the nation’s affluent white suburbs, but it is still an art form heavily dominated by urban blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic teen- agers. For many teen-agers who are trapped in slums or crowded public housing developments, youth workers say, break dancing has a pacifying effect, preventing gang wars because it provides an avenue to release competitive energies…. Other break dancers say they are not looking for money but fun and friendship. “When you get a lot of races like this together dancing is a universal language,” Hal McGrew 15, a southern Californian, said in Westwood Village on a recent Friday night. “instead of fighting, they ‘break.’” 24 The article carries multiple messages that converge in what still reads as an introductory piece on breaking. The article mixes aspects of the traditional story (e.g. South Bronx roots) with a not uncommon amount of misinformation (e.g. the declared break in street fighting to dance instead). Lindsey lists a number of breakings virtues: its “pacifying” effect on low- income communities, perhaps a ticket out of the ghetto, and of course a racially diverse group of friends. But he opens the article with breaking as a problem: “So many break dancers perform each weekend in Westwood Village, a college neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles, that police officers have been called to clear the streets of spectators. More than 160 young people were sent home from Westwood one recent weekend after merchants complained and the police cited them for violating the city's anti-loitering law.” While the idea of a multi-racial community of friends dancing in the streets works well in the movies, the reality of it was more difficult. It seems strange that a college neighborhood would be so challenged by dancing young people. Perhaps they were not good consumers. 145 The increasing involvement of suburban youth coincided with more reports of city’s instituting fines, arrests, or bans on public breaking, suggesting that it had become a problem. Articles on the suburban breaking scene reiterated a given set of differences with it and breaking’s urban background. These works represented the different scenes as polar opposites in order to represent street dance as a means for suburban whites to transport themselves to black urban spaces and to embody urban blackness. In “Deep in the Heart of the Suburbs, Breaking & Shaking is ‘Fresh’,” Jeffrey Schmalz contrasted black urban life with that of Greenwich Connecticut through 17-year old Adesola Osakalumi, a West Indian- American from the Bronx who was teaching a breakdancing class at a nearby dance center. The article described Greenwich, Connecticut as “the heartland of affluent suburbia,” complete with big houses, expensive cars, and the country club Osakalumi almost got kicked out of before they realized he was the entertainment. Osakalumi was depicted as upwardly mobile. For him, dancing was a means of moving away from the “street world” where “sometimes there’s a real score to settle between crews.” Breaking presented alternative options since “white society has given its acceptance.” On the other hand, the white students in his class used the dance to get closer to his “street world” and their ideas of its freedoms. Mary Ann Lewis, 37, of Old Greenwich stated, “’You can’t stereotype Greenwich. I’m a housewife, two little kids, the whole bit. People tend to think of us as so suburban. Well, we may be inhibited up here, but this lets you hang out. We can be like the kids in Harlem. It’s just going to take me 10 years or so.’” 25 The suburban housewife is released through breaking. She can activate an uninhibited side by “being like the kids in Harlem.” The possibilities for whites to escape their realities through exoticized Others is a 146 familiar trope. In this case, stepping into the Other was a release that breaking made possible. Among young suburban kids, breaking provides opportunities to actually meet and interact with the same kids Mary Ann Lewis wants to inhabit. But as one article titled, “Break Dancers Form Crews and Battle to the Beat,” in the context of their learning comes a degree of acculturation missing in the context of a dance studio: There is quite a difference between Jefferson Park in Mamaroneck and the rubble-filled streets of the South Bronx, but one thing they have in common is the driving beat of “rap music” booming from huge radios as young men twist and contort acrobatically to the music…. Perhaps it was inevitable, given the commercial success of movies like “Breakin’” and “Beat Street” that break dancing would become popular with suburban kids. But suburban street dancing has inherited not just the dance moves of its inner-city counterpart but also the social organization. Throughout the summer, the Music Express ride in Playland served as a meeting place for 60 young people ranging in age from 7 to 20 who have begun to organize themselves into crews, or groups, that break dance together. Like the break dancers in urban neighborhoods, crews challenge each other to peaceful battle on the dance floor, with the winner chosen by consensus as the side which performs the best moves. 26 These two very different places, Jefferson Part and the South Bronx, share Hip Hop culture. The article takes note though of Hip Hop’s influence on the suburbs. The emulation is multi-layered. Suburban kids form crews, battle in circles, learn from one another, and even blast the same music from “huge radios.” Their encounters with the Brooklyn and Bronx children at the Playland Amusement Park gives them a chance “to talk to them and they show you how to do it.” At the same time, it was not necessarily an exchange but rather an adaptation of an entirely different approach. In a way, breaking managed to breach the kind of self-imposed exclusion suburbs constructed. Breaking’s growing popularity eventually sparked a backlash. In March 1984, the San Bernardino City Council proposed to ban it altogether. The ordinance stipulated a ban on 147 “recreational body or physical movements with or without music…likely to attract spectators…upon any public street, alley, sidewalk, passageway, or thoroughfare, including the portions of any shopping center.” 27 Similar to the incident in Westwood, breaking was said to threaten commerce, public safety, and social peace. The vague and open-ended description was largely for show. Many suspected that it was unconstitutional. The San Bernardino City Council never passed the original ban but they revised it in a “limited” form to accommodate pressure from merchants, they claimed. 28 A Wall Street Journal article titled “’All-American City’ Puts the Freeze on Break Dancers” reported that under the limited ban, dancers instead could be fined up to $100. 29 Some took up for breaking, contesting claims that public breaking circles hindered commerce since these were potential future customers. Statistics stating that the drop in gang violence coincided with breaking’s popularity supported arguments against the ban. Regardless, the ban, in both its original and “limited” versions, were more about managing and containing public cyphers and by extension breakers. In San Bernardino, the self-proclaimed “All-American City,” the ban’s critics hinted at the class and racial implications of its implementation. But at the end of last summer, all these kids started coming down on weekends. Lots of kids, lower-class kids, groups of 30, 50, 60. They had music blasting through the roof. They were jumping and spinning and rolling around. Huge crowds would gather and you couldn’t even get by; they blocked the entrances to the stores. It looked strange. It looked wild. It looked like a fight. And the middles class customers started heading the other way…. Of course they howled. Black and Chicano leaders took up the cry adding that most breakers were minorities (minorities make up about one-third of San Bernardino’s population)—was this a case of blatant discrimination? If the kids were little white Sunday schoolers singing hymns, would anyone have stopped them? Lawyers started shaking their heads— freedom of expression… violation of the First Amendment… unconstitutional. And then came the state, national, even international media coverage. The electric boogaloo. Radio mikes, TV cameras, hordes of pencil-scratchers and pundits. Jeez, the kids just wanna dance. Give ‘em a break. Those mean, old city fathers. 30 148 While the author, Robert Goldberg’s sarcastic and almost condescending assessment of both sides of the debate suggests that the entire scenario was silly, the underlying racial implications were not lost on the most affected communities. What mattered most, it seemed, were the throngs of black and Chicano kids dancing “wildly.” They appeared to threaten the city’s definitions of order and peace. More than the chaos was the fact that these were working class black and brown kids in groups of “30, 50, 60.” His numbering sequence, implying an overwhelming presence of black and brown young people, represented more than race. As Toni Morrison writes, “Race has become metaphorical—a way of referring to and disguising forces, events, classes, and expressions of social decay and economic division far more threatening to the body politic than biological ‘race’ ever was.” 31 The presence of poor people of color was likely common at the mall, but the uncontained cultural practice invading middle class spaces in an unprecedented way was a problem. If (white) middle-class customers were scared away, then the threat had material consequences worth sacrificing the civil rights of some in favor of others. The limited ban disallowed breaking at the mall without a permit. This was the compromise. Where bans and permits failed, medical discourse successfully made the case for breaking’s threat to public safety and middle-class sensibilities. One article states simply that “Breakdancing Can Be Hazardous to Your Health.” 32 The International Chiropractic Association issued a health warning, especially cautioning new dancers and adults. 33 Symptoms such as weakness, headaches, nausea, and general discomfort as a result of the “whiplash-type movement of the head, neck, arms, and legs and gyrations of the hips and pelvis” were called “breakdance syndrome,” 34 though this type of movement is not exclusive to b-boying. They even issued guidelines, created in conjunction with the Immortal Break 149 Masters Crew, which culminated into a list of breaking do’s and don’ts “available upon request.” 35 And from late 1984 through the first half of 1985, an increasing number of articles cited broken bones and necks, and knee and back injuries. They urged parents to make sure that their children learned from trained professionals—an undefined and likely extremely scarce category of breaker at the time. Certainly, the media explosion fueled the rate of growth of injuries, compelling novice dancers to attempt riskier moves before fully learning any foundation. By mid-1985, the dance craze had subsided as did the movies and the media attention. Articles such as these coincided with its demise. B-boying is conspicuously multi-racial, glaringly diverse. These early representations of Hip Hop and breaking in particular depict this as the culture’s most promising or at least entertaining feature even as they depicted that diversity under the banner of blackness. The archives demonstrate that cultural fusion is a great story but a difficult reality as racism reasserts itself in many forms. Diana Taylor’s definition of spectacle is worth repeating: the spectacle is “that which we do not see, the invisible that ‘appears’ only through mediation.” 36 What appears from the spectacle of breaking is the desire for racial transcendence—that the promise of its diversity become a reality. When journalists wrote about the dance’s blackness and depicted it as completely opposite from the mainstream or the suburbs, they established extremes that allowed for a more poignant tale of cultural and racial mixing. Still, these representations depended heavily on stereotypes and the exoticization of blackness, street culture, and the ghetto. Thus, even as early representations alluded to the possibilities of racial harmony, they also demonstrated the fallacy of racial transcendence. 150 RACIAL DISCOURSES IN B-BOYING Today race enters b-boying culture in multiple ways. The various dimensions of racial discourse among breakers often reflects a desire to fix b-boying within particular communities or to attach special meaning to a particular group’s participation. Race has repeatedly been a topic of discussion not only in my interviews but at events, after parties, online, and in casual conversations. From these experiences I found patterns in the frames of discussion. There are several recurring approaches to discussions of racial-ethnic difference that I have organized into five categories that illustrate a desire from within the b- boying community for the culture’s diversity to actualize its claims of universality. I. Universality Ideas of b-boying’s universal appeal and the broad scope of its membership are often framed in terms of race-lessness. B-boying is about the movement and the music, both of which “have no color lines.” If one is talented, then she can transcend race through her talent. The notion that true art is ahistorical and “universal” is not new. While this can mean that b-boying appeals to anyone regardless of culture or era, more often among breakers this sentiment expresses the idea that anyone can participate in the culture, as long as she drops a b-boying approach. In other words, the culture is universally accessible, but not universally understood. There are principles attached to the dance that matter in its performance. A b-boying approach is often depicted as an unnamed quality, essence, attitude, or swagger that represents breaking culture. The emphasis on a particular approach is a way to ensure some degree of cultural coherency, especially because the culture captures new movement possibilities from so many different resources. Thus b-boying is open to everyone, but not just anyone can break—they need the enigmatic particularity of a b-boying 151 approach. The moves alone are not enough. And therein lays the disruption to its universality: this is a dance of individual originality. Thus the idea of a shared approach or essence is about being the same yet different, or as Ralph Ellison puts it, “to become one and yet many.” 37 Because movement is not neutral and no one individual has the final say on its meaning, then differences in style that are a cultural imperative can become representative of fundamental cultural divisions, as is evident in the discourse on old versus new school that opened the chapter. Moreover, people can always also embody these differences through their movement and thus come to represent them on their bodies (i.e. race). That is why one can say something about how Europeans dance relative to Americans or Asians, or how Latinos dance relative whites, men to women, etc. Moreover, such judgments spark different discursive or performative battles. When by looking at universality through its movement, we see that it does not evade difference but returns to it from a different angle. II. Race-Based Skill Assessment There are moments when race intervenes in assessments of skill. Oftentimes these statements reiterate racial stereotypes in seemingly “truthful” terms. I have already mentioned the notion of a “natural” dancing ability in black people and there is the language around the “natural” physical strength of black men. On one occasion at a b-boying event in Fort Lauderdale, a mid-30s biracial woman turned to me as we watched a young black man in the cypher do powerful windmills and asked, “Why don’t more of them dance?” She added that “they” were so good and were physically suited to break. Her comment referred to the small number of black breakers, especially in the U.S. and relative to the prominence of East Asian, Latino, and white breakers. And as a black woman I guessed she figured I 152 might have some insights to this phenomenon. It didn’t much matter that the young man she watched was French, and that the conditions that compelled him to break were likely different from African Americans. Another example, mentioned in Chapter Two, refers to Japanese and Korean breakers as mechanical or obsessively perfect. On one occasion in Germany, a Latino b-boy remarked that while the Korean crew on stage were very clean dancers, especially in their power moves, “You’re not supposed to point your toes in b-boying.” The comment touched on critiques that this high level of breaking lacked the ruggedness of true b-boying. This kind of critique is particularly scathing considering that Korean and Japanese crews are currently ranked as some of the best in the world. These ideas recall familiar stereotypes and offer, as mentioned, a shortcut to racial discourse. They are resources in various attempts to classify and categorize skills, as well as to measure authentic breaking. These assessments are not acknowledged as racist or stereotypical. Rather they solidify race into dance styles. As a result, these assessments do not go away as individuals or region’s change and adapt over time. This type of categorization provides a language for the relationship between difference and movement. That is, stereotypes are an available language to talk about difference in a seemingly substantive way in relationship to movement. But this approach only exacerbates the meaning attached to that difference. III. Ethnic-Racial and Class-Based Claims to “Our Culture” Racial and ethnic identity also acts as a means through which people are able to stake claim to a privileged understanding of b-boying. This suggests that there are multiple cultural “insider” perspectives that are informed by race, ethnicity, and class. Specifically, these ideas propose that b-boying resonates with particular groups of people more than with 153 others because of various social differences. There are no clear definitions of such understandings but rather that they exist. They come across in various notions of “our culture,” which refers to b-boying in multiple ways:  as black or essentially African  as American, typically connoting a utopic, multi-racial project devoid of any racial tensions or racist legacies  as a “poor folks’ thing,” 38 emphasizing class over race  as a people of color thing, especially those in urban centers who can claim some form of “tribal” practices that lend themselves to a unique or inherent appreciation of b-boying This idea of “our dance” is fluid. And since these categories are not mutually exclusive, they allow people to stake claim to the dance relative to their personal background or histories in multiple and overlapping ways. It is not an “our” that excludes others’ participation in the culture. Instead claims to “our culture” suggest a privileged sense of b-boying’s and particularly cyphering’s essence. For example, on multiple occasions breakers and poppers of various ethnic backgrounds—including but exclusive to African Americans Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, South Africans, Jamaicans, black British—have expressed the idea that “we” (that person and myself) understood cyphering because we possess that in “our” culture, whether that referred to sitting in a circle around a fire or dancing in the circle surrounded by family as kids. These practices were one and the same. And whether the reference was to an ancient pre-colonial past or one’s childhood, it demonstrated both something shared yet particular to “us,” however that “us” was defined. 154 I initially read these moments as inviting me into the culture through because of a common background or shared ethnic roots. Now I think that this category in particular allows for people to use other forms of ethnic or racial identifications to deepen their relationship to b-boying. For example, in an interview with Filipino-American b-boy ProfoWon, he explained that in his recent trip to the Philippines it was obvious that they did not yet know how to cypher—evident in the multiple people attempting to break in the cypher at once—yet they already possessed the heart to cypher. He attributed their heart to a culture where music and dance were already mattered. He stated, “If you’re culturally enriched, your dancing will be enriched.” 39 Ultimately “our” is about a claim to some kind of understanding about the nature of b-boying, some essential quality that “we” can recognize because of our backgrounds or how we grew up. And while it hints at a certain concern about losing that connection or having it taken away, these claims are defined broadly and open to many. IV. Credit As mentioned at the opening of this chapter, ideas of credit prominently factor into narratives of breaking’s history. Poor blacks are credited with the dance’s creation and poor Puerto Ricans are credited with bringing the dance to the floor and moving it into the mainstream, reiterating the notion that Hip Hop is “not just black.” Such a formulation suggests that there is still a struggle to trouble blackness as a monolith and the centrality of blackness in narratives of b-boying’s history as is evident in the archive. More importantly, credit is about acknowledgment. Perhaps it prevents a group’s erasure in b-boying’s history. Maybe it provides a sense of privilege, where some have more of a say in the direction of the dance. Some I have interviewed agree that the issue of credit is part of an effort to hold 155 onto the reigns of history and secure the place of a group of people for future generations to recognize. These interpretations seem almost selfish but they are historically justified. That is, notions of credit are about a cultural legacy in Hip Hop that lasts forever and should last in histories of the culture. For example, while rock ‘n’ roll started among African Americans, “the King” is Elvis Presley and today’s rock ‘n’ roll has little relationship to its earliest roots. There is something deeply personal at stake in how the story of b-boying gets told and where that story begins. Thus credit is more concerned with how b-boying is remembered as opposed to any gains today. However far and wide b-boying spreads, it remains anchored in black and Puerto Rican communities. V. Blackness The last category of racialism in b-boying is a subtler tendency to wed blackness to racism as is evident in earlier examples and debates. The coupling of blackness and racism has recurred throughout this project. It was evident in discussions of diaspora when anxieties about Africanity were deemed racist or exclusionary. It is apparent when blackness is invoked in narrow terms so as to prove that it is exclusive. The “problem” of race, the thing that ideas of universality seek to avoid altogether, is unavoidable in blackness. Blackness continually forces a reassessment of the discourse of a race-less universality. And because blackness is such a flexible term, the resurgence of race is multivalent. For example, blackness can signify any number of social categories, including the “ghetto,” the African diaspora, African Americans, victims of racism, or Third World poor. Depending on how blackness is invoked, it can represent either broadly or narrowly. Yet it too is necessarily a socio-political category that invokes histories of enslavement, disenfranchisement, cultural 156 denigration, and racism. Simply put, blackness is the unavoidable presence of racial difference in b-boying. CONCLUSION In some ways, blackness represents a number of “subjugated knowledges” in breaking. There are three examples that I have already discussed that illustrate my point. The first was in Chapter Two, as I discussed Rokafella’s concern about the ignorance of current generations and international breaking cultures about the post-Civil Rights history to the dance. The second was in Chapter Three, in naming the epistemic violence evident in the lack of everyday language of diasporic influences on b-boying as well as the implication that there was little cultural contributions from enslaved Africans to American culture. And the third was in the introduction to this chapter, in Dark Marc’s once contented unawareness of racial dynamics. Each exemplifies “subjugated knowledges,” which Michel Foucault describes as “a whole set of knowledges that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently elaborated: naïve knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity.” 40 Thus, if the post-Civil Rights era is not deemed important to understanding b-boying, then not knowing is acceptable. Moreover, because b-boying is a dance community, this ignorance is justified “it has nothing to do with dancing.” Gayatri Spivak names it “sanctioned ignorance,” or the acceptable absences in knowledge that society authorizes by ignoring them or locating them “low down on the hierarchy.” 41 Throughout this project, I argue that invisible (or ignored) dimensions of b-boying matter, because through them breakers infuse their art with social meaning. Thus, kinesthetic knowledge reminds us of the ways that race and other discourses of difference 157 are embodied in the dance and within cyphering and particularly battling practices. As a result, dark matter represents both the unseen dimension of spiritual and psychic liberation as well as the diffused influence of the African diaspora (and possibly other diasporas) in b- boying—yet another subjugated knowledge that nonetheless reasserts issues of race into the culture. Dark matter is useful in considering the ways that blackness has been avoided or ignored. That is, within ideas of transcending race is the foreclosure of blackness. But insofar as blackness cannot be erased from b-boying, claims to universality can end up reasserting race from a different direction. The above examples of subjugated knowledges represent different approaches to absenting blackness and thereby race from b-boying. Though b-boying’s universal claims are not innocent of race, some differences seem to matter more than others. Ideas of Credit and “Our Culture” attempt to stake claims to cultural legacy or inclusion respectively in the face of b-boying’s incredibly broad membership. Race-Based Skill Assessment suggests a sense that difference matters, even if some breakers lack a critical language with which to address their concerns. These three areas, including Blackness, are areas seemingly unacknowledged in the claim to universality. Though inadequate on their own, the value of these claims is in the will to move the culture toward something else. In other words, universality reveals that breakers as a whole look at themselves and their culture’s ethnic and racial diversity as signs of hopeful possibility, perhaps for racial harmony but if not that then something nonetheless. And because b-boying culture does not have an overarching project or a formal agenda to direct its attentions, b-boying practices are asked to bear the burden of taking the whole of the culture toward that something else or something more. This would seem vague except that dark matter asserts that the other place 158 159 might be the effect of the psychic and spiritual transport revealed through cyphering. The discourse of universality aside, cyphers bridge communities across distances and differences. 42 And in them reputations are made, new moves are formed, friendships are born, and b-boying identities are solidified. 160 Chapter 4 Endnotes 1 Dark Marc. Personal Interview. 11 Aug 2006. 2 Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Ho Culture in New York, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 132. 3 Most of these early references of interest are from The New York Times, The Village Voice, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Other periodicals include the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta Daily News, and several others. There are also references in dance journals such as Dance Teacher Now, Contact Quarterly, and Danser. Magazines like Time, Newsweek, and Variety also had important contributions to this body of literature. Items gathered include articles, calendar events or television listings, film and music reviews, advertisements, book and performance press releases, local community documents, student publications, interviews, and editorials. 4 Sally Banes, “Physical Graffiti: Breaking is Hard To Do” The Village Voice (April 22-28 1981). 5 Sally Banes, “A House is Not a Home,” The Village Voice (April 13, 1982). 6 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books, 1995): 12, 18- 19. 7 Debord 12. 8 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003): 145. 9 Jay Cocks, “Chilling Out on Rap Flash,” Time (March 21, 1983). 10 Cocks 11 “Break-Dancing Lecture,” New York Times (January 19, 1985); Jack Anderson, “Dance: Black Celebration at Brooklyn Academy,” New York Times (March 8, 1984); “Breaking,” Ballett International (November 1983): 14-17; Sally Banes, “Unruly Dolls and Ritz Rockers,” Voice (October 18, 1983); Antonio B. Greene, “Breakdancing Has America Spellbound,” Atlanta Daily World (May 22, 1984). 12 Robert Palmer, “’The Message’ Is That ‘Rap’ Is Now King In Rock Clubs,” New York Times (September 3, 1982); Ken Sandler, “Breakdancing! Spinning Into the Big Time: From Street Thrills to Art Form,” Washington Post (December 30, 1983); Ken Sandler, “Breakdancing Goes Legit,” New York Daily News (January 3, 1984). 13 Ellin Stein, “Sick of valley girls? Meet the break boys, rappers, and graffiti guerrilla of Charlie Ahearn’s new film,” American Film (November 1983); Robert Palmer, “Rap and Hip-Hop Music in ‘Wild Style’,” New York Times (February 22, 1984). 14 Sally Banes, “Lock Steady,” Voice (October 21-27, 1981). 15 David Hershkovits, “London Rocks, Paris Burns and the B-Boys Break a Leg,” New York Daily News (April 3, 1983). 16 Hershkovits 17 Hershkovits 161 18 In an article on “Body-popping, Jazz and Funk in North England,” Julie Tolley and Ramsay Burt analyze the racial and sexual politics at different clubs. 18 Popping, breaking, and “the new soul-funk dances” were described as “new black styles.” Their discussion includes topics such as whites mimicking blacks, the hyper- sexualization of black women, and black dancing bodies on display. Julie Tolley and Ransay Burt, “Strut Your Funky Stuff! Body-popping, Jazz and Funk in the North of England,” New Dance n26 (Autumn 1983). 19 “Break Dance Wars,” Back Stage (December 2, 1983). 20 As well, these figures were often women. Deborah Harry of the group Blondie is cited as the first rap song to top the pop charts: the 1980 hit “Rapture”. She brief raps in the interlude. Some credit actress and gallery owner Patti Astor with bringing graffiti to the downtown art scene. She would later manage Rock Steady Crew and she shows up at the beginning of Charlie Ahearn’s 1982 cult classic Wild Style playing a version of herself. Also, photographer Martha Cooper is known for her documentation of early graffiti art. 21 The film did unexpectedly well, grossing $10.9 million the first two weeks in 1,069 theaters. Jimmy Summers, “Breakin’,” Box Office 120.6 (July 1984): R-86. 22 Summers 23 Author Salamon compares Breakin’ and Beat Street in her discussion of the filmmaker’s concern about appealing to white audiences: “The makers of this movie [Breakin’], however, seemed to think that white audiences wouldn’t accept a story centered only on black breakdancers. So theirs moves around a young white woman who specializes in the aerobic-style choreography “Flashdance” capitalized on. But “Beat Street,” which opens tomorrow, pulls us into a predominantly black and Hispanic world in the South Bronx.” Julie Salamon, “Film Makers Boogie to the Breakdance Beat,” Wall Street Journal (June 7, 1984). 24 Robert Lindsey, “Dancing in the Streets With a Dream,” New York Times (January 27, 1984). 25 Jeffrey Schmalz, “Deep in the Heart of the Suburbs, Breaking and Shaking Is ‘Fresh,’” New York Times (June 30, 1984). 26 Tom Callahan, “Break Dancers Form Crews and Battle to the Beat,” New York Times (September 23, 1984). 27 Wesley G. Hughes, “Ban on Break Dancing Up for Vote,” Los Angeles Times (March 5, 1984). 28 “San Bernardino Revises Proposed Break-Dance Law,,” Los Angeles Times (March 6, 1984); “Coast City Moves to Ban Break-Dancing in Public,” New York Times (March 6, 1984); Melvin Maddocks, “Give breakdancing a break,” Christian Science Monitor (March 28, 1984); Kevin Grubb, “Banning Breakdancing— Another Fahrenheit 451?,” Dance Magazine (June 1984): 4. 29 Cities like New York and Los Angeles required street performers’ licenses. 30 Robert Goldberg, “’All-American City’ Puts the Freeze on Break Dancers,” The Wall Street Journal (May 1, 1984). 31 Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York: Vintage Book, 1992): 63. 32 International Chiropractic Association, “Breakdancing Can Be Hazardous to Your Health,” Atlanta Daily World (October 21, 1984); “Breakdancing Can Be a Health Risk,” Focus (Oct//Nov 1984): 31. 33 Judith Randal, “Breakdance without breaking your neck,” New York Daily News (July 23, 1984); 34 International Chiropractic Association 162 35 International Chiropractic Association 36 Taylor 145. 37 Ellison writes, “Our fate is to become one, and yet many—this is not prophecy, but description.” Moten makes reference to this line in his discussion of improvisation (63). Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Signet, 1947): 499. 38 Ness4. Personal Interview. 9 Aug 2006. 39 ProfoWon. Personal Interview. 19 May 2009. 40 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon, trans. by Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall John Mepham, and Kate Soper (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972: 82. 41 Spivak’s term builds on Foucault’s term. Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988): 291. 42 Tsing 7. Chapter 5. Ethnographies of Cyphers: Three Scenarios During the course of my field research, I traveled to a number of cities across the U.S. and in parts of Europe focusing primarily on live performance analysis and my own spectatorship experiences in cyphers. My initial impulse at these events was to understand how cyphers work on a basic level. I wanted to understand the formation and dissipation of cyphers, and I expected to be able to talk about such patterns in relation to a quintessential b-boying approach. But my early search for patterns stunted my progress largely because, when it came to the dance, I couldn’t find one. And while I couldn’t find a pattern, I developed an alternative approach to assessing b-boying: judging. The more time I spent at events and the more people I interview, the more insight I gained as to what mattered to judges in a competition. I eventually became focused on figuring out why one person would beat another at a competition. Details I had overlooked in the past demanded my attention: did he repeat his moves?, was she facing her opponent on that freeze?, did he re-holster the gun he pantomimed shooting? I fancied myself a critic of sorts, or at least I put an effort into predicting the outcome of battles. My focus on a winner fed a habit of judging dancers as if every circle were a battle that I was somehow entitled to judge. Ultimately this habit did not serve me, and I knew I had to break myself of it. After a year in the field, I began to see things differently while watching the Zulu Kings in their own circle in 2007. I finally asked myself, “How do I describe K-Mel getting down?” K-Mel is one of the most recognized and talented b-boys in the world. His style is incredibly distinctive and it took some time to figure it out. As a judge I can say that it is obvious that he is good, even great. And then I could check off a long list of qualities he 163 possesses, though that would do little to evoke uniqueness of his approach. I eventually realized there is value in the narrative of my visceral response in cyphers that allows the cypher’s other qualities to inform my research. For example, there is no better way to describe K-Mel’s dancing than to say that watching him is like bearing witness to the Earth shifting on its axis. He would lunge forward like he was falling, then shiver to a horn riff, drop to the floor on the snare, propel his body around and come up again off kilter, seemingly about to crash to the ground yet somehow he managed to stay on beat. He has an unbelievable sense of rhythm. At the same time, he played with the illusion of balance, warping my equilibrium. But that's K-Mel. Watching someone else changes the feel. In another example, from the first time I saw Metal enter an event I was drawn to his focused intensity. He always seemed very much in the moment, and he brought that energy to cyphers. He can create a kind of silence around him, reflective of his own calm demeanor, thereby transforming the cypher’s energy just by stepping into it. Black Pearl brought a different feel. Watching her battle actually changed my breathing. As soon as she danced into the circle, I saw her smirk at her opponent mischievously like she had a trick up her sleeve, and I tensed up in anticipation. My heart rate quickened and only her next series of moves would release me to take another breath. Like Metal, her energy preceded her, and it changed the dynamics of her battle. I remember seeing a b-boy I’ve never met dance so buoyantly that it seemed as if he danced on top of feathers on top of foam. And that’s the power of cyphers. When breakers impart their energy to the surrounding people and I am receptive to it, my world changes. I can feel off balance, calm and focused, breathless, or weightless. The unseen aspect of cyphers becomes more evident as a result. 164 The following three pieces are samples of “cypher scenarios,” moments from my field research that capture a range of impressions, sensations, and understandings about cyphers. These were written long after the fact of their occurrence and with greater detail than I may actually recall. For support, I referred to field notes, interviews, and video footage when available. Regardless, my lengthy descriptions perhaps mythologize my own experiences. Thus, I appreciate Avery Gordon’s efforts to “enable other kinds of sociological information to emerge” by making “the fictional, the theoretical, and the factual speak to one another.” 1 In doing so I am able to capture what may not be empirically self- evident but is nonetheless experientially true. There are two ways that these scenarios are organized. In one sense they are examples of cyphers at an event, a cypher at a block party, and a circle that is not a cypher. But put another way, these stories sample the different dimensions of the dark matter of cyphers. They provide insight into the idealized individual identities that breakers perform. And they touch on the liberatory political thrust of improvisation and competitive collaboration. These are only three samples from attendance at over 60 events in a dozen different cities over the course of three years. Insofar as every cypher is different and no one can represent the whole, these are nonetheless emblematic of the multi-layered quality to cyphering. In their combination, they reveal the degree to which the practice calls forth individual identities and collective experiences. I recognize that my interpretations of these cyphers are deeply subjective. Yet, like cyphers, individual experiences are constitutive of the whole. SCENARIO #1: WALL-TO-WALL CYPHERS Hollywood, California. US-Battle of the Year, August 20, 2006 165 Though it was technically my first time at U.S.-Battle of the Year (BOTY), after six months of research I felt a strong sense of familiarity with the day’s events. This is one of the better known battles. It is a part of dozens of regional crew battles held worldwide that sends its winners to International BOTY in Germany for the world title. Breakers, friends, and admirers are here from across the U.S. (those who can afford the trip), but largely from around the west and southwest regions either to complete or to cypher. We are at a Hollywood club off of Sunset Boulevard on a Sunday afternoon and the long lines hundreds of breakers wait alone The Walk of Fame outside. I see the familiar fashion show of strategically coordinated outfits, functional enough to dance in while still looking cool. And as expected, the lights are low and except for the stage, the venue is a wide open space awaiting the circles that would soon fill it. When I first arrive, the room is largely empty save for a handful of people practicing on the stage or scurrying about to ensure the bar is well stocked with bottled water. Special guests have their passes, and DJs are comfortable. It is nearing 1 o’clock in the afternoon, and the doors will open in an hour. I sit in a darkened corner attending to my camera and watching the scene unfold before me. And as I prepare myself for the day’s undertakings, I feel certain that the event’s “typical” qualities make it representative at best, but not particularly special. U.S.-BOTY is a small scale version of International BOTY. They both follow a certain type of schedule: crews of 8 to 10 members perform for five minutes of choreographed stage shows, from which the top four crews then battle for a variety of cash and prizes, including a trip to Germany. Interspersed between shows and guess performances is open cyphering time. Because International BOTY is so much larger (with attendance of about 15,000 people) it is geared more toward state shows. In contrast, U.S.- 166 BOTY attempts to split its time as evenly as possible between the stage and the open cyphering time. PoeOne, its organizer, “make[s] it a priority to have cyphers,” and this time he is successful. 2 The calm of the hour preceding the opening has passed and within only a couple of hours of the event’s start, there are wall-to-wall cyphers. Each one borders on multiple others such that at one point, all I have to do is turn around and I am on the outskirts of a different circle. It seems like there is always something to see. The low lighting summons a focus from the spectators and dancers alike, but outbursts from the enthusiastic crowds constantly break my concentration and beckon me in multiple directions at once. By this time, I am well rehearsed at being an active spectator in the circle so I transition with ease. Over time and with experience I have learned that I am as much a part of the unfolding scene as I am an observer of it. My early attempts for impartial and even distant observation left me feeling like an intruder—I was taking up space rather than being a part of the dynamic between spectators and dancers. But there is no pure observation in cyphering. At the moment I enter the circle, I become a participant in it. There are unspoken rules for those of us that do not dance that allow circles to persist since spectators are as necessary to a cypher as breakers (and on this occasion the two categories overlap more often than not). Being a spectator is a responsibility and over time I have learned the ropes. To be in the circle is to recognize what I will presumptively call The Rules of Spectatorship in B-boying Cyphers: 1. It is imperative that you express yourself. If you really like something, if it looks painful, if this is your song, it needs to come out. Your reactions matter. They feed a 167 breaker’s desire to perform in the first place and are your part of the energy exchange. 2. The shorter you are, the less you’ll see. Accept it. 3. (Perhaps because of #2), getting on the floor or climbing to higher ground for a better view may be a good idea. You may risk getting stepped on or losing your balance but sometimes it’s worth because the moment is fleeting and unrepeatable. 4. Stand your ground. Don’t let people push you around and only move as far as you must to keep your spot (if it’s good). If you don’t, you will quickly find yourself in the very back, only able to see the flailing legs of someone’s footwork. 5. Clearly then, “rude” is flexible. For example, it is not wrong to take advantage of an open space by stepping directly in front of someone else. 6. With that said, dancers have priority over spectators. They will and should step in front of you if it’s convenient for them. In that same vein, children and crew members will do the same. In this case, it is in poor taste to ask them to get out of your way or to step in front of them if you’re not dancing. 7. And finally, don’t get hit. Footwork is quick and unpredictable, and it can hurt if you're not careful. If you get hit, shake it off because unless you’re bleeding you may not get any sympathy or attention. In other words, it’s not about you. I don’t remember exactly when or how I learned these lessons. I suppose after being pushed to the back, stepped on, kicked, and criticized for not being more engaged I learned to adjust. My rules are committed to memory—stored alongside the names and faces of b-girls and b-boys, all of which comes in handy as I maneuver through the environment. PoeOne asked me to tape the event so my camera makes it easier to finagle my way into inner circles 168 or to shoo people from blocking my view. (In this case, video cameras generally were prohibited, thus mine was the exception. Most breakers welcome being recorded, perhaps to check out their own moves, or for to get free footage of themselves, or possibly to make it onto the official event DVD.) But even with the particular advantage of one of the few cameras, getting through the crowd is at times laborious. Sometimes raising the camera overhead and shooting out of my own lines of sight is the best that I can do. On this occasion, the drama sometimes plays out before me as if I am not a part of it. The two inch LCD screen on my mini-DV recorder made it seem as if I was watching TV. Added to, the act of taping—of centering the frame on the dancer on the floor—often cuts the crowd off at the knees. There’s always some move, a gesture from an onlooker, a back story to a battle that I am unaware of that fuels the performance. By subordinating the crowd’s reaction, I lose sight of a fundamental aspect of cyphers—the dynamic between dancers and spectators. To focus on one means missing some part of the other—like overhearing a telephone conversation between two people, one in the room with me and the other a faint voice over the phone. I can understand, but only partially. Keeping the ground-center of a cypher in the frame cuts the movement as well. B- boying is a deliciously erratic and unexpected art. I can never foresee where someone will move next. That of course is as unpredictable as how one decides to move. For example, the centrifugal revolutions that characterize much of b-boying’s footwork typically shift rather swiftly between clockwise and counterclockwise motions. I say typically insofar as I know the direction will likely change, though I do not know when, how, and to what degree. These revolutions, which could become a pattern, are further disrupted by the angularity of one’s limbs jutting out to balance or to purposefully change the body’s shape while in 169 motion. Thus my recording bypasses details (e.g. facial expressions or quick gestures) in favor of the big moves, sometimes sacrificing those elements that help to establish the “conversation” between and amongst dancers and spectators. And that is a problem. The conversation is the very thing that makes me feel involved. That night I hope I record as much as I miss but resign myself to the footage’s inevitable incompleteness. Ultimately, my perspective is merely one aspect of a larger dynamic that evades finality. Even with the camera, in the midst of a particularly intense cypher it is impossible to feel completely separate. As the speakers belt out the urgent beats of Afro-Cuban jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria’s rendition of The Temptations’ 1968 hit “Cloud 9,” the room collectively grooves to a song my parents might have when they were younger than I am now and that’s when I feel something I can only describe as a connection. On one level, I feel like I have somehow managed to tap into a vibe with the music that is several generations old, placing me in a spectrum of people spanning a younger version of my parents in the ‘70s to the band of 7 to 12 year olds grooving in the cyphers today. On another level, the song also reminds me that this is one of many examples of my Hip Hop education: b-boying has taught me about music, creativity, self-expression, and self- possession. I ride that feeling of connection and understanding and, in so doing, I become more fully a part of the cypher’s conversation. I become mentally distant yet physically enveloped as time passes. That is, I lose a conscious memory of the specifics of each cypher: backspins, contortionist back bends, and moves that send a breaker’s legs propelling around her body all blend together. Someone walks up and asks me if I got footage of them in the cypher I have just left, and I honestly cannot remember. On the other hand, my body is completely engulfed in the experience. 170 There is no “personal space.” I feel the b-girl next to me taking in gulps of air as she rises from the floor with sweat trickling down her brow, a testament to her hard work. I can feel the chest of the man behind me as he presses forward in an attempt to look overhead, and when he shifts the tickle of air tells me he’s left a sweat spot on my shirt. I can smell the breath of the boy next to me every time he cries out in pleasure or disappointment. And I am leaning on someone I do not know. My hair brushes across another’s shoulder each time I move for a better view. More so than anything, a heat emanates from our bodies, confounded by that of others in the dozen or so circles surrounding us. A sweaty-funk rises with the heat, turning the club into a stuffy sauna only with the aroma of a gym. But I get used to it, barely able to distinguish my neighbor’s scent from my own. It is an extremely sensual and tactile experience. And it all happens as we each bob our heads to the music vibrating the floor. The music’s audaciously high volume becomes voluminous—a thick, full substance spilling out of the speakers and filling the room’s capacity, becoming the very thing we dance on and in. It is our common playground. We do not need to have the same intentions or interpretations. But we are together in this experience. The circle begins to close in on itself, and we press together even further, greedily wanting to see and feel more. I feel sometimes so hungry for more that my stomach grumbles. The more into it we are, the closer we have to get, acting as if proximity is praise. There is something in our close-knit gathering that amplifies a force powerful enough to cinch us together, as if we wrapped an invisible belt around ourselves and pulled in toward one another without resistance. Whatever space there is available becomes something to fill. Only rush hour on the subway would be an apt comparison. Except to truly comprehend that moment, one would have to imagine the tightly packed subway filled with people 171 anxiously attempting to read the same newspaper article over one guy’s shoulder. Cyphers generate their own gravitational pull, growing increasingly forceful with each exchange between dancers. I recognize what I now call dark matter at work. It is simultaneously strange and completely organic. But that force never lasts. While the tipping point is unclear, sometime during a cypher’s peak intensity is also the moment of its demise. The more densely formed they are, the less those in the back can see to the point where they stop trying and simply walk away to join another or to start their own. And as people depart, whatever accumulated in our density begins to fade as well. The hot, sweat-cramped gathering slowly expands like a clean, deep breath after which we relax into our individual selves again. If I stayed in place, I’d bet money that another circle would slowly form in the other’s wake, invigorated with the possibility of building a similar force. But I keep moving from one circle to another, and they become one extended cypher. Admittedly, each circle has its own life. Not every one gets so intense that s/he tightens in with the group. And while cyphers often start from a couple of admirers surrounding a compelling breaker just beginning to cut loose, sometimes cyphers do not find their rhythm; they fall apart before they’ve even really begun. But from a bird’s eye view, the continual formation and dispersal of each cypher has the pattern of pebbles dropped in a pond—rippling and ever-fluctuating circles continually flowing in, out, and over each other. Where one starts to form, another is urgently rushing toward its demise. The cyphers here are always multiple and necessarily interconnected. Though situated in a particular spot in the room, cyphers move like waves. 172 Despite the natural ebb and flow of cyphers, sometimes something rocks them to an abrupt halt. In the midst of making my rounds to the different circles, for one brief second everything stops! The next thing I know, I am scooped up unexpectedly into a swarm of people rushing toward the center of the room. I knew a fight has (almost?) broken out, but why and who is involved? Though this is equally an aspect of my research, I almost feel embarrassed for wanting to get it on tape, as if I have reverted to a 12 year old in the schoolyard at lunch. At the same time, I do want to see but in the seconds it takes me to regain a steady footing and to figure out exactly where to divert my attention, it’s over. I am there in time to see two heated young men being held back by friends as they are pushed and pulled into neutral corners. They are familiar faces and I realize that this fight is a carry over from the previous night’s pre-party—a small contest on a small stage in a corner of a car show held at the very spacious Los Angeles Convention Center. Two b-boys that I did not know had pointedly challenged members of the Zulu Kings. The challenge was largely ignored but it was clear that tensions were rising. Nothing had come of it, or so I thought, until now. The back story is lost on me save for the assumptions I can draw when I am told the ominous adopted name of the other crew: The Zulu Killers. Whatever the beef had been, it has overflowed into today’s cyphers, likely amplified by them. Whereas I experience a tactile connection, others feel an angrier passion in the heat of competition. The grumblings of gossip had already begun, mingling with the inquiries from those just as ignorant as me. It is not the only near-fight of the evening. Soon after this first incident I witness the tail end of what I can only describe as a young girl taking swings at some guy and bouncers threatening to escort her out. I know even less about this fight. Despite these 173 interruptions, it does not take long for cyphers to resume. The evening proceeds as if uninterrupted. By 11 PM, my body tells me in no uncertain terms that I have been standing, squatting, angling, reaching, and sitting crossed legged for over 9 hours. I am suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted. Whatever daze I must have fallen into that allowed so many hours to pass without my noticing finally lifts. I have not felt this cathartic lapse in consciousness since the pre-Carnival parading through the streets of Port-of-Prince Trinidad several years earlier, where I danced and shuffled along with the crowd that held me up from 2 AM to 10:30 that morning non-stop. On both occasions, I lost a sense of time, having tapped into some inexplicable reserve of energy that I cannot seem to find on any other day. It isn’t that time stops but it at least slows down, feeling more like only a couple of hours has passed—one long, cypher. During my haze I am not achy or fatigued: just present. But that’s over. In that last 15 minutes or so, all 9+ hours rushed at me at once. I am dog tired, despite that I now need to actually speak to people, introduce or re-introduce myself, take pictures, make appointments. The thought of more work pains me, and I wasn’t even dancing! Those who were walk around literally dripping with sweat and smiling from ear to ear, energized by their exertions. Some change into the spare clothes they brought in anticipation of the cold air outside. Others opt instead to just take off their shirts altogether, allowing their young muscles to cool off naturally in the stuffy club. By this time, the lights have come up full blast, the club’s way of telling you to get out! The lights also tell us that the place where cyphers reigned is no longer here. I can see everyone’s faces clearly now. The music is off, and we can speak freely. The club isn’t all that special, losing the sensuality and 174 kinetic energy that held us all together. For those few hours, b-boying was its own world and cyphering was the path to get there. I have heard of this kind of transportation to another sense of place and time. It makes me think of stories I’ve read of church revivals and club culture. Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin each write of such religious practices that echo over distances. 3 Often set in small southern country towns or urban storefront churches, the story typically involves select groups of believers that sing and dance their praises to God far into the wee hours of the night. I can almost see them like movies: the camera pans back from a mossy green and languid forest, increasingly distant from what becomes a speck of light deep in the canopy across still rivers as the sun rises, and still the voices of shouted prayers linger in the dawn. On the other hand, it also echoes with the late, legendary lindy hopper Frankie Manning’s tales of his early dancing days in Harlem clubs in the 1930s. 4 He spends all night in the Cat’s Corner at the Savoy Ballroom, a circle of only the best lindy hoppers performing their acrobatic leaps and seductive gyrations to live jazz until the sun comes up. As he drags himself home at dawn, appearing to others as the young man out drinking and carousing with women all night, he passes the church folk and the workers who in contrast have risen early to begin their day of reverence and responsibility respectively. This b-boying event has these two sides—spiritual in its expression and earthly in its form. Both perform a marathon of movement and music to get to some other psychic or spiritual place, or perhaps some other level of being: of divine proximity or the most prolific expression of one’s self. They share a sense of elevation and elation. While typically reserved for those works bordering on the surreal, the marvelous, or the supernatural, when I think of the type of transport that cyphering engenders, I consider 175 it a part of the fantastic. Beyond notions of literary or cinematic genre, the fantastic is a useful concept, because it is situated between a material and psychic reality. That is, the fantastic isn’t merely a play in fantasy or the realm of the imagination vis-à-vis “the real world,” but a concept that destabilizes a fixed relationship between the two. The fantastic makes clear that reality versus fantasy is not a stable dichotomy. Rather, it is a hesitation on the threshold between the two. In the interstice between a material and psychic reality, between what you see and what you know to be possible, between the Hollywood club where we paid an entrance fee to listen, dance, and compete to music and the sensual socio- cultural world I dove into that is both created by and accessed through cyphering—this in- between is the fantastic. It isn’t a separate, counter-, or alternative reality but a shift in perception and perspective of what is actually happening. 5 It is very real to those who experience it. While this recalls anthropologist Victor Turner’s notion of liminality in ritual processes, there are key differences between his concept and my experience. The in- between of the fantastic is not a rite of passage where the liminal neophyte uses the ritual to move into the social structure. 6 Though I do see cyphers as rituals, the fantastic is a concept that highlights the invisible world made experientially evident through material practices. That is, the fantastic dimension of cyphering reveals relationships and experiences that are invisible to the naked eye, like the connection across and in time that I felt through the music. They are practices of understanding rather than a means to an end. And while this collectivity of cyphering is temporary and rife with conflicting emotions and competing interests that can erupt in fisticuffs, it is not just that. In my experience, it has been more about the far reaches of individual creative capacity coupled with an enthusiastic and 176 invested spectatorship. Their combination reveals a space where hopeful possibility gives way to lived experience—that what could be…is. For me, the sense of cultural lineage, of sensual envelopment, and even of a fierce desire to ingest the moment as if it were nourishment are defining qualities to my experiences as a spectator in b-boying cyphers. What I’m suggesting is that the change in one’s perception or the willing acceptance of a non-empirical reality is as impactful to the experience as the material conditions of the club itself. That is the fantastic. The shift in perception is dark matter but the fantastic is where that shift can take me. In retrospect, all of the things that make cyphers special are also the things that I took for granted in the expectations I cultivated during the course of my research. I also realize that not every b-boying jam is able to achieve the feat of wall-to-wall cyphers as at the 2006 U.S. preliminaries to Battle of the Year. Creating an environment where they can thrive is worth acknowledging. Cyphers are extraordinary in their own distinct and unassuming way, despite their ubiquity. There is more to them than meets the eye, more than even I initially realized. And while they are not always extraordinary and can even be quite unspectacular at times, there is a great deal of room to find ones that moves you. SCENARIO #2: OF PIONEERS AND COMMUNITY Bronx, New York. B-Boy All Stars Block Party, August 13, 2006 My work for the day is less time consuming than usual. I expect to head home. I wrap up a 45-minute interview with Kid Glyde—a strong and talented young man in his 20s from Dynamic Rockers crew, who in true b-boy bravado declares his own good looks and talent with the t-shirt that reads, “Your Girlfriend’s Favorite B-boy.” We conduct the interview in the hallway just outside of the training room and now, as I re-return to it to 177 touch bases with a few more people, I contemplate my plans for the rest of the evening. It is after 6 o’clock and I am on 99 th Street on the east side of Manhattan, considering whom to meet up with for dinner in Brooklyn. I am among several people milling around: some there to say their goodbyes, others just arriving likely to provide rides home or to meet up for upcoming excursions. But as I look around to assure myself that I am in fact done, Kid Glyde approaches me as if he has forgotten to tell me something important. He smiles briefly, gesturing to the woman beside and says rather softly, “Oh, um this is Peaches. She’s a popper.” Glyde seems certain that this introduction is valuable to my work, and though I’m not I shake her hand and introduce myself. Shortly thereafter, Peaches—a tall, middle- aged, blond, white woman—looks down at me, smiles, and announces with the boisterousness characteristic of a New Yorker, “There’s a block party in the Bronx right now. Do you wanna go?” She shows me the email announcement she printed out, now only a crumpled piece of paper. The event is put on by the B-Boy Allstars, whose name is the only indication I have that this may be of particular interest to me. She does not seem totally familiar with the group either, but she’s certain the block party will be worth the journey. She came to practice to invite Glyde whom she has known since he was a child, and Glyde thought to invite me. B-Boy Allstars is a community event’s organization headed by Veronica Star, a “b- boy events organizer”, who is also the host MC for the evening. The block party is well under way, having taken up the entire Sunday afternoon. If we are lucky we can catch the last hour or so. I heartily accept the invitation, despite having no idea how to get there. Peaches graciously offers to let me ride with her and so, on a Sunday evening I unexpectedly 178 make my way to the Bronx. I don’t know exactly where I’m going or how I will get home to Brooklyn, but I’m happily game for whatever comes my way. On the drive over, I get a chance to chat with Peaches. I tell her about my project, and in turn she tells me about the Hip Hop scene in the early 80s and her audition for the movie Beat Street. She describes how she heard about today’s event, and then she tells me that her boyfriend—who she should have been on her way home to see—is certain already to be angry about this unknown detour. Though she might come off as a bit brash at first, she is too good-natured for me to ever take offense. So I sit back and listen to her jokingly admonish herself, mimicking the colorful language her boyfriend will likely hurl at her later that night, softening the harsh words with her own laughter. I am not sure how to respond, so I laugh with her while trying to pay attention to the route we take toward our destination. Upon arrival to Watson Gleason Park on Rosedale Avenue, we search for parking. I am relieved to see the train tracks overhead, acting as the trail that I will follow to find my way home later that night. I hadn’t spent much time in the Bronx with the exception of the occasional interview or event. It is unfamiliar territory with a very different look than where I’m staying in Brooklyn. The concrete feels like it has taken over the landscape, re-casting everything in cement. Despite the few trees along the street, to my California sensibilities everything seems aggressively gray, reminding me that this is The City. Parking is scarce, especially for Peaches’ bulky black SUV but it does not take too long to find a spot, and I am soon following her toward the music a couple of blocks ahead. Music is always a sign of what is to come. Having started several hours prior to our arrival, the block party has gone through a number of live performers, singers, dancers, rappers, and community leaders. They have also had a number of respected DJs on the 179 turntables, including Grand Wizard Theodore and Funk Master Flex. I am not sure who is on now, but I hear mention of the Grand Wizard, and I get a little excited to hear the legendary DJ of the Fantastic Five live at a block party. As we walk towards the music bellowing out from the DJ tent, I quickly survey the area and familiarize myself with the layout. By the time we arrive, the bulk of the block party’s attendees have left, but there are still at least a couple of hundred people listening to music, watching the kids run around, sitting back with their neighbors, and enjoying the summer weather. The street party is demarcated on one side by a row of homes painted in burnt reds, giving me my first sense of color and comfort. On the other side of the street are a park and a playground enclosed behind a cell of chain-link fences. Vendors selling hot dogs, meal plates, and various sweets seasoned the streets but are not in abundance by the time we arrive. Yet the block is still overrun with children who seem to have jurisdiction over the festivities. The theme for this event is “Raising Kings and Queens,” indicating in fact that this is all about them. The kids swarm the streets with the freedom and ease of being in their own backyards. They are numerous and a little scruffy after the day’s adventures, marked by skinned knees and ice- cream stains on slightly over-sized t-shirts within which skinny pre-pubescent bodies have plenty of room to grow. They’re laughing ecstatically with and at others in the crowd, tagging each other in an endless game of being “it”, and undoubtedly slightly high from the sugared sweets they’ve gotten some adult to buy for them from the one ice cream truck camped out on the corner. It is, after all, summer time and a block party to boot. There isn’t much time left, according to Ms. Star on the mic. Before I can decide what to eat, Peaches brings an old friend over to meet me, someone she concludes that I need to know. His dance name is Cartoon. He is African American man in his early 40s, 180 and he’s wearing a beat up blue t-shirt and jeans. He is a popper, like Peaches, and their friendship dates back to the early 1980s. He too auditioned for Beat Street, but his part ended up on the cutting room floor. He tells me this at least twice, and he still remembers the exact amount of the check he received: $542, not the $25 paid to extras. This is proof perhaps of the size of his role despite being edited out. His nostalgia reveals a disappointment over what might have been. It is as if he’s telling me, “You would’ve known who I am. I would not have needed an introduction. But you should talk to me for your book anyway.” Cartoon is someone who missed the opportunities for wealth and notoriety in Hip Hop’s first commercial explosion. He blames it on his ignorance of the business— not having a manager who would ensure that he stayed in the picture. Instead, he depended on his talent, certain that it would take him to new heights. Today, he revels in the opportunity to tell his story, to dance and train on occasions, and to meet the legends of popping that he’s admired for decades whenever such opportunities present themselves. Cartoon’s story saddens me a little but I can see in his eyes how heartfelt he is about Hip Hop. These past experiences, even with all of their disappointments, still mean a great deal to him. He tells me later that, “It was the most beautifulest time in my life.” 7 I take his information so I can arrange for a sit-down interview in the coming weeks. I am in the Bronx—the birthplace of Hip Hop—and I wonder who else around me had this same experience. I wander to the very edges of the block party just shy of the music’s outermost reaches just to explore. It takes less than ten minutes to walk to one end and back, but somehow in my absence a quickly thickening cypher has already formed. I rush to join the stream of people who have the same idea, starting on the circle’s outskirts and making my 181 way to its interior where I break out the camera. Everything about this circle feels different from cyphers at events. This circle is well ventilated in the open air environment instead of a too close sticky distraction. And because it’s so bright, as the sun has only just begun to go down, I can see everything clearly. I notice most is that it doesn’t exactly stay in the same spot like at battles, and no other circles sprout up around it. What is quite distinctive is that instead of closing in on itself, this circle moves. It undulates and swells with new spectators who gently force it to shift, a little to the left, a little bit forward. We are never quite centered on the cardboard boxes that have been flattened and held in place with silver duct tape on which to dance. And as more people hear the circle’s beckoning call, they nudge us collectively to and fro. Though we only move a foot or two in any direction, it feels like we are adrift, unanchored and unencumbered in the wide open space. This cypher is a living entity, an organism that breathes in and out with a familiar, steady rhythm. But it is an organism formed by the combination of dozens of separate little acts enthusiastically twitching all around me. It’s not just the heads bobbing and hands clapping to the music, though there is that too. People are inviting others to the center, continually moving about so their friends can see or dance. Kids bounce around at any opportunity to get on camera. And in the midst of it all, people are re-connecting with one another: shaking hands, giving hugs, shouting greetings across the circle. Normally I associate this behavior with a distracted disinterest in the cypher, but this time it is quite the opposite. The circle provides the opportunity to literally come together, to get re- acquainted. The cypher embodies a community spirit. I get to the circle not long before Cartoon steps in. He has a focused look on his face, undistracted by the clapping that accompanies his entry. Cartoon struts into the circle 182 as if he were stepping into the song itself. Each part of his body seems to move separately to the music: his legs move to the left, his torso faces the right, and his hand turns the brim of his baseball cap to the left, creating the illusion that his body is segmented and moving in three different directions at once. The DJ starts to loop a beat and manipulate it through the textured overlay of his scratching. Cartoon begins to send waves through his arms and then through his torso, following the flow of the music. For several seconds, the extended scratching seems to mask the beat altogether and each time the music breaks from its own continuity, Cartoon breaks his flow mid-wave and turns his body in a new direction as if to start again. He uses the music’s repetition and its breaks to circle around himself and establish new patterns with his body, using waves and twitches to match the cut and flow of the music. He lowers his body to the floor and comes up again, but never stops moving. He acts as if the waves he initiates with his outstretched arms create small windows through which he attempts to maneuver the rest of his body in the same rippling manner. His approach in this circle and to this song is about performing within the confines of his physical and imagined conditions. There is something symbolic in the performed effort to negotiate the tiny spaces he creates around himself. And though at times he appears a little stiff, he seems satisfied when he completes his turn. After he steps to the side, he ends with arms outstretched like one presenting a beautiful buffet for the next dancer: it is someone else’s turn to feast. The clapping resumes. Some nod their heads in approval. A young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders taps out the DJ’s beats on his head. And a b-boy anxiously jumps in as if he’s been waiting for hours. The cypher continues. A competitive spirit is there, but only minimally so. After one dancer finishes, I wait to see which shimmying person lining the inner circle will take the opportunity to bask in 183 everyone’s attention and build on what the person preceding them has contributed. And while I have the distinct impression that each dancer certainly tries to be better than the last, people are more responsive to the effort rather than the best dancers. It is a circle that is open to anyone. There are only 4 or 5 b-boys breaking or toprocking. A couple of men do an unfamiliar footwork that reminds me of an especially rhythmic game of hopscotch. There are poppers who slowly gesticulate each and every joint and muscle in their bodies. And one little boy performs some unwitting combination of the Funky Chicken and a Michael Jackson leg jerk with the finger snap. It doesn’t seem to matter what people do because it all fits some kind of way. And after each turn, everyone claps or they pat each other on the back in praise of the effort. Because so many children are present, this circle also becomes an opportunity for them to try their hand at cyphering, as well and to learn how to participate. At one point, three young boys looking for the camera’s attention get in the circle together while a dancer patiently waits for them to finish. Seeing this, a young girl probably not much older than the little boys themselves, snatches one of them by the collar. He looks to her surprised and I see him ask, “WHY?” But she can’t be bothered with an explanation and impatiently motions for him to get out of the way, pointing to where he should stand to wait his turn. In that instant, he learns to respect the circle and the dancers in it. …And the cypher continues. As one young man finishes a hand stand pirouette and leaves the circle, his friend excitedly pats his arm and points a finger at Peaches as she readies herself to enter the circle. When Peaches steps in, giving off a self-assured yet unassuming air, she takes a quick pause, forcing the crowd’s suspense. Then she begins to pulsate and twitch. With the anticipation she somehow built in the couple of seconds preceding her start, the crowd explodes with a 184 passionate zeal from the moment of her first full body spasm. Peaches juxtaposes mechanical staccatos and wave-like fluidity. Her strong arms robotically guide her body in one direction while popping her muscles to the beat as her head moves in the other. Then she sends a wave through her entire body, down her frame and then up through it again. Each time she contracts her muscles and turns to face a new person in the crowd, she leans forward with an unfaltering intensity in her gaze. Then she holds her hands up, palms forward, and fingers spread wide so that when she pulses her body, I half expect bolts of lightening to actually shoot out of her hands like it is her super power. Each shockwave reverberates into her shoulder-length, straight, blond hair that trembles along with her black, sleeveless jersey so that she appears to be vibrating. When she finishes, instead of a congratulatory clap, there is applause. The crowd cheers like their favorite player scored the winning point. Some jump up and down enthusiastically. Others raise their hands in the air—gestures of praise, appreciation, and understanding. People give her high fives, pats on the back, and yell accolades in her honor. Cartoon gives her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And a little girl who has gleefully watched Peaches transform the rhythm of the music though her body under the appreciating eyes of the whole block goes to give her a hug. Peaches picks up the little girl, hugs her tightly, and then deposits her back on the ground careful to keep her out of the way of the little boy who is finally able to take his turn. “Shout out to Peaches! Pioneer popper, locker. What up Peaches!? Representing for the ladies!” In the sea of sun-kissed brown faces, I notice expressions of admiration, pleasure, and enthusiastic recognition. It is as if the whole community has a stake in Peaches’ momentary triumph. She draws the most cheers, not because she is the best dancer but 185 because she seems to represent something. While it may be a factor, I’m not convinced that it is because she is the only white person in the circle. It may be because she is the only woman who dances in the cypher. Then again, she also represents a generation of early Hip Hop dancers that many of the young people surrounding her might not recognize as “pioneers” in their own right. It seems contradictory to suggest that the qualities that make Peaches stand out from the crowd are the very things that others relate to the most. On the one hand, from the outside she may appear to be a marginalized person who I’m not even sure is from this neighborhood in the Bronx. On the other hand, though under-recognized, she is a local celebrity who refuses to be forgotten. And if you didn’t know her before, well now you do. Peaches may not be famous but she is respected because she can still get in a cypher and make you remember her name. And the cypher continues… The host, Veronica Star, invades the music’s continuity with her commentary but doesn’t invade the cypher’s flow. Her words propel the activity forward. “Throw your hands up if you’re form Brooklyn?!” Instead of the customary hoots and hollers this question might typically elicit on another occasion or in another borough, here people boo instead. Expecting this, she tries again. “Is Queens in the House? Queens? …Queens was never in the house.” I see Kid Glyde laugh incredulously. Since the Dynamic Rockers originally hail from Queens, his response to her taunts is to jump in the circle to show and prove that Queens is represented, even if it is just him. I have so often seen Kid Glyde battle with such seriousness and ferocity that it is refreshing to see him smile. In a battle, he may smirk to mock or even warn an opponent of there impending downfall but this time Glyde dances with a convivial and relaxed approach that never impedes the momentum of 186 his swift footwork or his quick hip shimmies (like a good salsero), while weaving his feet in and around each other and unwittingly wearing down the cardboard underfoot. “What about Manhattan? Anybody from Manhattan in here?” A few people cheer half-heartedly. Then finally she asks, “What about the BRONX!! Throw ‘em up!” Hands shoot up and the cheers are boisterous. This time the DJ chimes in: “Yo, if you go to any other borough and they sayin’ that they started Hip Hop, they lyin’. It started right up here in the Boogie Down Bronx. Bronx River y’all!” This is part of the Bronx’s history. Though Glyde responds to an implied challenge to represent Queens, his dancing in response to Veronica Star’s quips is precisely what happens in cyphers. That is, cyphers move forward by way of each dancer building on the work of the last, responding to the implied call of the previous dancer. Star begins a call and response that echoes the back and forth conversation already in action in the circle. 8 Call and response is an interactive process usually reserved for instrumental and vocal musical performances where a soloist initiates a sequence of interaction by calling out either instructions, a verse, or in this case predictive questions. Then a chorus responds with the anticipated response. It is a conversational performance style that is particularly prominent in the African diaspora, from Akan funeral dirges in Ghana, to corn shucking and work songs in the plantation South, on to the “conversational mode” of the soulful funk of James Brown or P-Funk. 9 The call-response dynamic is what James Snead calls the dictation of cuts in the structure of repetition. Snead describes the use of repetition in black cultures as a social process that is open to interruption, conversation, and cuts that call and response organizes into the performance. He specifies that repetition merely describes the process of beginning again, not the manner or style of its repeating. Thus the responses to Star’s questions are an 187 ensemble of diverse statements, gestures, and performances, overlapping yet communal. Several scholars have linked call and response to circle practices as both break down a performer-spectator separation in favor of a social engagement that centers improvisation. H. Samy Alim points out that call and response is evident on “the oral/aural, physical (body), and spiritual/metaphysical level.” 10 All of the senses, including a spiritual one, are involved in call and response. Folklorist Roger D. Abrahams, in his analysis of call and response in “ring play” or circle practices among enslaved African Americans, remarks that everyone in the circle was expected to participate in “keeping up the sprit,” which was part of the utility of call and response. “Keeping up the spirit” was a kind of double duty, demanding one attend to one’s own spirit and thus simultaneously keep the spirit or energy of the circle as a whole elevated as well. It contributes to what Alim writes of as “complete[ing] the cipher (the process of constantly making things whole).” 11 This block part seems a part of a process of making things whole. Namely, the cypher as a mix of verbal and danced calls and responses puts the Bronx’s Hip Hop history into action. The specter of the past is all the more present with Cartoon’s and Peaches’ stories running through my head. Here Hip Hop birthed superheroes and it continues to do so. As much as this event is about the Bronx, this cypher is also about the people— Cartoon, Peaches, Glyde, and others. From knowing aspects of their stories, I am able to appreciate how much cyphering allows them to set aside their everyday identities and protective outer shells. In this cypher, Kid Glyde can finally be the easy-going guy rather than the competitive b-boy. With Cartoon, his drive toward complete self-expression overtakes past disappointments, allowing him to be the dancer he has always recognized in himself. And with Peaches, there’s something to how the circle has come together even 188 more to honor and envelope her that suggests that who she is able to be is at least partially a product of the community’s recognition. It’s not that her identity is dependent on others. Rather, when Peaches is in a cypher, she is like the superhero version of herself. There are no Clark Kents here because everybody has to be her inner Superman. Part of the symbolic value of the superhero persona is in the performance itself—the costume, the name, and in this case the dancing—because in that performance, the hero is allowed to take on the role freely, unencumbered by any expectations of ordinariness. And that’s when we are able to see them fly. The circle calls Peaches; she responds with a dance, thereby sending out her own call for recognition of her extraordinary self, and the cypher responds in recognition, likely motivating the next person to get in there themselves. People understand that cyphers can bring out the best in someone, or at least their effort to get there. There is a communal strength in resurrecting local heroes who act as proof in support of origin stories of Hip Hop in the Bronx. Abrahams argues that, “the ring comes to represent the ideal of community bringing itself into being through the chanter-response performance.” 12 This cypher actualizes the community’s self-representation as Hip Hop, and that reality was brought into being in part by the individual performances. SCENARIO #3: THE CIRCLE WITHOUT THE SHOW Braunschweig, Germany. International Battle of the Year. October 19, 2006 I have traveled to Europe in search of cyphers. I assume they will be at every event I attend in my three week trip. While most large events in the US have at least one overseas crew competing and can be deemed “international,” I am finally attending jams outside of the U.S. I schedule my itinerary around three events: the UK B-Boy Championships in London, a week of Hip Hop dance classes taught by world renowned performers called 189 “Style Is King” in Thun Switzerland, and International Battle of the Year (BOTY) in Braunschweig Germany. BOTY is an annual culmination of approximately 20 preliminary breaking competitions worldwide, touching on nearly every continent. Upwards of 15,000 people attend it from across the globe but largely from Europe. People’s feelings about BOTY range between two extremes: some aspire to attend it at least once in their breaking lives while others see it is an Olympic-sized spectacle that reduces b-boying to a sport rather than a dance. My feelings about the event fall somewhere in between. Regardless, it is the event I have come to anticipate the most. When I arrive at Volkswagenhalle several hours before the event, I am immediately impressed by the massive 126,000 sq. ft. arena. There are a few dozen people milling around in small groups of 4 to 6, taking pictures of the building and, like me, checking out the space long before the lines start to form. With time on my hands I decide to go for food and return in a couple of hours to find a massive line zigzagging from the front doors, across the length of the hall, to within a few feet of the street. Vendors walk around selling pretzels, and a large jeep with Red Bull Energy Drink logos on it is blasting the b-boying break beats that I have come to associate with the steady-growing intensity of cyphers. The grooves of soul, funk, Hip Hop, and Latin freestyle, blast from the open doors of the jeep and the large speakers attached to it. Heads nod, and lips follow along in familiar recognition. And as I walk towards the hall I see it: about 150 people crowded around in a circle. Their backs are to me but from their body language I can tell that their attentions are focused on the center of a circle. I don’t hear much crowd response with the exception of the occasional spattering of applause, but I know that cyphers hold unpredictable wonders. I am nonetheless certain that with all of these people, something of interest is going on, and I 190 want to be apart of it. I make a bee-line toward the circle and ease my way to a better view. I feel a mix of anticipation and hopeful curiosity. At moments like this, the kid in me demands, “I want to see that too!,” in hopes of taking part in this special yet fleeting moment. But as I join the others in the circle my excitement deflates, giving way to confusion and disappointment. There is no one in the circle. There is no scuffle between dancers to enter the circle. I don’t even have to struggle to get a good spot to see. After the next dancer, I begin to understand why. The first person I see enter the circle skips his way towards the middle with a sheepish grin on his face, and without transition or attention to the music, he moves toward the ground. He begins to balance on one hand and then pump his legs up and down to lift his body briefly in the air only to land again and again on that hand. He executes this move, called a hand hop, well enough. But after several hops, he eventually loses his balance and stumbles to the ground. But he proceeds to try it again…and then again, completing as many as 20 overall before walking the several feet back to the circle’s borders. In the context of a performance, hand hops can be attention-grabbing. But he repeats them ad infinitum, which becomes monotonous. He leaves slightly embarrassed but with hints of accomplishment for entering in the first place. Another enters, but little has changed. Each new dancer focuses on executing a single move—e.g. head spins or contortionist style freezes. Many fall and then attempt the move again. But no one actually dances. Moreover, I don’t think I have ever seen someone simply walk out of a circle. Then again, they are rarely so large as to warrant that many steps. It is an odd experience. The audience claps respectfully, and the lull between dancers resumes. We continue to wait and watch an empty circle with the uncertain expectation that eventually someone will do something exciting. 191 I admit that this circle is clearly intimidating. At over 20 feet across, it is uncharacteristically large. In the center are four 4x7 cardboard pieces taped together on the ground and immediately surrounded by several feet of concrete. I notice that the empty space is greater than the space the boards occupy. Relative to the rest of the circle, it seems silly that these boards are even here. Though a common prop, they nonetheless seems out of place and not especially useful in the actual space. We distance ourselves from the boards like an audience from the stage, as if we have decided to stay clear. I soon conclude that this circle has likely preceded the performances, formed in anticipation of a show as if the shape itself will produce the dancing rather than the other way around. Interestingly enough, the circle maintains its structure. It holds so firm that in fact it does not move at all. By the time I get there, it neither fluctuates nor shifts, and people do not join or leave in noticeable numbers. In this case, we stand there as if we have assigned seats. We are an audience, obediently and quietly waiting for a show that will never start. What we have is the shell of the cypher without its soul. 13 In time I realize that this circle is more like a street hitters’ circle, only without the performers. Hitters are groups of breakers (or street dance aficionados) who perform on city streets—especially areas where tourists gather—to earn money from the crowds they draw. For hitters, the key is to have your show planned down to the jokes the MC tells to get the crowd relaxed and the money flowing. They put together short sets (maybe 10 minutes), where each member of the group briefly performs solo, usually demonstrating a particular talent: someone who specializes in flips, another in extreme balance positions, another with a nice body who dances shirtless. They also incorporate a few 8-counts of uncomplicated group choreography. The goal is to minimize their physical labor while maximizing the 192 entertainment for the crowd in order to get through the day’s work. This is where the MC comes in, that charming and charismatic individual willing to gather the audience. She or he will make a few jokes, tell the audience of the amazing feats they are about to witness, and even influence them with appeals to neighborhood pride: “We got $5 from Jersey! Hey!, $10 from Connecticut! They’re making you look bad, New York!” The dancing, the music, the comical interludes, all repeat every 15 to 20 minutes as the old crowd is ushered out (after the money is collected in the bucket of course) and a new audience coaxed in for the same show that’s all new to them. But the difference between a hitter’s circle and a cypher is important: hitters have a very clear goal in mind—to make money. It is not a process but a product, a hustle that can yield a few hundred dollars split amongst the group for a full day’s work. Now imagine the crowd gathered and waiting, without the show. I stick it out for as long as I can, but I have to leave. This is not what I had anticipated. From this I recognize that cyphers are process-oriented rather than goal-oriented. Even as individuals may enter them with some expectation about what they want to do or feel, these expectations are not prescriptive; they do not predetermine what happens, even as these intentions may shape the cypher’s tone. For example, breakers often talk about cyphering in very individualistic terms. That is, the motivation may appear selfish. PoeOne describes the cypher as being about “the floor, the music, and you.” B-girl Macca describes it as “where you do your thing.” Others name it as a place to show off or prove that you’re better than another or at least better than your last performance. But this strain of individualism reminds us that cyphering is a process. The outcome of that process may include a sense of connection, emotional release, or may inspire battles, but it is not particularly predictable. It may not be your day. And while hitters can release their 193 inhibitions in the dance, it is a happenstance of the larger goal of the performance. Hitters’ circles have all of the surface qualities of cyphers—the structure, the music, the dancing, the captivated viewers—but the difference is fundamental. Cyphers emphasize possibility over product. In the process of dancing for oneself, releasing pent up emotions, and allowing the body to take over, cyphering becomes as political philosopher Giorgio Agamben would put it, “a means without end.” 14 In his book of the same title, Agamben defines the political as “a means without end.” He argues that how people live rather than the mere fact of their existence is deeply political. That is, the struggle to live fully, happily, and freely are as political as struggles over life and death because survival is not enough. The pursuit of happiness and freedom are fundamental political impulses, and the pursuit is the manner in which we live. Agamben maintains that “a pure means” is more likely to enable living fully than an end goal by any means necessary or without regard to how we get there. 15 While watching a performance that sorely lacks the energy of cyphers, it becomes clear to me that the effort, time, and commitment to dance in conversational exchange with others produces a surplus that includes feelings of freedom, a sense of connection to others, the release of one’s demons, and experiences of joy. These elements are the drives behind political struggles, and thus cyphering is a type of cultural-political act. The surplus produced in the act of cyphering is a result of its improvisational character. Improvisation is typically defined in relation to music like jazz. Within the repeating rhythms of the music are breaks in the structure that open up spaces to play freely and express oneself fully. 16 Literary scholar James Snead reminds us that repetition only guarantees that it will begin again at some point, and at any point it will be open to 194 interruption, entry by a second or third musician, and even starting over. 17 That is the very break that provides the musical context for b-boying. Jazz scholar Albert Murray describes the break as the “disjuncture which is the moment of truth. It is on the break that you ‘do your thing.’ ....It is when you establish your identity; it is when you write your signature on the epidermis of actuality. 18 Improvising in the break contextualizes the importance of originality in b-boying and descriptions of invention through experimentation and even mistakes. Letting go and establishing one’s identity through dance is precisely what is missing from the circle in front of Volkswagenhalle. While Snead and Murray talk about the structure that enables improvisation, performance studies scholar Fred Moten reminds us that the act of improvising exceeds definitions that reduce it to “offhand” action or invention without preparation. Moten writes, “Improvisation—as the word’s linguistic roots indicate—is usually understood as speech without foresight. But improvisation… always also operates as a kind of foreshadowing, if not prophetic, description…. [I]f improvisation is to be thought other than simply as action or speech without provision, you need to look ahead with a kind of torque that shapes what’s being looked at… [Improvisation] transforms the material, and on the other hand manifest in and as the material.” 19 Moten focuses on the etymological roots of the word: im- (not) and pr ōvid ēre (to foresee). 20 He argues that contradictory as it may seem, acts of improvisation are a kind of foresight to create in action or speech in a generative way. His reference to improvisation’s necessary materiality is especially important. Improvisation is visionary foresight “that transforms the material” and is itself material. Whether we are talking about music or dance, improvising leads to something. To say that cyphers are improvisational means more than simply that people are dancing 195 without choreography or plan. It’s more than simply the lack of a show. Moten reminds us that improvising produces the change it seeks. Without improvisation, without the pull of a cypher and the hope for something that makes us participants rather than observers, all that is left is a circle, not a cypher. The structure does not stand alone. It needs actively engaged and invested spectators and dancers to become a cypher. Actual cyphering practices enact a political being where we move toward each other both literally and figuratively. Moreover, though they are as much informed by competing interests and outright battles as they are by a sense of connection, their improvisational thrust ensures their conditions are opportunities for creative and productive interventions, building on the work of the ones before you. The difference between a circle and a cypher matters for precisely this reason. It is the process of creating change by building together rather than waiting for the change to happen without our work. CONCLUSION A collective. The whole. An ensemble. The community. The most salient quality of these cyphering experiences is the realization of being many and yet one. 21 Each experience is deeply personal and specific. If others were to articulate their experiences of these same circles, no two would be alike. The cycle of the energy exchange continues as the individual gives way to the many, much like with improvisation or call and response. We improvise through our collectivity, interpolating the whole through dance. We become an orchestra of responses at each turn and in our disorder we organize ourselves by way of a communal identification. The cypher is where we can become one. Group identification is a shift in perception, an understanding that leads to the recognition of the self in a new context. The understanding endures even if the experiences 196 197 are only momentarily realized, like the fantastic. We can arrive as if at the destination of a journey, but we cannot stay. That cyphers are ephemeral is beside the point. Ideas of psychic elevation, or of one’s personal extraordinariness, and the creative processes for change endure after the experience ends. Moreover, cyphering experiences build on each other. That is, experiences accumulate and a range of insights develop over time though they may not manifest every time. Not every cypher feels like an act of defiance against the pressures of everyday life. Just as many fall apart before they can ever impart an enduring quality. Regardless, even lackluster cyphers that leave us unsatisfied contribute to a pool of experiential knowledge out of which an understanding of the unseen is born. 198 Chapter 5 Endnotes 1 Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997): 25, 26. 2 Cyphers may form organically, but they require a great deal of attention to ensure their continuance. PoeOne told me of the conscious decisions that go into maintaining a flow of cyphers at his own events (U.S.-Battle of the Year and Steady Rockin’), describing the conditions in terms that attest their unpredictability. As an event organizer, he considers the room’s layout, the lighting, the floor, and the music as all important to cyphering. 2 MC and b-boy Triple7 and b-boy Krazy Kujo both agree that the lighting needs to be low to promote a sense of intimate focus and enables the ability to tune out the rest of the room in order to concentrate on the floor and the music. 2 Music is especially important, needing to be loud enough to pulsate through the body so breakers can literally feel the beat. Oftentimes DJs are encouraged to turn the music up because feeling the music can better someone's dancing. Floors need to be smooth enough to dance on; the room’s layout should possess open, flat, unencumbered spaces, and the music should play non-stop to enable marathon-like continuity. In combination, these factors can foster or hinder the presence of cyphers. Though a limited number of breakers will compete in an organized battle most event attendees will cypher. With this in mind, prioritizing circles may mean de-emphasizing the battles. This can translate into keeping the volume raised even if the host is speaking or relegating competitions to a smaller area to leave more room for cyphering. While the conditions of a cypher’s environment at events may require great attention to details, there remains something substantial that holds circles even under less than ideal conditions. The act of encircling a compelling performer can be so strong that it opposes any factors working against it. PoeOne. Personal Interview. 6 March 2007. 3 James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, (New York: Laurel Book, 1952); Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth: A Novel ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Random House, 1999); Zora Neale Hurston, The Sanctified Church (New York: Marlowe & Co., 1981). 4 Frankie Manning and Cynthia Millman, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of the Lindy Hop (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007). 5 Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre trans. by Richard Howard (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973); Eric S. Rabkin, The Fantastic in Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976); Dorothy Kelly, “The Ghost of Meaning: Language in the Fantastic,” SubStance 11.2 (1982): 46-55; Richard Hull, “Fantastic Phenomenology: Quixote Reconsidered,” SubStance 18.2 (1989): 35-47; Gerald Eager, “The Fantastic in Art,” The Journal of Aesthetics and art Criticism 30.2 (Winter 1971): 151-157; Erika Haber, “In Search of the Fantastic in Tertz’s Fantastic Realism,” The Slavic and East European Journal 42.2 (Summer 1998): 254-267; Darby English, How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007); Charles Rycroft, “Fantasy and Phantasy,” A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1995); Elizabeth Cowie, Representing the Woman: Cinema and Psychoanalysis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Michel Foucault, “Fantasia of the Library,” Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews ed. Donald Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977); Arthur Jacobs, “Fantasy,” The Penguin Dictionary of Music 6 th ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1996); J. LaPlanche and L.B. Pontalis, “Phantasy (or Fantasy),” The Language of Psychoh-Analysis (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974). 6 Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New York: Aldine Publishing Co., 1969): 128. 7 Cartoon. Personal Interview, September 28, 2006 8 The Western musical term for call and response is a misrepresentation of its practice. Antiphonal refers to sounding (phonal) in response (antí-) shows only the sound, verbal, and musical dimensions of this practice. Using a movement- based aspect to the term, like antiphonal- kinetic, makes clear that call and response can 199 mean both sounding and moving in response as statements are made through gestures and dancing. The term call and response implies a verbal/musical quality but it does not negate a movement quality. In fact many African American call and response genres are performances implying a physical and gestural dimension as well. And as is often acknowledged, in the African diaspora, music and dance go hand-in-hand, as “one element of an entire experience.” John Storm Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972): 6; J.H. Kwabena Nketia, The Music of Africa (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974); 217, 224; Roger D. Abrahams, Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in he Plantation South (New York: Penguin Books, 1992); Janheinz Jahn, Muntu: African Culture and the Western World trans. Marjorie Grene (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1961); Kathryn Linn Geurts, Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 9 Anne Danielsen Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2006); Abrahams 91-93; J.H. Kwabena Nketia, African Music in Ghana (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1963). 10 H.Samy Alim, Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture (New York: Routledge, 2006): 81. 11 Alim 81. 12 Abrahams 92. 13 Of course not all of the circles at BOTY were like this—the after parties were geared towards cyphering. But those I did see at BOTY were dominated by Americans and veteran European breakers. With several large, annual events and fewer small scale, local events to congregate, it didn’t seem as if cyphering was a prominent part of breaking culture in Europe as it is in the US where the culture came out of cyphering. Dark Marc explained that in Norway, because members of his crew live so far apart from each other, that even their practices together are infrequent. People spoke of cyphering on a monthly basis at best in Germany, or every few months for others. Jaekwan, a Taiwanese b-boy who grew up in Germany, would explain to me that in his experience, Europeans practiced, they competed at competitions, and they performed on stage, but did not cypher as frequently as they do in the States. 14 Giorgio Agamben, Means Without End: Notes on Politics trans. Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000): 58. 15 “Finality without means is just as alienating as mediality that has meaning only with respect to an end…. The gesture is the exhibition of a mediality: it is the process of making a means visible as such. It allows the emergence of the being-in-a-medium of human beings and thus it opens the ethical dimension for them.” These ideas were not lost on the US’s founding fathers who declared that among our unalienable rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Agamben 4, 58. 16 Snead, James. “On Repetition in Black Culture,” Black American Literature Forum v.15 n.4 (Winter 1981): 146- 154; Albert Murray, “Improvisation and the Creative Process,” The Jazz Cadence of American Culture ed. Robert G. O’Meally (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998): 111-113. 17 Snead 150. 18 Murray 112. 19 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003): 63-64. 20 “Improvisation,” American Heritage Dictionary 3 rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993). 200 21 Ellison writes, “Our fate is to become one, and yet many—this is not prophecy, but description.” Moten makes reference to this line in his discussion of improvisation (63). Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Signet, 1947): 499. Chapter 6. Notes Toward a Cypher Theory “Possibility is neither forever nor instant. It is not easy to sustain belief in its efficacy…. In the forefront of our move toward change, there is only poetry to hint at possibility made real…. For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt…” -Audre Lorde, “Poetry is Note a Luxury” Hip Hop’s global expansion is often only discussed in relation to rap music and the many cultures that produce talented artists. 1 Though there is more academic and documentary work on Hip Hop in different parts of the world, little of it examines b-boying, which demands that we pay attention to movement and its discourse. B-boying enacts Hip Hop aesthetics, history, and socio-cultural conditions through practices like cyphering that exemplify social interaction—conflict and collaboration—through non-verbal forms of communication. Movement radiates connections to others. Cyphers contextualize b-boying within a particular kind of space—where a competitive-collaborative exchange amplifies a non-empirical dimension of connection that privileges psychic and spiritual liberation, but does not guarantee it. As a result, b-boying is a rich site for the analysis of Hip Hop’s globality, as they suggest that ideas of connection, liberation, and psychic elevation, are tangible dimensions of the work of competitive-collaborations. These elements pay of defining role in the viability of cyphering practices and perhaps of transnational projects. The kind of cultural entity that I metaphorically represent through cyphers develops out of processes of contestation that are in fact cultural imperatives. That is to say that the battle and competitiveness in general are productive. The tensions, debates, conflicts, and frictions within cyphers help to both expand its repertoire and the social body of the culture. For example, differences in movement style and approach come to represent different 201 modes of interpreting history or differences in political commitments or regional influences. Yet cyphers are the social terrain where disparate groups and competing interests are forced to some kind of equilibrium, even if only for the moment. And though not every cypher is a battle, cyphers all entail competitiveness—sometimes with oneself—that continues the back and forth exchange between dancers. The whole of b-boying is shaped by the outcome of these encounters, whether such outcomes manifest as a new move or a new level of performance standards. Thus, while the literal on-the-ground battles and contestations that are central to cyphering practices frustrate b-boys and b-girls, battles simultaneously propel breakers to new levels in dance. Admittedly, I am largely interested in the possibilities of this kind of practice, and therefore I tend to emphasize a particularly positive slant to this form of competitiveness. Despite this focus, cyphers are performance spaces that add unique qualities to social relations across and through difference. Ultimately, they can contribute to a body of work on global connection and the many ways we can consider the inner-workings of such mobilizations in a productive way. A MOVEMENT OF MOVEMENT Central to my approach to the theoretical possibilities of cyphers is the fact of its expansive cultural reach. Some breakers, on the other hand, are more ambivalent about the value of b-boying’s current popularity. They are aware that the culture’s continued existence is a product of newfound interests and the involvement of younger generations. I would guess that there are more cultural sites to practice b-boying than ever before. These sites include studio classes, workshops, training sessions, stage competitions, choreographed shows, television, movies, video games, online videos and message boards, DVDs, and theatre projects. Some breakers’ ambivalence reflects doubt that b-boying will still be there, 202 somehow, culturally whole and available to future generations. They wonder if it will settle into a sports model, taking on the form of tournaments like the X-Games. Others think theatre and the circus are fruitful possibilities. Perhaps b-boying will go underground. And still, there is the chance that pop culture’s attention on b-boying will end as it did in the ‘80s, and without a stronger cultural base it may die out altogether. Where is the tipping point between the inevitability of cultural change and the moment at which the culture is no longer b-boying? Some already believe that that time has passed. For many, b-boying represents the way they live their lives and the things they care about most—not just a dance done at occasional events or for a job, but a manner of living fully in the world. Thus the concerns I touched on in earlier chapters, including aspects of history, alliance, and the fear of erasure can be taken much further. Cyphers offer a useful illustration of these concerns. Admittedly, “raw” cyphers are not necessarily the predominant site for b-boying practices, though they may have once been. Yet, many are still critical of someone who can “rock the battle” in front of a panel of judges but cannot “rock the cyphers” after the competition is over. Despite that there are those for whom the reverse is true, those who can perform better in cyphers than at competitions or on stage, such breakers maintain a degree of respect that the former do not, though all concur that those who are able to shine in both arenas are extremely talented. Cyphering carries greater cultural weight because it demands that a breaker fully integrate his knowledge, imagination, and bring that all to fruition through an improvisational performance. The performance crutches in battles are useless in cyphers. For example, in a competition one can routinely fall back on well- rehearsed combinations when under pressure to perform in a limited timeframe. But such routines do not serve a purpose in cyphers, where time is less restricted, freestyling is 203 imperative, and breakers dance for themselves rather than for someone or something else. Cyphering’s open-ended possibilities challenge practitioners in distinct ways that also enact a manner of being in the culture that prioritizes pleasure and release. Cyphering is less directly financially profitable but culturally it is highly valued. This means that if a breaker who is known for winning competitions cannot cypher, then s/he has a lot left to learn and even understand about b-boying and Hip Hop. To not possess the skill and talent to cypher somehow sparks greater concern than a lack of skill in formal competitions. Cyphering represents b-boying as a lived culture and a way of life beyond the repertoire of moves. I developed a better sense of just how deeply b-boying was lived in the course of preparing for a speaking and performance engagement at the Los Angeles Public Library in the summer of 2007 with b-boys Viazeen and PoeOne. We were talking at a Johnny Rockets in Los Angeles about the maturing of b-boying culture, and they each touched on something I had been thinking about but had never heard articulated before. B-boying to them is more than physical movement, it is also a movement. 2 They reached the similar conclusion through their own personal experiences and as I would find out later, they did not mean it in exactly the same ways. Nonetheless, they both felt that a passion for the dance and a commitment to the culture are powerful enough to mobilize an incredibly diverse range of people to move (literally) as if a part of a movement. PoeOne specifically interprets this to mean an entire manner of living. That is, he thinks of it as an approach that entails a “way of thought” and a spiritual quality that one lives all the time, even if they no longer dance. 3 Dedicating oneself to this art prompts a way of living everyday. And in light of b-boying’s continued popularity, the proliferation of a manner of living is a kind of movement. 204 Viazeen’s interpretation is slightly more operational. His focus is on dancing for the sheer passion and joy of it, which he considers to be “where the power lies.” 4 At 38 years old and having started breaking at 12, this is where he continues to find inspiration and continues to learn. The power in starting from a place of creative passion is that the whole is inspired to stand for the culture because everyone cares if it is being compromised. Standing for the movement (b-boying) is itself a movement. Though less hopeful than PoeOne that younger generations can appreciate the culture’s possibilities as a movement, Viazeen suggests that loving the dance for the sake of itself rather than a commitment to external gains demonstrates that it can become something bigger than the individual self. From this perspective, as a collectivity they can better shape the conditions of their labor and their representation. In a later interview on this topic Viazeen used the example of the current production in the Step Up 5 film franchise. In the shuffle to participate in b-boying’s pop culture resurgence, many breakers have joined the ranks of background dancers in movies or participants in the slew of reality TV talent competitions both as a form of work and as a way to get closer to fame or financial stability. With that come certain compromises. On the set of Step Up 3-D, Viazeen knows several breakers who flew themselves back and forth between New York and Los Angeles for filming and were paid nothing for their work as background dancers, though likely their presence legitimated the dance sequences and was fundamental to a narrative of Hip Hop dance. 6 Their labor was unacknowledged and completely devalued as their bodies were worked and injuries allegedly sustained. And as Viazeen suggests, they consented to it. Viazeen knew of only one b-boy who refused to participate in his own exploitation, having walked off the set (much to his agent’s disappointment). If, on the other hand, breakers 205 possessed the collective commitment to cultural production as breakers, then they could have acted as a unit to demand fair pay and ensure that they have a say in how the culture gets represented in films. They would become leaders and not a “horse and pony show,” which Viazeen suggests this kind of treatment shows that b-boying has become. Thus for him, b-boying as a (social) movement has economic dimensions, though it is not simply about getting paid but rather about being respected as artists. Under different circumstances refusing payment might better reflect a passion for the culture. Either way, the joy of breaking could inspire the kind of collaboration that can create cultural, social, and economic change. Both Viazeen and PoeOne link b-boying’s possible future to ideas of how the culture is lived right now, by those who identify as b-girls, b-boys, and breakers. Viazeen in particular is more skeptical about whether newer generations of breakers will be invested in the culture to such a degree. But both recognize that based on their own experiences traveling and breaking, there is something special and unique to this culture that has helped to cultivate genuine friendships and incredible hospitality around the world. Breaking crosses language barriers in favor of a shared physical language and music culture, the interweaving of histories, and a mutual understanding about living as breakers. And while there is no prescribed political agenda, the notion of b-boying as a social movement suggests that the culture can move as a whole toward something beneficial for them all. Thus b- boying’s strength is in its practice among an already present global cultural body. A movement of movement is idealistic yet not impossible. And it demands we take seriously the manner in which the culture spreads. 206 CYPHERING IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD The web is an important dimension of cultural circulation and production. On the most basic level, it is the main way to stay connected to new friends or to find out more about those whom one has yet to meet. Debates also play out as much online as in person. Many post battle footage to build their reputations and to comment on the judgments or on the judges themselves, archived on YouTube, social networking sites, and Hip Hop dance discussion boards. To some, the component of b-boying that continues online hurts the culture more than it helps. Battles are extended from in person contests to the web and back as online comments have been known to spark future battles or even physical fights. And while my earlier discussion of media representations of b-boying largely questioned its success in translating the cypher to new spaces, it may be more fruitful to think of such translations as different kinds of cultural media rather than as problems. Dancer, choreographer, and performance scholar d. Sabela grimes makes a case for the virtual continuation of cyphers in his work, “Predictably Unprecedented: Old Shuffles in the New Paradigm.” 7 grimes argues that the web prompts the culture’s diffusion in an unprecedented way. He states that the cypher is not just the shape but the bodies themselves and “the call and response mode of communication.” 8 Referring to H. Samy Alim’s work on the linguistic practices of Hip Hop Nation Language, grimes’ proposed that call and response is “the communicative strategy” that initiates the fields of interaction in cyphers. Using the “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” music and instructional videos as examples, grimes suggests that it is the call and response dynamic that prompts these videos to go “viral”. 9 [T]he circle/cipha is more than just a shape outlined by bodies creating a potential performative space to enclose one member of the surrounding 207 collective. We are familiar with this distinct type of movement discourse. What’s often overlooked is how in a social space like a club, recreation center, a block party or yo’mama an’dems backyard bar-b-que, that the participating dancers become the circle. The formation of the circle is realized through the dance by the dancing bodies. Check out a 4-Wall Soul Line Dance, like the Loose Booty, the LR Shake or, just to take it back a bit, the Electric Slide. Still, the call and response mode of communication subsist. The DJ might make the initial call to the floor by playing a particular song that s/he knows will spark a collective movement response…. Crank Dat Soulja Boy is set, staged and captured in “real” environments in an effort to portray scenarios, spaces, places and kin-folk that fortify a particular cultural valence and relevance that speaks directly to Soulja Boy’s intentional or target audience(s). Gotta represent. Yet, in the virtual world what’s produced in both the official and instructional videos is a two-dimensional split cipha. The circle is cut into halves, the arcs are flattened into straight lines that are crossed, and their intersection becomes the point of connection on the world-wide-web, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The content of the circle is diffused. As presently commonplace as it may seem to post video content online this sort of cultural diffusion is unique, eventful and predictably unprecedented. grimes frees the cypher and its contents from its structure, allowing it to operate outside its live context, its spatial and temporal confines, and the immediate dancing bodies. Central to his argument is that the “collective movement response” distinguishes dancing-bodies-as- cypher from just dancing bodies. Whether in a line dance or a circle, their collective response to the call of the music (or the DJ or a family member who initiates a trendy party dance) is the defining feature of a cypher. Thus when the “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” video displays a line of dancing bodies facing the camera, there is the implicit expectation that someone somewhere will eventually face his/her screen and dance in response, thus becoming a part of that cypher. With the Soulja Boy dance, the collective response accumulated as people forwarded the video to others or uploaded their own variation of the dance, which and in turn ignited the song and dance’s explosion in the physical world. Moreover, grimes alludes to the idea that, at least technically, people do share a common “place” via the video’s URL that everyone must locate to watch the video. While his 208 definition is clearly broader than my own focus on b-boying cyphers that tend toward single dancers in the center, he makes an interesting point. 10 If the content of the circle is prompted by the call and response mode of communication, which is not necessarily bound to its structure, then there is room to consider how cyphers may teach collective and engaged participation—as spectators or practitioners—when there is no circle. That is, the use of the web demands that we re-think what it means to be “collective” as well as to re- think what “participation” looks like. There is certainly a collective response though it might not happen at the same time; and there are engaged participants, though their participation comes later and over time, among people who may never meet in person. By posting his work to a blog that brings together citations both from scholarly texts and YouTube videos, grimes brilliantly demonstrates how uploaded videos of street dance cyphers communicate across otherwise disconnected communities. The blog successfully shows that individual dance videos are in conversation with each other. As a result, they carry meaning, such that the digital cypher still entails embedded cultural information like call and response. For example, grimes describes the “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” dance as a combination of moves—ranging from contemporary moves like the motorcycle dance to features dating back to the Charleston—that are re-contextualized into a new series of moves for a new moment in popular social dance culture. Becoming familiar with “Crank Dat Soulja Boy” encompasses movement qualities consistent with black Southern dance culture and African American movement from generations prior. One need not even like the dance to participate in the conversation. “Dancers may genuinely respond out of an affinity for the dance signaled by assertive, and quite possibly inventive, implementation of the steps. On the other hand, this genuine response might be marked by a dancer’s disgust, 209 wherein the execution of the dance signifies an attitude of clownin’ or mockery...” 11 grimes makes it clear that “to reduce the Soulja Boy to a dance craze or fad is lazy and irresponsible,” as Soulja Boy participates in a legacy of showcasing black social dances in new forums—from the jook to the club, the ballroom, television dance shows, movies, and now the web. The “content” of the cypher involves both movement and cultural information. I wonder if we can extend “content” to include dark matter. To the degree that the ‘net can capture the invisible force of cyphers, I suspect that there is still something missing from the experience of cyphering live. And that loss matters as the web plays a large role in the dissemination of b-boying culture. In other words, Benjamin had a point. In his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argued that the reproduction of art through media like photography and film detached the object from its tradition, imprisoning it in the form of the commodity fetish. 12 The aura of the object of art was a product of direct experience with it (like a dancer’s presence in live performance). This experience is degenerated in its reproduction: “For aura is tied to his [the stage actor’s] presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public.” 13 With that substitution of camera for spectator was the erasure or dislocation of the actor’s presence. Thus the aura of art is lost in its reproductions. Benjamin was concerned that this reflected a greater loss of the traditions upon which the art was founded, and thus he had an uncertainty about the social foundation of artistic creation, which changed in the face of these new media. Though Benjamin’s focus is on the commodification of art, my concerns about the loss of dark matter (akin to his use 210 of aura or presence) and the cultural tradition of cyphering (the art object) echoes his about film and photography. Yet today film and photography are respected as art. Perhaps then the global diffusion of street dance via the internet produces its own distinct relationship to b-boying and to cyphers. If movement radiates connections across disparate groups, and in the process helps to produce or expand a particular cultural knowledge, then virtual cyphers create even broader audiences to participate online where they may not otherwise had has the opportunity. The popularity of these video (viewing and uploading them) suggests that there is something at least energizing and even inspiring about them that calls out to others to dance and respond with their own videos. As a new forum for social dance and a unique dimension to cyphering practices, perhaps the digital medium draws in new participants via some aspect of dark matter. As dark matter is an umbrella for a range of reactions, sensations, and realizations, perhaps there are elements to virtual cyphering that dark matter can also address. And if this is the case, it is not required to re-create a circle as the authentic representation of cyphers, which are themselves incredibly diverse. Thus in the digital era, it makes sense that cyphers subsist but in new and possibly unprecedented forms. Yet in the reconfigurations of time and space that virtual cyphers participate in, it becomes obvious that this form is another manifestation of the now familiar concept of globalization. 14 Anna Tsing describes globalization as “a set of projects that require us to imagine space and time in particular ways.” 15 They are not neutral or natural, but projects that must be “brought into being: proposed, practiced, and evaded, as well as taken for granted.” 16 Globalization is a scale of analysis that imagines a planetary unity for particular ends. Where on the ground cyphers could be metaphors for the global, virtual cyphers more 211 explicitly invoke the global. But both live and virtual cyphers offer ideas of the global that are routed through urban movement cultures. Thus, cyphering may be a way to experience the global through a passion for b-boying and in so doing shape the cultural terms by which others participate. Reimagining the global through cyphers echoes Viazeen and PoeOne’s ideas of a movement of movement. In fact, grimes’ work is a timely examination of U.S. urban street dance cultures’ participation on the global stage. More precisely, his work is about the possibilities of this kind of connection rather than the loss it might produce. No longer are these forms hidden in segregated communities, even if those communities are themselves still segregated. NOTES TOWARD A CYPHER THEORY My interests have been in the descriptive features of cyphers that may contribute to ideas of global connection. That is why I titled the final chapter, “Notes Toward a Cypher Theory.” The preposition “toward” has several definitions. It refers to bringing together ideas of movement in a particular direction; it has a temporal dimension meaning “slightly before”; it can mean to contribute to something. To me, this acknowledges my efforts to bring into relation several key points about cyphering and ideas of global connection while keeping a final conclusion open. There are five aspects to cyphering that I have repeatedly returned to throughout this project that in combination act as notes or sketches of a (future) cypher theory:  Call and response—the “communicative mode” of exchange between dancers and spectators  Improvisation—the material production of change in cyphers 212  Battles—the frictions of difference that are worked out in time and over time through productive confrontations  Relations to the Other—the social enactment of relations through difference forgoing any closure on the terms of belonging  Dark matter—the contextualization of a connection that collaboration activates into practice Each point represents some aspect of a whole expressed as the collectivity of individual contributions. They are all social and articulate the possibilities that are enabled when people act collectively. Because the reality of cyphering is bound up with the possibilities of dark matter—as connection, communion, a high, etc.—it reminds us that that which seems beyond reality, beyond possibility nonetheless plays a defining role in what we do. Thus, cyphers lend themselves to thinking about global connection as embodied ways of enacting our relations to others, and the possibilities to make the world in ways that are attuned to our passions and our manner of living—i.e. a movement of movement. 213 214 Chapter 6 Endnotes 1 David Toop, Rap Attack #3: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. Expanded 3 rd ed. (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2000); Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Peter Wade, “Working Culture: Making Cultural Identities in Cali, Columbia,” Current Anthropology 40.4 (August 1999): 449-71; Tony Mitchell, Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the U.S.A. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002); United Nations of Hip Hop dir. Christina Choe, Perf. Awadi, Abdu Diop, Foumalade (2005); Estilo Hip Hop dir. Vee Bravo & Loira Lamball, Perf. Eli Efi, Guerrillero Okulto, and Magia (2006); Dipannita Basu & Sidney Lamelle, The Vinyl Ain’t Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture (London: Pluto Press, 2006); James G. Spady, H. Samy Alim, & Samir Meghelli, The Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness (Philadelphia: Black History Museum Publishers, 2006); Slingshot Hip Hop dir. Jackie Salloum, Perf. Mahmoud Shalabi, WE7, Ibrahim (2008); Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, (2005); Homegrown: Hip Life in Ghana dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Perf. V.I.P. (2009), Africa’s Underground: Democracy in Dakar dir. Magee McIlvaine, Chris Moore and Ben Herson (2008). 2 Their conception of b-boying’s movement as a potentially a kind of social movement is not unlike Randy Martin’s not of “performances as political act”. Martin brings together performance, politics, and the body in two important works in particular: Performance as Political Act and Critical Moves. Randy Martin, Performance as Political Act: The Embodied Self (New York: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1990); Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998). 3 PoeOne. Personal Communication. 7 July 2009. 4 Viazeen. Personal Interview. 5 July 2009. 5 Both films follow two troubled, white, adopted Baltimore teenage street dancers who struggle to fit in to the elite art institutions they get the unexpected opportunity to attend. After a series of mishaps, they eventually successfully bring street dance to elite environment, after which they are able to pursue their dream to dance. Step Up dir. Anne Fletcher, Perf. Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan (2006); Step Up 2: The Streets dir. John Cho, Perf. Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman (2008). 6 Step Up 3-D dir. John Chu, in development (2010). 7 grimes created a blog based on his work. During the conference, grimes read directly from the blog, presenting it as his paper. d. Sabela grimes, “Predictably Unprecedented: Old Shuffles in the New Paradigm,” Hip-Hop Studies Conference: Writing & Represntin Hip-Hop in the Academy. University of California Berkeley (18 April 2009). d. Sabela grimes, “Predictably Unprecedented,” 28 Aug 2008 Web. (22 July 2009) <http://socialdancemedia.blogspot.com/2008/ 08/predictably-unprecedented.html> 8 grimes “Predictably Unprecedented” 9 According to netlingo.com, “viral” means the following: “Originally coined as part of the phrase viral marketing the term "viral" has expanded to mean any form of reoccurring practice that moves a product around from person to person. Because it is easy to copy and forward information on the net, anything that piques netizens'' interests may get passed around very quickly.” <http://www.netlingo.com/word/viral.php> Last accessed on July 12, 2009. 10 There is one aspect of cyphering that calls forth a countless breakers to engage in a chaotic version of rocking. Everyone occupies the center of the cypher at the same time and pantomimes narratives of violent domination in the circle. Sometimes it takes the form of actual rocking battles—two lines of opponents facing each other—but frequently among breakers it is more like a free for all. These moments are typically signaled by a particular section of a particular song where there is an unspoken agreement to begin dancing together in 215 the circle at the same time. I never quite learned why some songs inspire these breaks and others do not. But these bursts of activity are infrequent and often so specific that they end as quickly and unexpectedly as they started (at least from my perspective).. 11 grimes “Predictably Unprecedented” 12 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Illuminations: Essays and Reflections ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968 [1936]): 217-251. 13 Benjamin 229 14 David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1989.); Featherstone, Mike ed. Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (London: Sage, 1990); Linda, Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States (Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach, 1994); Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Malcolm Waters, Globalization (London: Routledge, 1995); Arjun Appadurai, ed. Globalization (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001); Ong 1999; Jonathan Xavier Inda & Renato Rosaldo eds. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001). 15 Anna Tsing, “The Global Situation,” The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader eds. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002): 476. 16 Anna Tsing, “Inside the Economy of Appearances,” in Globalization ed. by Arjun Appadurai (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001): 161. 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Flyin’ Cut Sleeves. Dir. Henry Chalfant. (1993). Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme. Dir. Kevin Fitzgerald. Perf. Mos Def, Black Thought (2000). Freshest Kids: A History of the B-boy. Dir. Israel. Perf. Crazy Legs, Trac2, Kool Herc, and Popmaster Fable. DVD. QD3 Entertainment Inc. (2002). From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale. Dir. Henry Chalfant. (2006). Graffiti Rock and Other Hip Hop Delights. Prod. Michael Holman. DVD (2002). Homegrown: Hip Life in Ghana. Dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Perf. V.I.P. (2009). 216 Inside the Circle: A B-Boy Chronicle. Dir. Marcy Garriott. Perf. Masterz of Mayhem, Havikoro, Unique Styles. (2008). Inventos: Hip Hop Cubano. Dir. Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, (2005). Planet B-Boy. Dir. Benson Lee Perf. Gamblerz, Ichigeki (2007). Slingshot Hip Hop. Dir. Jackie Salloum. Perf. Mahmoud Shalabi, WE7, Ibrahim (2008). Step Up 2: The Streets. Dir. John Cho. Perf. Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman (2008). Step Up. Dir. Anne Fletcher. Perf. Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan (2006). 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Where?)  What got you into breaking/dancing in general?  What kept you dancing?  What did your parents think?  Did you grow up with much music in the house?  Were there many/many support networks as a dancer at the time?  What was the b-boying/girling scenes like when you first started breaking?  How diverse was the breaking scene when you started?  Did you stop dancing at any point? Why? CYPHERS  Describe or define cypher?  Are there fundamental or necessary parts to a cypher?  Is there a cypher etiquette?  Is it always about a battle?  Is it always competitive?  Are there circles you won’t enter?  Are cyphers important to Hip Hop?  Is there ea difference in meaning between “cyphers” and “circles”?  Do you dance differently in circles at a jam versus at a competition?  Are there different types of cyphers? 250 TEACHING  What started you teaching?  Do you have a teaching philosophy?  Who do you teach? How do you approach teaching different groups?  What do beginning students need to know in order to get down in a cypher?  What constitutes a “good” dancer to you?  Do circles ever factor into your classes? THEATRE  What started you in theatre?  Compare the stage to the circle? Are there similarities or differences?  Do you prefer choreography or freestyle? Do the two come together?  Does the stage ever allow you o do or say things you wouldn’t be able to do in other venues? SOCIO-CULTURAL ASPECTS  What is Hip Hop to you?  Is there a difference between the terms “breaker,” “breakdancing,” or “b- girl/boy”? Do the terms matter? Why/not?  Were there many b-girls when you started?  Where do you think the culture is going?  Do you think there’s an oversaturation of competitions?  What do you think of the internationalization of b-boying?  Do you have a concern about how the culture travels and what people learn about Hip Hop? 251 Appendix B. List of B-Boying Events Attended * In chronological order Rock Steady Anniversary Events, New York 2005 Out for Fame San Diego 2006 Out for Fame Oakland 2006 B-Boy Bar-b-cue, Philadelphia 2006 B-Boy Olympics, Boston 2006 B-Girl Be Events and after party, Minneapolis 2006 Hip Hop Political Convention Down By Law Battle, Chicago 2006 Crotona Park Jam, Bronx 2006 Rock Steady Anniversary Crew Battles and other events, New York 2006 House Dance Conference, Manhattan 2006 Floor Lord’s Anniversary, Boston 2006 We B-Girlz Out of Doors Battle and after party, Manhattan 2006 KR3Ts Practice Sessions, New York 2006 B-Boy Allstars Block Party, Bronx 2006 Hot Import Nights US-Battle of the Year Pre-Party, Los Angeles 2006 U.S. Battle of the Year, Los Angeles 2006 B-Boy Bar-B-Cue, San Diego 2006 B-Boy Summit Battle of the Sexes Events and after party, 2006 Street Hitters at Union Square, Manhattan 2006 Subway Entertainment, Manhattan 2006 252 UK B-Boy Championships and after party, London 2006 Style is King Dance Workshops, Thun 2006 International Battle of the Year, b-girl battle, after party, and train station, Braunschweig 2006 Zulu Nation Anniversary, Harlem 2006 San Francisco Hip Hop Dance Fest, 2007 Steady Rockin’ events, 2007 Pure Movement at the Ailey School, 2007 B-boy World Evolution 3, Ft. Lauderdale 2007 B-Boy Massacre, 2007 Unity and Respect Jam, Boston 2007 Step Ya Game Up, Manhattan 2007 B-Boy Bar-b-cue, Philadelphia 2007 B-Girl Be Events and Ladies Night after party, Minneapolis 2007 B-boying classes with Ken Swift, Manhattan 2007 VII Gems Classic Styles Rocking Classes, Brooklyn 2007 Rock Steady Anniversary Events, crew battles, and concrete battles, New York 2007 Harlem Hop at Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem 2007 Kings of New York Battle, Manhattan 2007 Freestyle Session 10 Year Anniversary, Los Angeles 2007 Breaking the Cypher Production and after party, Los Angeles 2007 B-Boy Unit Battles, Los Angeles 2007 JUiCE Hip Hop Dance Festival, Los Angeles 2008 Breakfest Battle, Eagle Rock 2008 253 254 US-Battle of the Year, pre-party and after party, Los Angeles 2008 Might 4 Birthday Bash, San Francisco 2009 International Dance Academy Fundraiser, Hollywood 2009 World of Dance Tour, Pomona 2009 PoeOne’s B-boying Class, Los Angeles 2009 Homeland Practice Session, Long Beach 2009 All the Ladies Say Showing, Bronx 2009

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Sampling blackness: performing African Americanness in hip-hop theater and performance

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Creator Johnson, Imani Kai (author)

Core Title Dark matter in b-boying cyphers: race and global connection in hip hop

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program American Studies and Ethnicity

Degree Conferral Date 2009-12

Publication Date 09/10/2009

Defense Date 07/29/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag battling,b-boying,breakdancing,breaking,cypher,dance,dark matter,diaspora,embodiment,global connection,globalization,hip hop,kinesthetic knowledge,OAI-PMH Harvest,performance,race

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Advisor Kondo, Dorinne (committee chair), Moten, Fred (committee chair), Gilmore, Ruth Wilson (committee member), Jacobs-Huey, Lanita (committee member), Jaikumar, Priya (committee member)

Creator Email ikjohnso@usc.edu,imanikai@yahoo.com

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