Question: In what Olympic sport is Australia represented by a 16-year-old schoolboy and a 36-year-old Sydney academic?
Answer: Breaking (aka breakdance), controversially included in the 2024 Paris Olympics after a successful debut in the 2018 Youth Olympics.
What is breaking? And how did it - and the Australian team - get to the Olympics?
What is breaking?
Breaking - the dance performed during the instrumental ‘break’ in a song - emerged as a creative, social and non-violent alternative to street fights in The Bronx, New York during the 1970s. It coalesced with hip-hop into a popular movement, peaking in the 1980s with mainstream films such as Flashdance before going into a decline.
Since the 1990s, with international breaking competitions and hip-hop’s acceptance as a mainstream dance form, it has gained fresh momentum and now boasts approximately 30 million enthusiasts worldwide.
Who are our 2024 Paris Olympics breaking champions?
Jeff Dunne, a Filipino-born high school student from Tweed Heads in New South Wales, and Dr Rachael Gunn, a lecturer in media and cultural industries at Macquarie University, gained their Olympic places by winning the 2023 Oceania Breaking Championships in Sydney.
They will each be competing against 15 breakers, comprising a diverse field with representatives from the Refugee Olympic Team, Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, Japan, Lithuania, the USA, South Korea, France, the Netherlands and Morocco.
Jeff Dunne (“J Attack”) started breaking at seven and now, at 16, will be facing off against breakers who have been champions longer than he has been alive.
Rachael Gunn (“Raygun”) has pursued academic and sporting careers in tandem: starting competitive breaking in 2011, obtaining her PhD in Cultural Studies in 2017, and becoming Australia’s top-ranked B-Girl in 2020.
What happens in a breaking battle?
Breakers compete in one-on-one battles, with each battle comprising three ‘throwdowns’ (rounds). The MC introduces the breaker by their street name and the crew they represent. The DJ ‘drops’ the music, and the first contestant - not knowing what music will be played - steps into the cypher (stage). There’s no fixed time limit, but most perform for 30 - 50 seconds. Their opponent stands close by, taking their turn on the stage when the first contestant leaves the cypher.
A breaker’s arsenal comprises ‘toprocks’- spins and poses done standing up, typically at the start of the round; ‘downrock’ - floorwork, windmills and power moves; and ‘freezes’ - balancing poses such as handstands and headstands.
The judges, practising breakers themselves, traditionally perform a showcase at competitive events. At the Olympics, the judges will use a slider to rate the competitors against five criteria - vocabulary, technique, execution, musicality and originality.
Musicality, originality and theatrical combat
Musicality is very important. Michael Fox (B-boy Flyin’ Foxy), Director of Melbourne Break Dance, is an Australian All-Star Breaker and two-time Australian breaking champion.
“If your moves don't match the music, you actually lose a lot of points,” Fox said.
Adapting your performance to the music takes practice. Fox made it a habit to learn a song a day.
“I would be listening to just one track for that day over and over and over, so I memorised it. So, in a year, I would memorise 365 songs, and I did that over the course of 15 years .”
Originality is highly valued and there is plenty of scope to develop a unique ‘persona’ and style.
“Breaking is one of those sports that borrows from everywhere. Whatever background you specialise in, you can [be] introduced to breaking.”
Repetition is discouraged, and ‘biting’ (copying) is “a big frowning point”.
“You don’t want to dance like somebody else; you want to dance like you, and you want to stand out,” Fox said.
Jami Blomeley, owner and manager of Ballarat-based Existdance, has been involved in competitive events as a competitor and judge.
Breaking, Blomeley says, is inherently competitive, with a ‘call and response’ dynamic.
“If somebody puts out a back spin, you've got to go, ‘Oh, I've got one better than that’,” Blomeley said.
It’s also combative, with ‘burns’ (fighting moves) being a traditional element.
“You would pretend to stab them, slice them, throw a grenade at them, shoot them and make fun of them.
Pretend to knock their hat off and squash [it] and throw it in the air and then shoot it with a weapon.
But we both know the rule: that this will not end in a fight, because that is part of the dance, and what we've chosen to do.”
Misbehaviour - when a move is more aggressive than aesthetic - is penalised. International judge Andrii Kurnosov, aka B-Boy Intact, said in an Olympics Games explainer that judges consider the context - the story, style and finesse - and think twice before hitting the misbehaviour button.
What’s next for breaking?
Unfortunately, breaking won’t be competed at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, and Australia has not decided which sports it will add for Brisbane 2032.
However, post-Paris, breakers are bracing for an explosion of interest. Rachael Gunn, having researched Australian breaking and hip-hop cultures, welcomes it, seeing the Olympics as "a really important platform for the visibility of the sport and educating audiences”.
“A lot of people haven’t seen breaking since the early 1980s and thought it had died out, so this is going to be an important stage to show people how breaking has developed," she said.
"[It] opens the door for breakers, not just in the sporting world with support and sponsorship, but also opportunities in the artistic world … and [offers] opportunities in communities with outreach-style projects.”
The Breaking event at the Paris Olympics is scheduled to begin at 12am AEST on August 10 (Women) and August 11 (Men).