The 2024 Paris Olympics will be known for a number of strange scandals. The whole event felt upside down, backwards, like a foreign festival. From extremist blasphemy to unprecedented mass AI surveillance to the unpleasant consequences of gender ideology, a dark shadow hung over the Olympics.
And caught up in that whirlpool was Snoop Dogg, who became more than just a cultural ambassador. AnywhereHe was actually having fun, and he was full of energy and curiosity, and not just because he was making $500,000 a day.
So it came as no surprise to anyone when Snoop found himself center stage at the Place de la Concorde for a breakdancing competition, which is basically expressive dancing that combines swearing with good music.
Snoop led the traditional “three ground strikes” ritual that takes place before every event at this year’s Olympics, and he made a bold appearance wearing custom Skechers.
Breakdancing, also known as breaking, was one of the final events at the two-and-a-half-week Olympics, marking its first year in the sport.
Commentators enthused that breaking’s inclusion in the Olympics had made history and was part of a “groundbreaking journey” for the sport.
And they weren’t wrong: how did a music-driven subculture that combines Russian folk dance and rap music end up in the Olympics?
The whole contest was weird and totally inappropriate. I loved it. I couldn’t decide if it was super politically correct (it was), beautiful and subversive, or, well, maybe it was just lame and inauthentic.
Seriously broken
The preliminary round is played in a round robin format, with two competitors going head to head in a battle (the technical term for a dance-off), with each battle competing for 18 points allocated by the judges.
The women’s breakdancing competition featured girls from all over the world, including one from the Olympic Refugee Team (Talash). Ironically, she Disqualification Because he wore a cape with a political message.
Among the 16 “Breaking Bad Girls” was Raegan, an Australian professor of “cultural studies” who performed worse than any of the other breakdancers.
She apparently got a late start in breakdancing, taking up the sport in her mid-20s — many such dancers begin honing their craft in early adolescence — at that age, Rae Gunn (whose real name is Rachel Gunn) was focused on tap dancing and jazz.
Her husband, Samuel Free, is her coach. When they met, he had been into breakdancing for a while and convinced her to give it a try. She juggled breakdancing with her studies and eventually began competing in international competitions. She qualified for the Olympics in 2023.
Even her students didn’t believe her.
As the 36-year-old athlete came on stage, the announcer said: “Dr Rachel Gunn, university lecturer by day, B-Girl by night, and now Olympian.”
It was a difficult debut: in her first fight, she was up against Logistics, a 21-year-old B-girl who started breaking when she was seven.
Raygan’s dancing here reminded me of the dance scene in “It’s a Sunny Day in Philadelphia.” this 1. If she had danced like that at the wedding reception, it would have been a big hit.
During her second performance, Raegan yawned in boredom (classified as a power move), and commentators praised her for “starting a conversation” with impressive graciousness.
Each B-girl had three chances to score. Raegan didn’t get a single point. Zero. It was unanimous. For some, this was like getting kicked out of clown school.
But what’s more impressive is that by tanking, Reagan actually legitimized the sport: she separated it from an all-encompassing, overly interpretive art form.
This was the most postmodern Olympics ever: Reagan was praised despite his failure.
“It’s all about dedication,” one of the announcers said during Raegan’s harrowing performance. “Dance is about character and it’s all about showing who you are as a person.”
Her political compass is unusual. She is the Robin DiAngelo of hip-hop culture. Or maybe the Rachel Dolezal. As an academic, her politics align with the academic left; her PhD thesis explored “the intersection of gender and break culture in Sydney.”
Her type of people tend to be pompous, insufferable, and spiteful. They enjoy being the gatekeepers and in control. But they seem to have lost their grip on cool.
Still, are Raegan’s political leanings bad enough to justify the trolling she faced? Most of the mockery just seemed mean-spirited. Raegan has never shoehorned politics into it, either in her performances or her weird viral spreads.
she Posts Instagram quote: “Don’t be afraid to be different, go out there and express yourself, you never know where it will take you.”
Disrupting technology
Meanwhile, the US left the Olympics with just one bronze medal in a sport/art form they themselves invented.
Competitive breakdancing has official guidelines and grading criteria. Judges evaluate breakdancers based on five criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality. These criteria include coordination, flexibility, rhythm, and style.
“Vocabulary” represents the variety of breakdancers’ movements.
“Style” is a measure of uniqueness. Every breakdancer is expected to have a distinct and unique approach to the way they move around. Part of it is the attitude and the confidence that a B-boy or B-girl exudes in their performance.
For all these reasons, breaking has been a tough sport to get into the Olympics, but there are plenty of events decided by judges, many of which also require artistic and creative style.
For example, “repeating” is when one of the breakdancers reuses a move they’ve already performed: a flip, a leap, a spin, including the famous headspin trick, or a “freeze”, another common move where the breakdancer suddenly stops in the air and appears surprised.
These are all officially classified as “power moves.” Interesting, right?
Fear of an Unusual Planet
Before the ray gun fades from people’s consciousness, we need to have a conversation about the future of breakdancing in the Olympics. It may not have a future. Flag football, squash, softball and baseball may return to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, but breakdancing will not be an Olympic sport.
But breakdancing was a perfect match for the crazy weirdness of the 2024 Olympics. Here’s hoping it sticks around.
Dancing is hard, but it’s rewarding. It takes a lot of courage to dance. Practicing dancing is as strange as practicing speaking.
“This dance really brings the world together,” said one of the commentators for the women’s breakdancing preliminary competition.
Maybe it sounds corny. Maybe it’s easy to laugh it off. But who cares? Dance is our oldest voice. Dance is an expression of vitality. Throughout history, dance has been an act of youthful rebellion. Dance is electric, it pops and pops. Maybe it’s because dance feels so perfect.
To forget to dance, to forget the intoxicating whirlpool of life, to forget where I had fallen, the same unravelling schedule every day that I thought I knew, always being guided by something I can only call “faith.”
To dance is to break down in front of everyone. To dance is to have your heart broken. To dance is to cry in front of everyone.
To dance is to be a freak show in unknown territory, where everyone is eccentric and ostentatious, yet happy to have company. To dance is to assume a new context.
