Breakdance: The Four Basic Elements
Seeing how popular movies such as “Step Up” were, you would know that breakdance is one of the most popular types of dancing in the entire world! Someone might ask “What exactly is breakdancing?” Breakdance is a type of street dance that requires strength and speed. What makes breakdance so special is that no two dancers can be the same, everyone is different. This is because of the freedom you have with breakdance. There’s no routine, just dance to the flow of your heart!
Four basic dance elements make up the foundation of breakdance; toprock, downrock (also known as footwork), power moves and freezes.
Toprock is all about your footwork. It is a term used for any combinations of footwork done while standing up. The dance move is often found at the beginning of a set because it works as a transition into more acrobatic dance moves. It is also an addition to your style, as toprock can be expressional. When doing toprock, a dancer is expected to follow the beat of the song with their footwork. Usually dancers choose to follow the beat of the drum as it is easier to hear. This type of move requires creativity, style, and most importantly, a dancer’s sense of rhythm.
Downrock is similar to toprock as both dance elements require a lot of footwork. This element requires the dancer to be doing footwork with their hand(s) on the ground. The most basic downrock is the 6-step. The 6-step is very fundamental to breakdance because many more complex footwork varies around the structure of the 6-step. The 6-step creates rotation and momentum form the body. It also forces the dancer to stay low and in contact with the ground, which is an excellent position to transfer to other dance moves.
As many might have guessed from the name, power moves demands a high level of strength and momentum from the dancer. The previous dance elements uses footwork while power moves is all about upper body strength. Examples of power moves include the following; Windmill is where the dancer lies on his/her torso and then spins around while kicking into the air; Flares are similar to windmill except the dancer does uses hands to support him/herself up instead of laying down. Power moves are often the most appealing to audience because of its high demand for strength and accuracy.
The name says it all; Freezes are when the dancer sudden halts to all motion in mid-air. Some of the most difficult freezes require the dancer to support his/her whole body with only the strength of one hand! Examples are the handstand and the pike. The most dangerous freeze award goes to suicides though. Suicides are when dancers go into a spin really fast and then intentionally fall onto their backs, which is one of the ways to signal the end of a dance. The suicide may appear to be painful to its audience but dancers find ways to minimize the pain. Ironically, the more painful a suicide appears to be, the more impressive it is.
