Ahead of break dancing’s Olympic debut, Andscape, the Black content studio under Disney and ESPN combined to showcase an important battle between two successful crews, and its impact in a new documentary.
“Breakin’ on the One,” directed by JamsBash (Jamaal Parham and Bashan Aquart) on HULU, tells the story of a break battle between the Rocksteady Crew and the Dynamic Rockers.
“We just went through a 50 years of hip hop celebration where every story was told in every different way and rehashed and trotted out again,” Parham said. “And for us, when we were approached about this project, it seemed like we found something that people missed. It was one of those things where I like to talk about this moment is almost like the big bang moment for break dancing and kind of for hip hop as well.”
As time passed, the art form curated success for many and remains a staple in Hip Hop culture.
Filled with archival footage and interviews from some of the breakers during that moment, the 1981 battle still brings strong emotions for the rivals, as seen in “Breakin’ on the One.”
“The wildly different answers that you would get when you’re asking about the same event.” Aquart said. “It’s like we don’t really necessarily want to come down on a certain side of who won. Was it Rock Steady? Was it Dynamic? It’s like we want to show you how they felt about it and let the audience decide. And it was important for us to be able to recreate as much of the battle as we could from the archival, but also get their opinions of how it went in the moment and how they feel about it now.”
Despite decades since its inception, break dancing will make its official Olympic sport debut this summer in France. Team USA’s dancers include Victor Montalvo and Sunny Choi with two more spots reportedly remaining.
While some may have an issue with it becoming an Olympic sport, some also see the value and how breakin’ can progress forward.
“And “I think for the people who have an issue with it, I understand their point of view after having made this documentary as well, because there is a feature, anytime something like this is elevated to a certain level to forget the people who originated it to forget the place that it came from,” Aquart said. “And what we want to hope this documentary does is make sure that that’s a constant conversation as opposed to this being the one-off documentary point, or it only coming around when we’re celebrating Hip Hop or when Hip Hop is celebrating its longevity, that it’s not forgetting the moments of its origin as well by only celebrating the mc or only celebrating the beat makers.”
“Breakin’ on the One,” is currently on HULU.