The untold story of how breaking - one of the most widely practiced dance forms in the world
today - began as a distinctly African American expression in the Bronx New York during the
1970s. Breaking is the first and most widely practiced hip-hop dance in the world with around
one million participants in this dynamic multifaceted artform - and as of 2024 Olympic
sport. Yet despite its global reach and nearly 50-year history stories of breaking's origins
have largely neglected the African Americans who founded it. Dancer and scholar Serouj Midus
Aprahamian offers for the first time a detailed look into the African American beginnings of
breaking in the Bronx New York. The Birth of Breaking challenges numerous myths and
misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop's evolution considering the influence
breaking has had on hip-hop culture. Including previously unseen archival material interviews
and detailed depictions of the dance at its outset this book brings to life this buried
history with a particular focus on the early development of the dance the institutional
settings where hip-hop was conceived and the movement's impact on sociocultural conditions in
New York City throughout the 1970s. By featuring the overlooked first-hand accounts of over 50
founding b-boys and b-girls alongside movement analysis informed by his embodied knowledge of
the dance Aprahamian reveals how indebted breaking is to African American culture as well as
the disturbing factors behind its historical erasure.
