CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Anthropologists from James Cook University have today unveiled a panicked research project aimed at documenting a cultural ritual once practiced by hundreds of thousands of people world wide.
Breakdance battling. An Australian past time, mostly practiced by suburban youths who enjoy emulated the dress and linguistics of 1980s African-American hip hop artists – unfortunately this community is almost extinct.
With the rise of Krumping, Clowning, Shuffling and the now famous ‘Gabbering’ associated with lad culture in our cities outskirts, breakdancing has been almost wholly consumed by acrobatics in general.
“What we have found is anyone with the core strength to genuinely be good at breakdancing, ended up getting real jobs as performers in dance troupes or the circus” said lead researcher Lote Loggins.
“The culture is almost completely extinct. It is now our job the document the remnants”
Human history can be traced through the spread of languages. The Phoenicians spanned the ancient Mediterranean trade routes, bringing the alphabet to the Greeks and literacy to Europeans. English, once a small language spoken in southern Britain, is now the mother tongue of hundreds of millions across the world. The Chinese dialects are more than a billion strong with Mandarin fast becoming an umbrella default for their diaspora.
The language of breakdancing comes in a physical form, of windmills and headspins and catterpillars, however the entire fate of the B’Boy people now lies with its last true practicing breakdance battler, a person who never expected such a burden and has spent much of his life overwhelmed by it.
Jay Xstatikk, the former leader of a once prominent breakdancing crew in the North West Sydney area known as the Hot Foot Rockaz, is the last surviving breakdancer in Australia, and possible the entire Southern Hemisphere.
“The game [culture] really got quite crowded out by the power moves” says Mr Xstatikk.
“All of a sudden it was about your athleticism, but more ’bout the attitude. Some people didn’t even take their feet off the ground”
Mr Xstatikk says at this point, there is only one thing that can save his culture.
“We need programs in schools educating kids from boring suburbs about their people’s history and ceremony”
“We need classes where kids can fold out the cardboard and put on the BMX helmet”
“Alternatively, if the remaining Beastie Boys came out here for another tour. We might get a bit more hype going”
