![A Canadian soccer star and his underground origins as a b-boy named Timex in the Toronto subway](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6823155.1682608233!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/mls-toronto-fc-whitecaps-soccer-20110319.jpg)
A Canadian soccer star and his underground origins as a b-boy named Timex in the Toronto subway
CBC
One level below the bus bay at Kennedy Station in Toronto's eastern borough of Scarborough, and a level above the subway platform, is a concourse that connects all the pedestrian entrances.
The eastern terminus of Line 2 on Toronto's subway network (TTC) is virtually identical to when it opened in 1980. The same dull yellow tile walls and brown brick floors remain the backdrop for people traveling through this transit hub.
In the years before the proliferation of online communication and cell phones, it was a gathering place for area youths, so much so that by 1998, the TTC mandated orchestral music be played over the public-address intercom in order to keep kids moving, instead of loitering.
Several breaking crews, Bag of Trix, Paranormal and SuperNaturalz, may have been a big part of the impetus for this since-removed measure. However, they weren't loitering, not by a long shot.
They were breaking, an energetic and gymnastic-like dance form which could be the breakout event at next summer's Paris Olympics. Its debut at the Games brings mainstream validation, but it has always been taken seriously.
Dwayne De Rosario knows that inherently. Though the son of Scarborough is renowned for soccer, where he blossomed into MLS stardom under the mononym DeRo, his origin story includes the persona of Timex, a b-boy (break boy) training to enter the cypher (breaking circle).
"I gravitated to the whole art," says De Rosario, 44. "No one wanted to be commercial, we all embraced everything underground. The freedom to express ourselves, it was through breaking, we were rebels but it made us feel important."
Widely cited as originating on the streets of New York City in the 1970s, this infectious Black and Latino youth-driven dance culture blasted forth from the Bronx. Its root was tapped by ethnic communities across the globe and it subsequently came into vogue in mainstream media.
By the early 1980s, Toronto caught the wave.
SuperNaturalz crew formed in 1993. De Rosario's eldest brother, Paul, was a principal member in this squad of high school students that ranged in age from 14-19.
Paul went by the b-boy name Pace. Along with NightCrawler, Lego, Stripes, Revere, Taffy, Jedi and a few others, they were some of the city's finest breakers.
By that stage, Dwayne was clearly the most promising soccer player in a family where their Guyanese-born dad, Tony, had raised them on the sport.
When it came to breaking, it was a role reversal in applying his athleticism, not only in comparison to his brother, but to the rest of SuperNaturalz as well.
"I would dabble on the side but I'd get frustrated," De Rosario recalls. "My competitive self wanted me to be just as good as them, my bro had crazy shuffles. Jedi had all the power moves, crabs, flares and windmills."