‘It’s not about Raygun’: Breakdancers speak out on Olympics row
Al Jazeera
Legendary breakers Kwikstep and Rokafella give their take on the now infamous ‘kangaroo hop’.
The worst thing about the uproar that erupted when an Australian breakdancer received zero points for her performance at the Olympics was not the slightly bizarre “kangaroo hop” she performed, say the renowned, New York-based breakdance champions Gabriel “Kwikstep” Dionisio and Ana “Rokafella” Garcia.
The particularly devastating angle to the whole mess – “frustrating, insulting, offensive” is how Rokafella puts it; “burning the scene” is how Kwikstep sees it – was that it completely overshadowed the other performers, some of whom did win medals and “made an incredible impression on that dance floor”.
It’s a huge shame, they say, because dancers such as Ami Yuasa (B-Girl Ami) from Japan who won the gold medal in the women’s (“b-girls”) breaking competition and Philip Kim (B-Boy Phil Wizard) from Canada who won a gold medal for the men’s (“b-boys”) competition, should have come away from the games covered in glory.
Many in the breaking community had hoped the art form would grow in popularity and attract a wider audience after the International Olympic Committee announced that it would become an official sport at the Paris 2024 games.
Instead, the art was roundly derided and mocked as the performance by university professor-turned-b-girl Rachael Gunn – known as Raygun in breakdancing circles – went viral on social media. The criticism even extended to a parody on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in the United States.
