The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up

FAIN: FT-286125-22

Serouj Aprahamian
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL 61801-3620)

Research and writing leading to a book about the history of African American break dancing in New York City in the 1970s.

This study offers the first-ever detailed account of the African American beginnings of breaking in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s. Given the pivotal impact this dance had on hip-hop’s emergence, it also disrupts numerous myths and misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop history. More than three-hundred files of untapped archival material, primary interviews, and detailed descriptions of dancing and music are utilized to bring this buried history to life, with a particular focus on the early aesthetic development of breaking, the institutional settings in which hip-hop’s expressions arose, and the movement’s impact on sociocultural relations throughout New York City during the 1970s. By documenting the overlooked testimony of founding b-boys and b-girls, this book also demonstrates how indebted the movement is to the broader African American tradition of producing music and movement in tandem, and the need to integrate scholarship on the body into the humanities.

Media Coverage

Individual grants fuel diverse research, from break dancing to enslaved beer brewers (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Scott Simon
Publication: National Public Radio
Date: 4/16/2022
Abstract: The National Endowment for the Humanities recently announced grants for 245 projects, including research on Latina members of the military, Black women brewers, and the history of break dancing.
URL: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/16/1093189705/individual-grants-fuel-diverse-research-from-break-dancing-to-enslaved-beer-brew

Associated Products

The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up (Book)
Title: The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up
Author: Serouj Aprahamian
Abstract: 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.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/birth-of-breaking-9781501394300/
Primary URL Description: Bloomsbury Academic website page for the book.
Access Model: Book for purchase
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781501394300
Copy sent to NEH?: No

---