Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Global Hip Hop Studies
  4. Volume 4, Issue 1
  5. Article
Breaking and the Olympics
  • ISSN: 2632-6825
  • E-ISSN: 2632-6833
file format pdf download PDF

Abstract

With world champions breakers like Canada’s Karl ‘Dyzee’ Alba and the United Kingdom’s Ereson ‘Mouse’ Catipon, Filipino diaspora have been a global force in breaking; however the domestic Filipino dance scene has remained relatively understudied. In this article, I argue that breaking in the Philippines has been stymied by an ongoing ideological battle between professionalization and tradition. This juxtaposition is aptly distilled in the legacies of Dyzee and Mouse, in which the former mentored local dance professionals and the latter made the country a mecca for hip hop humanitarianism. These highly regarded thought-leaders each garnered local followings that are often at odds with each other. Despite these differences however, on the issue of the Olympics, the two camps have joined together in unprecedented fashion. In 2021, Filipino dance community leaders formed the B-boy & B-girl Association of the Philippines (BBAP) in order to unite the local scene and take ownership of the country’s Olympic endeavours. With Dyzee as president and Mouse as vice president, BBAP combines community-building and enterprise in order to enhance the Philippines’s global competitiveness and visibility in the world of breaking. This research aims to historicize Filipino breaking culture in light of the Olympic moment. To do so, it employs an ethnography among BBAP supported by personal and archival interviews from the 2011 documentary, (Bitanga 2011).

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows users to copy, distribute and transmit the article as long as the author is attributed, the article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00074_1
2024-04-22
2025-12-14
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/ghhs/4/1/ghhs.4.1.9_Bitanga.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00074_1&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Alba, Karl (2021), video interview with P. Bitanga, 22 October.
  2. Alim, Samy (2006), Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip-Hop Culture, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bagalawis, Randolf (2022), video interview with P. Bitanga, 13 June.
  4. Bitanga (2011), Pinoy B-boy, Philippines: New Image Productions.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bitanga (2019), OUR City Battles, Taiwan: OUR City B-boys.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bitanga (2021), ‘Breaking for Paris: Filipino dancers could be the next Olympians’, Rappler, 21 February, https://www.rappler.com/sports/breaking-for-paris-filipino-dancers-next-olympians/. Accessed 26 June 2022.
  7. Bitanga (2022), ‘The Filipino flows of Logistx and Ronnie’, Redbull, 23 March, https://www.redbull.com/int-en/ronnie-logistx-filipino-flows. Accessed 24 March 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Sy, Brylle (2022), ‘Facebook post’, Facebook, 8 March, https://www.facebook.com/eyedea94/posts/pfbid033ipf1A43E7CxWjRtaogWgXY3gGmQnAA4pxVQ9dhra8QsToG2e9TQ5tDwCgJZV62hl. Accessed 16 March 2022.
  9. Cambay, Jay (2022), video interview with P. Bitanga, 30 May.
  10. Catipon, Ereson (2021), video interview with P. Bitanga, 29 October.
  11. Diaz, Lema (2022), video interview with P. Bitanga, 8 June.
  12. Fogarty, Mary (2012), ‘Each one teach one: B-boying and ageing’, in A. Bennett and P. Hodkinson (eds), Ageing and Youth Cultures: Music, Style and Identity, New York: Routledge, pp. 53–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Fogarty, Mary (2018), ‘“Why are breaking battles judged?”: The rise of international competition’, in S. Dodds (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Competition, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 409–28.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Gavilan, Jodesz (2019), ‘What do we know about SEA Games 2019’s Phisgoc?’, Rappler, 29 November, https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/246004-things-know-sea-games-2019-phisgoc/. Accessed 26 June 2022.
  15. Gotangco, Jesse (2022), video interview with P. Bitanga, 30 May.
  16. Ingles, Mickey (2022), ‘From athlete to citizen: A quick explainer on naturalization laws’, Spin, 19 February, https://www.spin.ph/life/guide/column-how-does-an-athlete-become-a-citizen-a4598-20210219-lfrm?ref=home_feed_1. Accessed 26 June 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Kapayapaan Project (2016), ‘About us’, https://kapayapaanproject.wordpress.com/team-kapayapaan/. Accessed 26 June 2022.
  18. KRS-ONE & Marley Marl (2007), ‘Hip-Hop Lives’, Hip-Hop Lives, CD, New York: Koch Records.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Ng, Jason Andrew (2019), ‘Connecting Asia–Pacific hip-hop: The role of the cross-cultural intermediary’, thesis, Melbourne: Monash University, https://doi.org/10.26180/5d4805f266eeb.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Li, Rong Zhi and Vexler, Yonatan Asher (2019), ‘Breaking for gold: Another crossroads in the divergent history of this dance’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 36:4–5, https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2019.1615896.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Perillo, Jeffrey Lorenzo (2013), Hip-hop, Streetdance, and the Remaking of the Global Filipino, UCLA, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/16q5z7gp.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Pilichowski, Robert (2013), All Out War, Toronto: Footwork Films.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Robitzky, Niels ‘Storm’ (2022), ‘The technical developments in breaking from conditioning to mindset’, in M. Fogarty and I. K. Johnson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Hip-Hop Dance Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 58–79.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Rudimental (2012), ‘Rudimental: Not giving in (ft. John Newman & Alex Clare) (official video)’, 17 October, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9-Lwpgfd1E. Accessed 16 March 2022.
  25. Tiongson Jr., Antonio T. (2013), Filipinos Represent: DJs, Racial Authenticity and the Hip-Hop Nation, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Villegas, Mark R. (2016), ‘Currents of militarization, flows of hip-hop: Expanding the geographies of Filipino American culture’, Journal of Asian American Studies, 19:1, pp. 25–46.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ghhs_00074_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): cultural economy; cultural intermediaries; cultural studies; dance; Olympics; Philippines

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test