Next year, in Paris, the Summer Olympics will début a new sport, born on the streets of New York: breaking, a.k.a. break dancing. On a recent afternoon, dozens of b-boys and b-girls assembled in a converted warehouse for the Big Apple Regionals.
According to a Greek legend, the Olympic Games were created by Herakles, as a tribute to his father, Zeus. The Games have evolved over the centuries—in with canoe slalom, out with something called pankration. Next year, in Paris, the Summer Olympics will début a new sport, born on the streets of New York: breaking, a.k.a. break dancing. On a recent afternoon, dozens of b-boys and b-girls assembled in a converted Williamsburg warehouse for the Big Apple Regionals.
Sunny retreated to a couch. She wore a green T-shirt with a white Basquiat crown on the breast pocket, and a black baseball cap pulled low. Her legs were wrapped in heavy-duty compression sleeves. Mantis and Pebblz Luv, two semifinalists, joined her. Sunny’s self-assessment was mixed. “But I’m having fun,” she said. In January, she’d left Estée Lauder, where she was a global creative-operations director. “I didn’t quit my job for nothing,” she said, smiling.
Among the more popular competitors was Benihana —“I just put my age in the name so they know they can say it,” he said—an ad executive from Fort Lauderdale who took up breaking a decade ago, to stay in shape. He wore a yellow button-down bowling shirt with a large Bitcoin logo, and a black support on each wrist. A competitor named Tahu approached him. “Thanks for the battle, bro,” Tahu said. They embraced. “It’s a pretty tight-knit community,” Benihana explained.