One day, when we were still both at home, my younger brother was trying to show me his new painting while I was telling him “the story” I thought his painting was telling me.
Bertie interrupted me and said something like ahem! haw, if you look ahem! haw, here and here and here ahem! haw, in that order, you might ahem! haw … I stared at him, bowled over, realizing that, of course, there are a zillion ways to look at something. All I had to do was look at a start point and imagine a path to an end point.
This scene of brotherly exasperation comes to mind because I’ve been asking myself lately what start points, paths and end points work best when it comes to appreciating dance performance (see: Wanted: A five-points-on-a-post-it-note guide to enjoying live dance performance). And, Poof! Synchronicity waddles across the face of the Sun and I learn break choreographer and dancer Valentine Nagata Ramos is sitting on break dance juries across the globe. I call her up and we talk on Zoom.
Valentine tells me that candidates for the début Olympic break dance competition in Paris 2024 have to go through a competitive validation process established by the World Dance Sport Federation. Her jury service, at least in part, is part of that process.
I ask her how she and her fellow jury members evaluate break dancing? What are their start points, paths and end points?
It goes without saying, we both believe, that the start point for evaluating, assessing or appreciating anything at all, but especially a thing like dance performance which are their own products, is some experience of it as a participant or active observer.
So, a jury person must be attuned to the physical reality of the thing as it happens.
Also, Valentine says, peer recognition of a jury person’s performance and creation credentials also counts for much because, of course, it legitimates the evaluation in the eyes of those being judged, but also, perhaps even more important, peer recognition of each other’s accomplishments authenticates jury members among themselves.
Important, too, Valentine tells me, is the “family” perspective that sustains break-dance as a human enterprise within the art of movement. Break dance might be big business but it’s big natural human business. In terms of the break-dance enterprise, Valentine sees her new role as a jury member as part of her career development, just like any ambitious professional. But at the same time, her career development happens and has significance within the framework of a “family”. She sees herself as among the first generation of breakers in France. She feels she is working for a third generation that is looking to establish a life and personality of its own. She can look on her family’s “third generation” with a certain dispassion … one might say, with an elder’s or grandparent’s positive detachment.
For a serious breaker – serving on a jury or being evaluated by one – Valentine says, becoming a potential champion comes down to mastery: of “technique, footwork, and power”.
She describes technique as held positions, including top rock, upper body movement or gesture – getting and keeping your upper body loose – especially the arms and hands, and freeze – positions that are extremely athletic but stationary, such as holding the body lateral on single handstand (seeming to lie in the air). Footwork is the complex elegance of dance steps and/or of lower-body movement. Power, she concludes, is the ability to direct physical force, especially, project a distinct personality. To understand how high the technical requirement for break dance is – I recommend trying a single trial of a break dance session – in terms of control, precision and endurance in elegance, ballet has nothing on break.
Mastery of technique, footwork and power are just the price of admission to professional break, Valentine says: technique, footwork and power must articulate as a dance personality. Do lower body and/or upper body, lower body, upper body and/or gesture go together? If they do, how so? Do the moves “make sense” together? It is around the perception of these questions of articulation that experience, respect of peers and confidence of belonging and contributing to the break family come together to enable a jury person’s evaluation.
Valentine uses the analogy of “found words” or what I think of as “poetry”: a breaker brings together available words (movements) in ways that speak about themselves and for or to the observer.
In evaluating articulation, as a jury member, Valentine has to first decide at what point she stops hearing words or phrases and begins discern a verse: Dog puppy love? Puppy dog love? Puppy love dog? Dog loves puppy? The dog loves its puppy?
And, if and when the words and phrases seem to her to articulate into verses, is she hearing real poetry or amusing but random sounds? Is there art in it?
Because so many powerful, technically formidable and choreographically savvy break dancers learn uniquely by imitation, Valentine remarks, many have never had the opportunity to absorb this notion of articulation – the transition from words to verse, so to say. So, many a very technically masterful breaker washes out without really understanding why they washed out or how they should go forward.
The link of lack of formal education with subsequent wash out also shows up as lack of context as a breaker moves towards “versifying”, observes Valentine. For instance, they will use a borrowed “phrase” – two linked moves – combining, say, a vigorous back spin and a flying windmill, without understanding the choreographic “verse” of which the phrase was originally a part, which can be interpreted both as lack of professional knowledge and as an offense against family morality; there’s even a word for it, a “biter”, a plagiarist.
Once a jury member has decided a sufficient level of technical mastery and evaluated the poetry of its articulation, Valentine continues, scoring break dance is not like scoring skating or gymnastics. There is no direct system of points attached to technique or gesture.
Break juries instead assign their values to observations on the dancer’s “body, mind and soul”. Body, in contrast with technique, implies that technique and footwork have been assimilated into the posture and gesture of the body at rest.
We might say that body references the level of transformation of ability and potential into skill and competence.
Mind references creativity – the skill of articulating mastery – technique, footwork and especially power, the ability to project strength in personality – into a “poetry of movement” .
Soul references the fluidity and appropriateness of the break performance, a breaker’s skill at dominating the environment with their personality.
Soul, Valentine says, is both instinctive and unique to the performer and one of those indescribable things that everybody senses. As a result, soul is the strongest visual or experiential argument of the performer but the least quantifiable or arguable for the jury or spectators.
Valentine points to the battle between the reigning US champion Victor in Victor vs Jeffro Bboy Finals│The World Games 2022 Breaking. In this battle, Valentine observes, the body and mind of champion Victor are just so, so outstandingly strong that it would be impossible to explain his loss – to him, to spectators, even to Jeffro – if he were to lose. Yet, both jury and spectators are deeply moved as Jeffro channels excellent body and mind to a truly distinct and attractive personality. It is hard not to feel a certain regret over Jeffro’s second place but harder still to argue a first place over Victor. Click the link just above and do your own evaluation. Just below I’ve listed a couple of links Valentine has shared so that you can get some practical experience in judging dance from your armchairs.
I am sorry to say that Valentine reports that Olympic break will be gender segregated. Though at the moment dominated by boys and young men, break dance is in principle and by custom mixed-gender dance performance. As in other areas of endeavor, as girls and young women have in recent years felt freer to practice equality, they have been more and more present in break dance.
Valentine’s own performances and creations, including her (exclusively female break dance) b.girl troupe performance, have all the strengths and qualities that characterize good break art and technique. When all is said and done, she feels that in technique, footwork and power, men and women balance out. Mixed-gender crews (teams, troupes) and battles certainly better represent the reality of break dance performance.
As outlined in this essay, the system for evaluating break performance certainly enables assessments that successfully balance quantifiables and qualities (cf. Victor vs Jeffro, above) without falling into the rigid gender trap.
You may like to practice Valentine’s system. In addition to Victor vs Jeffro, she has kindly provided three suitable battles for trying your hand: Ayumi vs Qingyi Bgirl 3rd Place│The World Games 2022 Breaking ; Jeffro vs Dany Dann Bboy Top 8│The World Games 2022 Breaking ; Phil Wizard vs Shigekix Bboy Top 8│The World Games 2022 Breaking
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