Break Dancing Will Be An Olympic Sport In 2024
Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Raphael Xavier, professional breakdancer and professor of hip-hop dance at Princeton, about break dancing becoming an Olympic sport.
Forget ice skating. Breakdancing is the coolest new Olympic sport. The International Olympic Committee has officially announced it will add breakdancing to the Games under the name breaking. Breaking, of course, is a style of hip-hop dance that includes footwork and athletic moves like back or head spins. The dancers, often called b-boys or b-girls, will be able to compete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. And here to talk about it is professional hip-hop dancer and breaker Raphael Xavier. Welcome to the program.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I am well. You've been a breakdancer since the 1980s, and you are now a professor at Princeton teaching break dancing classes and the history of hip-hop. What does it mean to you that it's now an Olympic sport?
XAVIER: I think it's pretty interesting. There could be negatives and some positives, as well. I think staying on the positive side, it's a great opportunity for the younger generation to have something to look forward to, as with any, you know, athletic sport, the older guys - you know, you didn't have that. It was just battling. But I think now that the Olympics are, you know, on the table, this younger generation has something else to look forward to outside of what we've always had.
