Cypher Documents Break Dance Comeback

Hip-hop began not just as a music genre but as a cultural movement. From soundsystems to DJs and repurposed vinyl to graffiti, insurrection and break dance, it attacked the mainstream using a variety of invigorating elements.

But some elements have survived time's arrow better than others. Changes in hip-hop's tastes dealt break dance, better known as breaking, a pretty rough body blow. Especially since the arrival of gangsta rap, which looked upon dancing as something that got in the way of drinking, jacking and mostly wasting everyone's time. Yet breaking survives and, with the thankful resurgence of conscientious hip-hop, is increasing in momentum.

And that velocity makes for some pretty pictures.

Good thing Touch Me I'm Sick shutterbug Charles Peterson was around to take them. The man whose photos helped document the grunge phenomenon is adding hip-hop to his portfolio with Cypher, out now from New York's powerHouse Books. It shows off what happens when a ring of revisionist breakers forms and sets about defying gravity and the human body's structural integrity.

Peterson used medium format cameras for a larger-than-life feel, and it works. Meanwhile, Jeff Chang's deep introduction, like his other valuable writing, adds the kind of cultural context needed to remind the world that hip-hop is much more than Flava Flav and 50 Cent. Much more, indeed.

Hip-hop master coming to city

If you don’t think you’re hip enough to hip-hop, amble on over to the Watertown Fairgrounds YMCA for upcoming workshops. There, master hip-hop instructor Pat-y-o (real name: Patrick Otero) will guide you through the right moves during classes on Nov. 1 and 2. Hip-hop dancing is closely associated with rap music and with the style and fashions of black inner-city residents. Pat-y-o has 14 years of experience in directing, judging and stage-managing with Starbound National Dance Competition and more than 30 years of experience in dance overall. Besides his work in television, movies and sporting events, he is a co-instructor featured in the videos “Off Da Hook” and “Hip-Hop You Don’t Stop.” In August, he headlined the hip-hop master class for Dance Teacher/Dance Spirit Dance Convention in Manhattan. Shereen Daly, owner of In Motion School of Dance in Watertown, attended the conference and asked Pat-y-o if he could come to Watertown. He agreed, and the Fairgrounds YMCA decided to host the workshops. Tammie J. Miller, Fairgrounds YMCA director, said the hip-hop workshops fit in with the YMCA because the agency offers other dance classes. She added it’s also a way for the YMCA to promote the arts and to bring dancers and instructors at the area’s dance studios together. Mrs. Daly said the recent popularity of reality shows with dance themes on network television should create lots of interest for the hip-hop classes. Pat-y-o will offer one workshop a day to junior groups, ages 7-12, and to senior groups, ages 13 and up. “We’re hoping this is going to reach out to not only the dance studios, but to the schools,” said Mrs. Daly. According to answers.com, hip-hop dance originated in New York City among young Hispanic and black men during the late 1960s as part of the hip-hop culture of rap, scratch music and graffiti art. The technique essentially embraces the break-dance and body-popping dance styles.