Script

Whoa! Look at that sick move! Yeah he is so good! Hey, I wonder how break dancing started? I mean did it just come out of nowhere? It couldn’t have come out of nowhere; I mean everything has to come out of something else. Let’s take a look back to the dance movements before the 80’s to see if we can’t figure this out. So lets start in the 20’s (Zoom out to pictures and clips) Oh the flappers! Love those girls! Then we move on to the 50’s Wait what happened to the 30”s and 40”? The Great Depression and World War II, not much dancing going on. Ohhh gotcha So the 50’s introduced American bandstand and line dancing. You know, wholesome American fun. That’s when Grease took place! Yep. Grease is a great representation of how American youth were starting to rebel against their conformist type parents. Rebels Then there’s the 60’s and dances like the mashed potato and the twist. That’s in Hairspray! I love that movie and its idea about integration in dance on TV. It was such a big issue in American society… Wait I see now, the dance reflects the culture! Exactly! That’s the whole trend here. We then reach the 70’s and Disco! And did disco turn into Break dancing? In a way. Now we’ve come back to the 80’s. I’m still not understanding, I see now that dance reflects culture but what was happening and what did dance reflect and then what happened to it? Whoa whoa whoa, slow down. Hey, here’s * and* maybe they can help us out. Hey guys! We need your help, I’m trying to help * understand why and how break dancing came about and what it did, do you think you can help? Absolutely! Lets go!
 * __ ( __**watching ABDC on the couch)

Imagine, waking up in the middle of the night with smoke filling your eyes and mouth and flames licking the bottom or your shoes. You thank God that you left your shoes on and run out of the burning building. (Worth) After escaping, you find a new, hopefully safer, place to sleep along with the other people living in the abandoned buildings around you. This unfortunate and scary scene was real and what hundreds of people had to live through if they lived in the Bronx in the 1980’s. Economic trouble in the 70’s started to beat down the Bronx, and the disrepair grew from there. The rich were getting richer while the poor were getting poorer, leaving inner city neighborhoods like the Bronx overcrowded and dangerous, revealing “new depths of poverty and despair with levels of misery approaching that of the developing countries.” (Gale 1980’s) This never before seen hopelessness sparked a multitude of problems in the Bronx: a level of violence unheard of in America, an unfortunately booming drug scene, and the presence of dominant, controlling gangs. Hoping to bring kids out of this dead end and dangerous setting, leaders started cropping up in the music and dance scene to start a new movement in the Bronx called break dancing. Break dancing was meant to change the situation that kids were growing up with inside the Bronx by replacing the guns and violence they usually fought with, with dance steps, and bringing new awareness to their problems for help and support. Unfortunately, not all of these goals for change were met. Break dancing had a great impact on music and dance but not on the conditions that it originally rose out of.