As many of you might know, breaking (aka breakdancing) is making its Olympic debut in Paris at the end of these Games. But I imagine that very few of you know that I spent most of my 20s as a b-girl when I was supposed to be working on the MFA in Creative Writing that would end up saddling me with crippling debt well into my late 30s. As with gymnastics, my participation in the dance says nothing about my proficiency—I was decidedly NOT good—but I was dedicated. What my involvement in the New York breaking scene did offer me was an opportunity to learn about the history and culture behind the dance and to meet some truly incredible people along the way.
One of those people is Richard “Break Easy” Santiago, a b-boy who got his start in the dance in Brooklyn in the late 70s. I didn’t get around to meeting him until 2006 or so, shortly after I got into breaking, which is around the time I started the aforementioned overpriced masters program. I was far more invested in the dance than I was in my coursework.
I started going to practices all over the city, which is how I first met Break Easy in McCarren Park in Williamsburg. I would soon be going there to learn the dance from him up to three times a week. (In the colder months, the practice shifted indoors to the Bushwick-Hylan Community Center.)
Audio is not usually my preferred storytelling medium. I like to hide behind the written word that I am able to edit and change, ad nauseam. But I do think audio is the best medium through which to learn about Break Easy. So I decided to interview him for a mini-podcast series about his life in the dance with help from Andrew Callaway, my friend and audio engineer extraordinaire, because you know there’s no way I could’ve edited this myself.
Hope you all enjoy and share it! Part 2 should be coming your way next week!
[A short video I shot of Break Easy getting down in the cypher at a jam in Brooklyn a couple of years ago.]
Break Easy mentions music that I didn’t want to include in the episode because I’m not well-versed in “fair use,” but I still wanted you guys to get a chance to hear some of these tracks so you could better appreciate what he’s talking about.
Always gotta have James Brown:
Even if you never knew the name of this track, you’v heard it one sampled a million times. (Including in this iconic scene from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.)
Also, since Break Easy and I speak briefly about rocking or uprock, I figured I’d show you guys a video of what it looks like in action.
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