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In memory of co-author Monique Nuijten. Thank you for all your inspiration and the nice partnership working on this article together.
‘A Breaker is peaceful and calm. At the moment of dancing he expresses all his feelings, he expresses his anger, his love, his sadness, everything. While dancing he develops. Breaking turns them into better people.’ ‘The moment you start to dance and become a b-boy or b-girl everything in you changes, it’s like an armor you put on and you will never take off.’ ‘This is what I love the most, it is what makes me, it is why I keep on fighting, the reason why I am still standing, it is the reason why I can keep on following my dream.’ ‘It is my life, without it [dance] I can’t live, it is like the air.’ In our Identities article, ‘When breaking you make your soul dance’ Utopian aspirations and subjective transformation in breakdance’, we dive into the world of breaking by following the Naturalz crew in Ecuador. The quotes above from various crew members illustrate the importance and meaning of breakdance for them. Breaking is commonly analysed as a subculture of resistance. We analyse two – often neglected – dimensions of this resistance: the significance of utopian aspirations and the role of the body in subjective transformation. The breakers shape a new lifestyle for themselves through breakdance. A lifestyle they fight to preserve every day.
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