For Ukraine’s Olympic breakdancers, ‘shining’ is more important than winning

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WARSAW, Poland — A rocking beat of energetic music fills every corner of a spacious, sun-drenched sports complex in the Polish capital. After some stretching and warming up, three breakers and their trainer are practicing complex dance and acrobatic moves.

Breaking, also known as breakdancing, is making its Olympic debut as a sport this week in Paris. A team of female and male Ukrainian athletes, called “B-girls” and “B-boys,” have gone through a three-year selection process on their way to the Summer Games and finally got together in a training camp here last month.

Kateryna Pavlenko, 29, or B-girl Kate, looked at herself in the mirror as she danced, a look of growing confidence on her face. “When we just knew that breaking is going to be in the Olympics, I had no doubt I'm going to do everything to end up there,” she said.

Pavlenko, another Ukrainian b-girl, Anna Ponomarenko, and two B-boys came here to train for the Olympic Games. In a one-on-one breaking competition, two dancers take turns showcasing their skills, moves, character, style, and musicality, each trying to outshine the other. After all the rounds are completed, the judges determine the winner.

Ukrainians have known breaking since Soviet times, when authorities disapproved of it, which gave it a special appeal as a kind of cultural forbidden fruit. They usually first discovered it thanks to video cassettes of movies such as Breakin’ (1984) that were brought home by citizens, often diplomats, who had the right to travel abroad.

After the Cold War ended, many teenagers watched battles — or competitions — of American B-boys and B-girls on pirated hip-hop music videos, pausing them to learn the moves and style.

Georgii Matiukhin, the team manager, was one of those teens.

“We were a generation without any school,” Matiukhin said. “We found VHS tapes, watched them, and tried to repeat. The first tapes we watched were American breakers, Rock Steady Crew from New York and style elements from the West Coast.”

In the early 2000s, Ukrainian breaking made its way to international battles and championships, where Ukrainians showed good results.

Matiukhin said he believes breaking has gained such popularity and development in his country because dance “has always been in the blood of Ukrainians.”

Breaking, which was born in the Bronx, now shows many cultural influences, notably from South Africa and Brazil. Ukrainian folk dances, such as the arms-crossed, foot-kicking hopak, are also an inspiration to many — especially the three athletes training here.

Oleh Kuznetsov, or B-boy Kuzya, age 34, says his footwork demonstrates how classical elements from Ukrainian folk dances can be interpreted in modern breaking. For him, representing Ukraine is a great honor.

“I want to show that we have nice big and shiny souls and that I am representing my country and my culture,” he said.

At the Olympics, Ukrainian breakers will compete in groups of athletes in a battle format. The nine judges will evaluate the athletes according to criteria including originality, technique and “vocabulary” or the variety of dance moves deployed.

Unlike in figure skating, where athletes practice the same choreography for months, even years, in breaking the athletes do not know the music in advance. So the ability to adapt and improvise is key.

Denys Seminikhin, the team's coach, says the breakers’ psychological state is no less important than physical fitness, emphasizing that representing the country during the war is a great challenge for the athletes.

“Shining is more important than winning,” Pavlenko said. With her performance, she says she wants to return the world's attention to Ukraine.

“Of course, I want to win a medal,” she adds. “I feel proud to represent my country and I want to make my people proud as well.”