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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 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, 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. 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 their 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.”
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Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Breaking, also known as breakdancing, makes its Olympic debut as a sport tomorrow. Among the competitors there are three Ukrainians who dream of making their country proud as Russia's war there drags on. NPR's Hanna Palamarenko met them while they were training in Warsaw.
HANNA PALAMARENKO, BYLINE: Three Ukrainian breakers are practicing dance and acrobatic moves. Twenty-nine-year-old Kateryna Pavlenko is one of them.
KATERYNA PAVLENKO: I started as a teenager, and I just had pure love and excitement. And it was kind of like a protest, for me, to, you know, express myself, do something anti-girly, be a badass - something outrageous.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PALAMARENKO: Pavlenko is from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, the self-declared capital of Ukrainian hip-hop. She moved to the U.S., her sports birthplace, in 2021 - on her feet all day working as a waitress and then training on them after work. After Russia invaded Ukraine the next year, she decided excelling at her sport was the best way to help her homeland.
PAVLENKO: Whatever it takes me to get what I want, I will just do it. And I go there, and I place pretty high.
PALAMARENKO: But to win, she and the others will face off before judges who evaluate breakers on five criteria, including originality, technique and moves. As is the case in every breaking battle or competition, the athletes won't know the music in advance, so improvising is key.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PALAMARENKO: Watching the practice is Georgiy Matyukhin, the team's manager, a former breaker himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOMFUNK MC SONG, "FREESTYLER")
GEORGIY MATYUKHIN: This track's created Ukrainian breaking, I think.
PALAMARENKO: He plays a song that still gives him goose bumps called "Freestyler." Ukrainians learned about breaking in Soviet times through smuggled tapes, watching videos of American breakers known as B-boys and B-girls. And by the 2000s, Ukrainians joined international competitions, showing off their own high-kicking, gravity-defying moves from folk dances.
MATYUKHIN: Our investment - this is our national dance - hopak and povzunets - really inspire U.S. B-boys in the '80s. So they created footwork.
(SOUNDBITE OF FEET STOMPING)
PALAMARENKO: Oleh Kuznetsov, or B-boy Kuzya, practices some of those moves. For him, representing Ukraine at the Olympics is a great honor.
OLEH KUZNETSOV: I want to show that we have nice, big and shiny soul, you know? And I just represent my country and culture.
PALAMARENKO: At the Olympics, Ukrainian athletes will compete in groups of 16 women and 16 men in a battle format, one against another, until a victor emerges. It will be a challenge. Powerhouses like South Africa, France, Japan and, of course, the United States, will be joining battle. But B-girl Kate, or Kateryna Pavlenko, says just getting to the Olympics is a win.
PAVLENKO: My style is more about music, about freestyle, about taking the moment - risking it. I think shining is more important than winning.
PALAMARENKO: With her performance, Pavlenko wants to return the world's attention to Ukraine and to make Ukrainians proud as they maybe take a moment to forget the endless news of war at home to admire the battles on the dance floor in Paris.
Hanna Palamarenko, NPR News, Warsaw.
(SOUNDBITE OF MF DOOM'S "COFFIN NAILS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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