name was frequently evoked in similar high-profile
cases to cast doubts upon a victim’s veracity.
Brawley herself quickly disappeared after the
grand jury verdict, moving to Virginia with her fam-
ily and eventually converting to Islam and adopting
a Muslim name. Her impact on those who were
drawn into her story proved to be profound and
long-lasting. Pagones sued Sharpton, Maddox, and
Mason for defamation of character and won a
$345,000 judgment. Sharpton moved into the politi-
cal arena, eventually seeking the Democratic nomi-
nation for president, but his involvement in the
Brawley affair continued to tarnish his reputation.
Further Reading
Macfadden, Robert D.Outrage: The Stor y Behind the
Tawana Brawley Hoax.New York: Bantam, 1990.
Taibbi, Mike, and Anna Sims-Phillips.Unholy Alli-
ances: Working the Tawana Brawley Stor y. New York:
Harcourt, 1989.
Devon Boan
See also African Americans;Bonfire of the Vanities,
The; Central Park jogger case; Goetz, Bernhard;
Howard Beach incident; Racial discrimination; Rape;
Scandals.
Break dancing
Definition Hip-hop street dance style
Thought of as a constructive alternative to violent urban
street gangs, it managed to somewhat divert violence and to
be passed as a source of inspiration via word-of-mouth
rather than through formal dance instruction.
Break dancing is characterized by multiple body
contortions, wriggling, electric waves, popping body
parts, and touching the ground with one’s hands,
back, or head—all performed with mechanical pre-
cision. It possesses an unstructured and improvisa-
tional format, so different elements can be inserted
at will into a dance. The most important elements re-
main coordination, flexibility, style, rhythm, and
transitions. The dance incorporates other moves
with specific purposes: “Uprock,” for example, mim-
ics combat through foot shuffles, spins, and turns.
“Downrock” is performed with both hands and feet
on the floor, as a preliminary chain of movements
progresses to more physically demanding power
moves that display upper-body strength. Dance rou-
tines include “freezes,” during which the body is sus-
pended off the ground, and they usually end with a
“suicide,” a falling move in which it appears that the
dancer has lost control and crashes.
Break Dancing’s Beginnings Influenced by martial
arts, Brazilian capoeira, gymnastics, and acrobatics,
break dancing originally appealed to a generation of
youth striving against the demands of society and
city life. The movement originated in the South
Bronx, New York, and during the 1980’s, it prevailed
among rival ghetto gangs as an alternative means of
resolving territorial disputes. Soon, it grew from a
ritual of gang warfare into a pop culture phenome-
non that captured the attention of the media.
Break dancing got its name from the music to
which it was performed, which followed a “break”
structure, made of multiple samples of songs of
different genres, including jazz, soul, funk, disco,
rhythm and blues, and electro-funk. These samples
were compiled and chained together by a disc jockey,
or deejay. Tempo, beat, and rhythm cued dancers in
the performance of their moves, and dancers would
often have specific moves at which they excelled,
called “perfections.” Break-dance battles resembled
chess games, as the participants sought to catch their
opponents off-guard by challenging them with un-
expected moves.
From its onset, break dancing represented a posi-
tive diversion from the threatening demands of city
life; however, it was not entirely successful as an alter-
native to fighting. Nevertheless, break dancing did
provide a stage where many youth experienced a
feeling of belonging, helping them define them-
selves and open themselves to socialization. The jar-
gon they created, the Adidas shoes and hooded ny-
lon jackets they established as fashion, and their
boom boxes and portable dance floors were all part
of their attempt to flood the streets with their pres-
ence and their purpose: bringing dance to every
corner of the inner city.
From the Streets to the Screen to the Olympics
Afrika Bambaataa can be said to have designed, car-
ried forward, and nurtured the street life of break
dancing through his work as a record producer. (His
“Looking for the Perfect Beat” was a number-four
single in 1983.) In addition, his leadership in the
Zulu Nation, the spiritual force behind break danc-
ing, became the engine that ran the break-dancing142 Break dancing The Eighties in America