The only Olympic sport where judges have to perform for the athletes

When Australian Rachael Gunn takes to the dance floor in Paris this year, she – and her chosen discipline – will be breaking new ground.

Gunn, along with 31 other athletes, will be competing in breakdancing’s first and only appearance at the Olympics. The other unique characteristic of breaking - as it’s officially known in Olympic competition - is that it is the only sport where the judges have to perform for the athletes.

Gunn, who goes by the name B-Girl Raygun, explains that a common part of breaking competition is the “judge’s showcase” – a demonstration that proves to the contestants that those marking them are still down with the breaking community.

“We need to see that the judges are still active, that they still know what is happening in the scene, and we want to get a sense of what their approach and their style is,” Gunn says. “You get to see that there’s a bit of a range of the judging panel as well - it might help you get a sense of what they’re looking for.

“All the judges stand up, they play some music, they’re all kind of vibing, and they each take turns to do a little demonstration. Actually, at Oceania [Championships], the MCs also got down and did some breaking as well, because they’re also breakers. It really sets the tone for the event. It makes it exciting, it breaks the ice a little bit, and it’s just going to be really exciting to watch.”

Rush Wepiha is a New-Zealand born hip-hop fan who grew up breaking in the late 1990s. When he heard breaking was going to be in the Olympics, he wanted no part of it.

Wepiha thought that the structure of an Olympic competition went against everything breaking culture stood for. But come August, he could be one of nine judges at the Olympics.

“For decades we’ve been fighting this notion that breaking is a sport, because it’s an art form. But now the newer generation are all for the sport of it,” Wepiha says.

“If this is where the kids want to go, if this is what they want to do, I have kind of an obligation to at least be there and just guide it in a sense, so at least it doesn’t lose its essence.”

Now, Wepiha judges breaking competitions all around the world, including the Oceania Championship in Sydney last year, where Gunn and fellow Australian Jeff Dunne – or ‘B-Boy J Attack’ – secured their Olympic qualification.

“It [the judge’s showcase] always been a kind of tradition at our events where the judges get up, show their thing so that people we don’t know can [see] they know what they’re doing,” he says.

“What we wanted to make clear, and how we set ourselves apart from all the other sports, is to show that we’re not just people who know how to judge – we’re actually people who do this.”

When it comes to competition, judges score athletes against six categories: creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality.

In breaking competitions, otherwise known as battles, contestants go up against each other in a one-on-one format.

Each category has different weight in a battle, with technique, performativity and creativity constituting 60 per cent of the total score, while variety, musicality and personality form 40 per cent.

“To be a good judge, you have to understand all the complexities and nuances of dance, and you have to really be knowledgeable on music and the culture, not just the dance,” Wepiha says. “You’ve got to be knowledgeable of hip-hop, and understand the language, the conversation that happens when you are breaking.”

As in any sport, athletes have strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

“My strengths are creativity, style and musicality, but dynamics is something I seriously need to work on. So that’s being a little bit more explosive, or that’s having some more kind of gymnastic-style moves,” Gunn says.

“I think particularly if your strength is musicality you want a song that gives you a lot in terms of musicality, whereas if it’s more of a pullback kind of beat it’s harder to find moments of expression, but you’ve just got to do what you can, and you’ve just got to try and adapt.

“But it runs through your head when you’re like, ‘Crap, I don’t like this song’. You’ve just got to work with what you’ve got, but at least you and your opponent have to dance to the same song.”

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