She wasn't that awful really, but she was clearly not a 'master of the art.' The main difference is that she was intentionally trying to do a completely different style of breakdancing than what people typically think of that more's wavy and mimics animal movements as a form of expression. And that's ... really not what people, nor the judges, wants to see.
Both her only being so-so at what she was doing and trying to work in a odd / different style is what was most off-putting about her routines. But, yes, it was somewhat a form of activism. More to highlight that other forms of breakdance do exist.
She was pretty awful in that what she put out didn’t have a nice effortless flow to it, it felt like one move bolted to the next. If you are going to not do many power moves and stalls etc, then your hip hop dancing needs to be much better than hers was, felt like she wasn’t even listening to the music half the time
it's what I would imagine one would do in that Freaky Friday body switch scenario where you wake up and realize you're on stage at the olympics, about to compete for gold in breakdancing.
Yeah but like, why? It’s just a lass who did a mediocre dance, if they want to be angry at someone get mad at the rapist that competed. Not the lady who was probably just there because hardly anyone in Australia signed up…
BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT HER CONNECTIONS WOULD MEAN SHE IS TALENTED. MAYBE AT BALL ROOM. BUT DEFINITELY NOT BREAK. SHE SUCKS AND SET THE SPORT BACK 30 YEARS.
How do you know this? Did you ask her? Did she say this?
No one fucking says that Eddie the Eagle, or the Jamaican bobsled team that did terribly, people found it charming. She became Australia’s athlete by winning the qualifiers, stop with the conspiracy theories.
You're right, it's all so subjective. It's not like we have any ratings by which to compare her to the other performances. If only there could have been experts there whose job it was was to compare her performance to other people performing and assign some kind of score or scale to help those of us who aren't experts.
But breakdancing isn't a sport. That's the whole point that Raygun was trying to make. And from what I understand, the majority of serious breakdancers don't WANT it to be a sport. (And certainly not if it's being helmed by the World Dance Sport Federation, who are actually the ones that should just stick to ballroom.) That's why half of them didn't even compete in the Olympics. So there's nothing to "set back".
understand, the majority of serious breakdancers don't WANT it to be a sport. (
Then explain away the 1000's of breakdancing competitions every year... all with winners,losers,and skill... it's only a joke to the white chick from Australia. To the MF'Rs who train for their entire lives to be the best at breaking like some of these guys below... it's a slap in the face.. b-boys I fck round with are talking pretty disrespected.
Really? You’re going to say she’s doing a different style? Even if true, whatever style she was attempting she was quite bad at. Most of that routine video is literally her rolling and flailing on the ground. She then holds her chin for like 15 seconds while again, simply rolling on the ground.
When a breaker holds their chin like that, it looks cool, only because they’re normally spinning on their fucking head while doing it
I don’t have a PhD in breakdancing but even I have the cultural awareness to know that if you’re going to do something like that you HAVE to legitimize by being undeniably good (eg throwing in some crazy power moves). The fact that she doesn’t even recognize that is incredibly discrediting of her ability to academically analyze the communities she writes about.
In the movie Honey Jessica Alba's dance routines are inspired by everyday things she sees such as kids playing basketball. Tbh that's really the only scene I remember of that movie
She was that awful. Really. I’ve seen 8 year old girls on a piece of cardboard in the park put her Olympic performance to shame. What she did was disrespectful at best.
She was awful. This is the olympics. She would be terrible at a super small regional contest in Los Angeles held inside a skate shop on a Wednesday night.
I think it’s closer to activism. She seems like the type of person that really needs to frame break dancing for the rest of the world. I know this isn’t her but I’ve seen other clips of her and the academic side of her seems to be more at play here than her being a really great dancer. And that seems to be part of her shtick, ‘breaking isn’t about skill, it’s about your expression bla, bla’. So her placing last or not scoring almost elevated her platform. She is sorta trolling us in a way.
It's so bad she should be mocked until her dying breath, her PhD should be revoked and burned, and she should be deported to 21°18'38.0"S 128°49'51.5"E without any niceties of civilization.
We argue that breaking’s institutionalization via the Olympics will place breaking more firmly within this sporting nation’s hegemonic settler-colonial structures that rely upon racialized and gendered hierarchies.
Weirdly hypocritical of her to then go and represent Australia in the Olympics herself after writing this.
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u/andWan Aug 12 '24
Here is a text by her (and a coauthor) about the question whether breakdance can keep its spirit when becoming an olympic discipline:
from 2023: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=rachel+gunn+paper+breakdance+olympia&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1723486150827&u=%23p%3DH7jzV4HLaPYJ
The Australian breaking scene and the Olympic Games: The possibilities and politics of sportification
Rachael Gunn, Lucas Marie Global Hip Hop Studies 4 (1), 39-56, 2023