Anika Begay
In 2017, when I was watching the breaking battles at the Silverback Open in suburban Philadelphia, a B-boy pulled himself up into a handstand. It’s a basic move, sure, but this dancer modified it by balancing on the backs of his wrists, an innovation that wowed the crowd surrounding the cypher.
As I readjusted myself, I remember thinking, How the hell do you score something like that, an unexpected twist of the wrist, or any of the other spontaneous displays of creativity? The issue seemed urgent because of then-recent developments.
Just a year earlier, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that breaking would be added to the roster for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), an event often used as a testing ground for new Olympic disciplines, such as 3-on-3 basketball. If breaking had been successful in Buenos Aires, there was a good chance it would have been added to the roster for the all-age Olympic Games. And it was successful, which is why breaking is making its debut in Paris.
The IOC chose the World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) to guide dance along its Olympic trajectory, an interesting choice given that it had no prior relationship with breaking or the community that created it. The WDSF, best known for being responsible for the world ballroom competition, had about two years to prepare breaking for its YOG debut. That meant they also had two years to develop and implement an IOC-approved judging system.
In most battles, especially the smaller ones, judging is a low-tech affair. There is an odd number of judges, and after everyone has finished their rounds (how many usually depends on the stage of the battle), the judges vote for the person they think is the winner, usually by pointing. Sometimes one of the judges will cross their arms in an X to indicate that they think the two dancers are tied. This means they have to do another round, burning off more energy (and perhaps some moves they might have saved for a later match) so that the undecided judge can choose a side.
These ratings aren’t based on hard and fast rules; in fact, traditionally, there have been no rules at all. While there is general agreement on some things, like biting another B-boy’s moves (don’t do that) or touching your opponent (also don’t do that) or dancing to the beat (definitely do that if you can), judges typically evaluate dancers based on the values of the tradition they break: creativity, style, character, and musicality. It’s up to each individual judge, usually a dancer or former dancer, how they weigh the different values in their decision.
It probably wouldn’t have been enough at the Olympics.
Fortunately for the WDSF, several years before the IOC’s foray into breaking, members of the community had already begun creating a rating system to be used at major events like Battle of the Year. B-boy Niels “Storm” Robitsky, Kevin “Renegade” Gopie, and and8.dance founder Dominik Fahr, along with a handful of others, had spent years developing a unified and consistent approach to rating breaking, with Fahr developing the platform and technology to put it into practice. After the YOG was announced, they worked with the WDSF to refine their approach, which was used at the 2018 YOG. In 2022, Gopie, Robitsky, and Fahr stopped working with the WDSF. After their departure, the WDSF developed what they called the Olympic Rating System, but they didn’t reinvent the wheel. The system that will be used in Paris is an alternate version of what Gopie, Robitsky, and Fahr created.
