Breakin' In: The Making of a Hip Hop Dancer

A must see for anyone who wants the real story of those "booty shakers" in Hip-hop Videos
For every woman you see shaking her "booty" in a music video promoting some rap or hi-hop star, there are hundreds (in come cases, 1,000) other dancers who tried out for that seven seconds of fame. This superb hour long documentary by Canadian Elizabeth St. Phillip, produced by the consistently award-winning National Film Board of Canada (70 Oscar Nominations!) follows three of these women through their journey to make it. (There is a fourth and her story, which was cut from the film, is provided as a "special feature" and is just as interesting.) There is Michelle, who has to choose between having a brief career as a video dancer or medical school, Linda, who lives in the "projects" of Toronto (where the documentary was filmed) and wants to go from dancer to rap star, and Tracy.

The short interviews with the Director as well as Hip-hop historian Nelson George add are like dessert after watching the film. We learn more reasons why theses thousands of women have their eye on...

'breakin in' cracks the surface!
although this documentary is not as recent as it could be, it still holds a lot of power in its short running time.

its first of many attibutes is that its main subjects live in various areas of toronto, ontario. why is this important? because, even though it is not, say, tokyo, it still shows us the global impact of hip-hop dance on the world.

its second attribute is that it gets you thinking about who gets to dance in this world? what weight does a dancer carry? why does hip-hop dance still center on body type, gender, and even race? this question is a vital one to the discussion because no one can dispute the power of this dance form but we have to wonder if it's really unifying the world the way the music industry would have the consumer believe.

but even if you don't want to watch this very articulate documentary for these reasons, you can still enjoy its depiction of three women who bring something individual to the table and want to take...



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