Girls got power; girls got moves
02
By Yong Hui Ting / Lee Jia Ying
Lim Yan Ling, 24, in an air chair. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
Locking her body in a series of freezes and head spins, Liu Baoman dances to the music as if gravity has no effect on her. She throws her legs up in the air, catching the music’s final beat to strike a pose with a headstand. She falls. But she gets up and tries again, all over again from the top.
Few watching Baoman practise her craft would guess that the whole choreography, lasting less than two minutes, had taken her more than 730 days of practice.
Challenges abound for b-girls like her when it comes to picking up breaking — a dance that was created by men, for men; it was originally known as “b-boying”. Many b-girls find it a challenge to make themselves heard and seen, especially in a room full of men who have spent the majority of their lives training, dancing and seeing only men in the circle.
Yet these women are undeterred. They come up with ways to make their dance different, lifting each other up within the community and they train — harder than anyone else.
IF A MAN CAN DO IT, SO CAN I
“Breaking is not so easy for us as compared to guys because anatomically speaking, we have heavier hips,” said Jocelyn Lua, who has been breaking for 19 years. “You’re also not as strong as the guys… it takes more effort for girls to pick it up.”
For some b-girls, this means clocking extra hours practising and strengthening their muscles.
In between classes and homework as a year-two undergraduate, Baoman spends most of her time breaking — seven days a week, for as long as four hours every session. “I practise every day unless I have something on or my body dies,” she said, pausing to add that being sick is the only reason she would skip practising.
There is a particular category of moves that instructors and dancers have observed put women at a disadvantage. They include backspins, head spins and flares — all of which belong to a set of dynamic movements called power moves. To accomplish them, breakers must use their upper body strength to support their entire weight.
Despite having been breaking for the past four years, Lim Yan Ling still struggles to do a handstand — a move considered by many to be one of the most rudimentary acts to master.
Breaking instructor Leonard Ng believes this has to do with the way a woman’s body is structurally different from that of a man’s.
“Females and males have their own ways of doing things,” he said.
“The dance itself is very physical so for us, it’s very easy because we’re arms heavy,” said Leonard, adding that men tend to have more upper-body strength, whereas a woman is typically stronger from the waist-down.
A shoulder injury does not deter Yan Ling from sticking to her six-day training schedule. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
Yan Ling took a year off medical school to work on areas of weakness which inhibited her from dancing her best. She trains as many as six times a week and up to hours each time — all these on top of her dance classes and despite a shoulder injury sustained from practising weeks before.
But for her, this is not enough. She attends a physical conditioning programme organised by Artistate Dance Academy, where she drills exercises that target specific muscle groups.
“I want to be good. At a competitive level, internationally,” she said. She aspires to represent Singapore in the near future.
These are the thoughts that motivate a rising number of b-girls in Singapore, who are banding together in their pursuit for perfection in the craft.
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B-GIRLS UNITE
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Dawn Tan (left) breaks down a move, the rainbow, to a fellow b-girl by first demonstrating how to get into a handstand. After a few pointers, her friend had a better understanding of the move she spent half of the three-hour session trying to achieve. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
For many, the presence of a community of women makes a world of difference. It helps them better understand their physique and pick up certain moves more easily. They form communities, often training together, sharing with one another tips to improve, woman-to-woman.
“It’s easier to explain it or get it if it’s coming from a girl to a girl,” Baoman said.
Learning the same move with advice from a man is different.
In many instances, Yan Ling would observe other b-boys demonstrate a shoulder freeze —
where one balances their body weight on one side of the shoulder while the rest of their body is “hanging” in the air. The men would kick their feet off the ground without much effort and then tell her to do the same. But she struggles; her hips weigh her down and she does not have enough strength to simply lift her body off the ground.
She, however, found that it was much easier to master the same move when a fellow b-girl had pointed out a few tips on where to place her hands and how to better support the extra weight on her hips. Like magic, Yan Ling was able to execute the move almost instantly.
“B-girls know what is hard about this move so they’ll give you tips that they got when they were learning or figuring it out,” she said. She often experiments with different hand placements and angles to kick her legs — to find that perfect formula to shift her weight and achieve a move.
Lim Yan Ling (left) and a fellow b-girl Tan En Ting (right) performing at Artistate Academy’s showcase. (Photo: Muhammad Aqmal Bin Mohamad Nizam)
The idea of a women-only community sits well with many b-girls — so much so that one of them decided to host Singapore’s first b-girl battle in three years. Ladies Exchange: Breaking Edition, set for 10 April this year, will feature an all-female judging panel and welcomes b-girls of all ages and experiences to a dance-off.
Organiser Joey Cheng, a popper who recently picked up breaking, hopes the space will allow women a safe space to express themselves comfortably and build up their confidence.
“Popping and breaking have always been scenes where the majority of the dancers are male,” she said. “There are of course limitations in muscle mass for both guys and girls but it’s through a community where girls might find it easier to relate to each other and share how to best execute certain things in their freestyle.”
Joey also finds comfort in being around and practising with other b-girls, with whom she seeks advice for things she cannot otherwise ask the b-boys — like how to keep long hair out of the way when breaking.
When she started, Joey would often pause her practice sessions to re-tie her hair to keep it out of sight, only to have it come loose again shortly after. This routine would repeat itself until she found herself in the company of other b-girls.
“I went to ask b-girls around on how they keep their hair intact. They tell me that normal caps sometimes don’t work and that I might want to try to wear a beanie or bandana under the beanie to secure it,” said Joey.
“I wouldn’t ask a guy about this because they can’t relate.”
It is for the same reasons — of finding comfort and relatability — that bind these b-girls together every practice session.
Practising together in an all-women community also made the mountain of difficulties in the learning process smaller than they appear to be.
“When you see well-known and very established males do crazy crazy moves, you’re like damn, just awestruck. But if you see a girl do it, you will have a lot of respect and think that it’s actually doable, it’s something that I can do too,” said Baoman.
THE FIGHT FOR INCLUSIVITY
These are the b-girls with big dreams; the ones who practise during any pocket of free time they can find, the ones who strive to overcome the odds and the ones who found strength from building a community of women — all to become the “best b-girl in Singapore”.
But old stereotypes have proved hard to eliminate.
For the past 35 years, Ana “Rokafella” Garcia from the Bronx in New York City has been fighting for women’s voices to be heard.
“I didn’t feel like there was that kind of value or respect for women,” Ana said, after noticing how the men around her would always skip through parts in a video whenever a b-girl made an appearance.
The feeling of being unheard and unseen continued throughout her career as a professional dancer, to the point where Ana felt her opinions are considered only if her husband, a fellow breaker known by his alias Kwikstep, conveyed them.
“When I walk outside, or when I’m in a meeting that has rappers, producers… like white men producing a show, they don’t really respect me,” she said.
“They’ll talk to Kwikstep but meanwhile, I’m the one who’s putting it together.”
In Singapore, b-girls also experience similar struggles — being thought of as less capable and weaker than men.
“In class, the instructor would say: ‘If Dawn can do it, then you all must be able to do it’ or some bullshit like that,” said Dawn Tan. The comment came in spite of the fact that she was able to master a transitional move faster than all her male classmates.
It has been four years since she started breaking. All this time, she thinks about nothing else other than to be at the very top and to prove her sceptics, the b-boys, wrong.
These negative experiences only pushed these b-girls to work even harder, to let their breaking do the talking.
Dawn Tan, 24, is not afraid of executing challenging moves because “I’ve crashed in every possible way I can crash on the ground”, she said. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
Breaking has been around for nearly five decades, but women have never had an official chance to compete in major international competitions, until 2017.
In 2012, b-girl Zahra Hamani, better known as Jeskilz, made the suggestion that the Red Bull BC One Worlds Finals — one of the largest breaking competitions — be opened up to female qualifiers. It took five years for her suggestion to be put into action.
Japanese b-girl Ayumi Fukushima was the world’s first b-girl to ever compete in a major competition. In the following year, the creation of a b-girl-only category paved the way for b-girls around the world to compete against one another on a level playing field.
As if a ripple effect, the world saw greater inclusivity for women in the breaking scene.
The International Olympic Committee announced in 2020 that there would also be a b-girl category for breaking in the 2024 Paris Games. For a dance that was born on the streets, its inclusion in the Olympics is a major step forward. But Ana challenges the younger b-girls of today — to think about how they can continue to bring the dance to greater heights.
“It’s not just about the trophy and winning, it is about dance,” Ana said.
“Where are you going with the dance after you become amazing? What are you contributing to the Singapore history of breaking as a woman?”