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Transcription: [00:02:43]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
There are a lot of girls that are learning to breakdance in Philadelphia.

[00:02:45]
Some are good, some are really good. Some are great poppers I know one popper, Tuesday Tony.

[00:02:52]
Umm these are girls, they're really great, but they kind of stop because a lot of guys are like, a lot of girls got on them about popping, y'know.

[00:03:00]
But I think if they were good, they would be here. They were good, and they were then, they would be here today. Because they just stopped, okay?

[00:03:07]
Any other questions?

[00:03:08]
{SILENCE}

[00:03:13]
Okay, and also I want you to know we do have scanner girls, they do oriental pop. Wish I had trained them myself.

[00:03:19]
They couldn't make it here today, but next time maybe I'll try to get them up.

[00:03:22]
Um, he wants to know if describe the tic.

[00:03:27]
Okay, a tic is like this, its like your hand comes first, your hand, elbow, shoulder, your head, and then bring it down to your chest, mid area here, and then you bring it back to your knees, okay?

[00:03:39]
Imma do it real fast for you.

[00:03:41]
{SILENCE}

[00:03:47]
[APPLAUSE]

[00:03:51]
That's the tic. Question?

[00:03:53]
[Audience member] Who started breakdancing?

[00:03:57]
Who started breakdancing?

[00:03:59]
Somebody tell me because I don't know.
[LAUGHS]

[00:04:02]
Really, it started in New York, and some of the moves are from Africa, from uh Europe, they're all over, you put all your moves into one, you combine them, and you call it breakdancing.

[00:04:11]
I wish I really knew who started breakdancing, cause I would compliment 'em.

[00:04:15]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
The thing about breakdancing is that if you really begin to break apart the moves, as we've tried to begin to do here on the stage, you find that a lot of the individual moves date way back.

[00:04:27]
One of the performers here with us at the festival is a fellow named Willy Ashcan Jones. He's appearing on the main stage as a comic.

[00:04:35]
In the 1930's, Willy was a Lindy Hopper in New York City. Now, the Lindy Hop was another street dance at that time, especially among the black population of the early thirties.

[00:04:45]
It was also an acrobatic dance, a dance that had a lot of flips in it, a lot of spins on the floor.

[00:04:52]
When Lind-- when Willy first saw the Scatter Boys up on stage doing their breakdancing, the first thing he did was come over and say, "Man, I used to do the same stuff to swing music."

[00:05:04]
Just, he put it together differently, he used selected moves from an entire repertoire, a whole set of moves, which are traditional in the African-American community,

[00:05:15]
and it's from this set of moves that certain ones are drawn and put together in certain ways over time, so that--

[00:05:22]
Maybe, in the 1930s, a selected group of moves were put together to make a dance called the Lindy.


[00:05:27]
Then, in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, you had a whole series of popular and vernacular dances being drawn from that same set of moves which are traditional to the community,

[00:05:39]
so that when you finally come to the late seventies, in New York City, you have the acrobatic form that we call breaking.

[00:05:46]
And, again, that is a selected set of moves that are pulled out, put together in a certain way, and there's the dance.

[00:05:52]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Okay um, we're gonna closeout. Before we close out, I'm gonna, I want to tell you that we also we do bar mitzfers.

[00:06:03]
We do anything weddings. We have done bar mitzfers. We have done concerts for the best, Patti LaBelle, um, Treacherous Three.

[00:06:12]
We've done all kinds, Captain Sky. I don't know if any of you heard of, he's from Philadelphia. Okay?
[00:06:17]
I want you to know that Scannner boys love you and we would like to salute you, okay? Hold your questions. One more question.

{SILENCE}
[00:06:26]
She says she thinks I'm fresh, oh my goodness! Yeah, come on! Thank you. Scanner boys!

[00:06:33]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
I'll take the mic.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Five, six, what's wrong?

[00:06:39]
See they like to play jokes on me. Come on, let's go.

[00:06:43]
Alright, before we give you salute, I'm gonna introduce you to the crew again. I'm gonna tell you from, I'm gonna tell you something that I drafted every one of these from other groups. These were the best in their groups.

[00:06:55]
This is Wildstyle from the Starjammers. 25 Starjammers.

[00:07:01]
This is Shalamar from Shockwave.

[00:07:05]
This is Dave the Renegade from Short Circuit.

[00:07:09]
And this is Hip Hop Ken from the Furious Rockers.

[00:07:13]
Alright, scanner boys, five, six, seven, eight! To you, city of Philadelphia.