The funky business of kids’ competitive break dancing

Judy Woodruff:

It's an athletic and funky style of dance that started in the 1970s.

Now break dancing has expanded to a competitive level that may send some of the best dancers to the Youth Olympics.

From PBS station WGBH in Boston, Tina Martin recently attended a competitive Breakin' League division championship

Tina Martin:

This is 11-year-old Dante Graziano.

Dante Graziano:

Today, I am going to be break dancing. And me and my brother Jusinto have a bunch of routines. The routines are pretty basic, but we put our on flavor into it, and we make it nice.

Tina Martin:

They look a little more than basic, but Graziano, who has been dancing since he was 4, makes it look easy, and, in January, he faced off against dancers his age from all over New England.

Antonio Castillo, a 20-year dancing veteran himself, started the national Competitive Breakin' League in 2014, and since then it has had about 1,000 competitors from ages 5 and up.

Antonio Castillo:

The Competitive Breakin' League is similar to other sports like NFL or NBA. Our goal is to create a platform that is just as professional as those entities, so that kids can have opportunities to go to college, to be able to make it a career if they choose to.

Tina Martin:

Castillo has made it a career. He travels across the country looking for the best dancers.

Antonio Castillo:

It's nothing different than a regular sports league where you have kids who go to competitions, they qualify for another one, and then you create a ladder so that, in the future, the top kids are going to be the ones representing our country at the Olympics.

Tina Martin:

Right now, the Competitive Breakin' League is not a Youth Olympics-qualifying organization, but Castillo is working on it. And just like the Olympics, judge Alex "El Nino" Diaz pays close attention.

Alex "El Nino" Diaz: Footwork, power moves, top rock, and freezes. And, then, of course, since it is a battle, a competition, we're looking at, like, charisma and things like that.

Tina Martin:

Diaz has traveled the world break dancing and started judging about 10 years ago. Don't be fooled by the smile. He's pretty tough.

Alex "El Nino" Diaz: So, when you freeze, let's say if you're like spinning on your back or spinning on your head, the freeze is when you catch almost like a yoga pose or something like that.

So, when you see an ice skater jump up and spin, and if they fall on the ice, it's the same exact thing.

Tina Martin:

The dancing is fun, but winners take home real prizes, too, like gold, silver and bronze metals, along with cash and some fancy footwear. And it's that cash part that has 11-year-old Dante Graziano seriously considering his future.

Dante Graziano:

It's fun, and it could be something you could do for a living.

Tina Martin:

Looks like he has a pretty good chance. He and his brother won the gold metal and are headed to Washington, D.C., to compete in the U.S. Breakin' Championship title in the youth division in May.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Tina Martin in Everett, Massachusetts.

Judy Woodruff:

Wow. We are impressed. And it's definitely for the young.