The breaking scene in Havana, Cuba and Belonging in a global breaking community

What is it about?

In this article i discuss my research about the Havana breaking scene in February 2020. I am asking how the brekaing scene constitutes itself, how dancers learn about breaking and how they stay connected to the global breaking community. I am inspired by ethnomusicologist and hip hop scholar Joseph Schloss’s (2009) ethnographic study of the New York breaking scene, from which I deploy three central aspects from his work: community as social entanglement, music as a creator of belonging, and movement as the connecting elements between dancers. I explore how these aspects are visible in Havana. I found that there are various aspects, for example, heterogeneity, internet access and possibilities to travel, connect and exchange within a global dance community, that define the local breaking scene in Havana. I also explore the idea of a global breaking community and how, why and when we das breakers can feel that we (don't) belong to it. I also question breaking’s ‘normed narratives’ – for example, the assumption that b-boys and b-girls always draw inspiration from the United States, breaking’s country of origin – to interrogate US and Eurocentric/western-nation perspectives. Finally, I explore how I was able to dive in and conduct qualitative research in Havana with relative ease in a short period of time, as a white European b-girl, hip hop, and dance scholar, and as a foreigner to Cuba’s breaking scene.

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Why is it important?

This is the first research on the Cuban breaking scene and the first research about the question of Belonging of breakers in the global breaking community.

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