Go Get Your Cardboard Square
The Alamo Drafthouse Downtown is bringing you the double feature of a two-decades-ago lifetime. This Saturday night, there will be Breakin’, and then there will be some Boogaloo to follow, sucka!
Yep, it was the eighties. The clothes were little more than layered flaps of mesh, pleather, zippers, and no-pocket pockets. Having a dick did not preclude one from the use of rouge or lipstick. Dudes dressed a bit girlish at times, and the whole hair-band thing was wildly out of control.
Some might say that L.A. almost ruined us as a people, as a culture, over the course of that decade.
Luckily, we had respite. Hip hop, as a cultural phenomenon was in its infancy, but it had some more remarkably marketable elements to it. It had B-boys. The breakers (B-boys, break dancers, breakers, a shitload of other names, all the same) got their name from their tendency to wild-out during the breakdown of most popular songs at parties. Some say it started in the 60s-70s with what was called “Good Foot” dancing, which occurred in the breaks of songs (most notably: James Brown’s work). Then it was developed by younger crews in the outer boroughs of New York, refined, and made more gymnastic in form. Good Foot was steeped with the introduction of kung-fu-type moves such as the windmill. “Uprocking” pushed into “Body Rocking” and the ever-entertaining “Pop-n-lock” (if you added some Poppin’ to Good Foot, you’d basically have the Rerun), which quickly melded into all varieties of Crazy-Legs type “Footwork”. Whenever Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache” would hit its famous break, skilled DJs would loop that break, and the kids would form up and wreck shit. This was late 70s, early 80s, and the artistic influence of the B-boy was taking over the L.A. scene.
Early on, this was limited to private parties and the streets. But somehow, somewhere, some studio exec caught on to the badassedness of the thing, and brought it to Hollywood for some good ol’ fashioned brand-n-co-opt. The results? After a brief but super sweet breakin’ moment in the movie Flashdance, the building interest in the dance brought us Breakin’ and Breakin’ Two: Electric Boogaloo.
This wasn’t meant to be some sort of all-inclusive history lesson on the art form. The details of its beginnings and influences, its originators and innovators, is somewhat vague since the majority of that history is only documented through the memory of those who were there. So, whatever. We aren’t trying to be too specific here. We’re just trying to introduce the movies from where we’ve always understood them to come from:
Some serious silliness.
In comes Boogaloo Shrimp and Shabba-Doo (or Turbo and Ozone, which we believe are also Gobot names, but whatever, because there was NO Boogaloo Shrimp Gobot, damnit) with their big-time 1984 big-screen debut: Breakin’ (Breakdance: The Movie). We’re pretty sure that THIS movie is probably where the term “Breakdance” came to be. Marketers need a handle, and “Crazy Dancing Ethnic Kids From The Streets” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.
It’s a funny story of how a chick gets together with two well-appointed street dancers and they become an unstoppable dancing force of breakdancing dancedness on the rough streets. They need to win a contest or some shit. Doesn’t really matter. They tear it up constantly. When they aren’t practicing, they’re battling or dancing for hat change. And they dress really, really fucked up throughout the entire deal. It’s beyond awesome. Plus, Ice-T makes his film debut. Beat that.
Rolling on the resounding success of Breakin’, Turbo y Ozone get back on the cardboard to save a community center in danger of being bulldozed in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (also from 1984, so you know the writing was really well thought-out). And they have to dance to save their dance-a-teria from the evil developers who want to build a baby incinerator there instead. Something like that.
We’re totally reading this straight off of IMDB. In all honesty, our memory of Electric Boogaloo’s specifics are really hazy, mostly because it’s soooooo cheese. “Campy” isn’t a sugary-enough word. It’s insanely predictable and the dialog is so buddy-buddy it might make you cry. But the outfits of the original are more than one-upped in this sequel. The dance moves are somewhat improved within the months between the two flicks.
And Ice-T returns to scare little children and old people. It cannot be beaten.
(Except by, maybe, Beatstreet. But that’s subjective. Subjectively factual.)
Dowtown Alamo Drafthouse
409 Colorado (4th and Colorado)
Saturday, April 8th
7:00pm: Breakin’
9:45pm: Breakin’ 2 – Electric Boogaloo
$10 per show or $15 for the double-bill [ double bill tix ]
*Image courtesy of screenshot from Breakin’ its damn self
