Chapter 1 Originality
At the end of 1980’s, when Hip Hop and Bboy were still a unfamiliar foreign culture for Taiwanese, there were some famous dance crews began their dance careers from a TV show dance contest, including The 800Dragons, 蓋世太保(Gangsters), and The Ninja. At the time, there wasn’t a particular style of dance or dance culture, and the burst of imitating Michael Jackson’s move just begun. People would wear suits or gorgeous clothes and do the move such as wind mill and wave. It was what we called “The generation of Pi-li dance ( 霹靂舞時代 )” in Taiwan dance history.
Early 1990’s, “Hip Hop” and “Street dance” were brought into Taiwan by L.A Boyz. (American born group singers in Taiwan) Subsequently, “The Party” led by Dancer Allen and “Jungle” led by Dancer Fish also took the lead of Taiwan local Hip Hop Culture. There were a lot of dancers were influenced by the fad. They began wearing loose pants and T-shirts, and started the generation of street dance while the “breakin”this word began to spread at the same time.
Chapter 2 The debut of Breakin
1997, Taipei Breaking Crew(TBC) was formed. “Break dance” and “Bboy” was officially spread out to the crowd by TBC which was the first Bboy crew in Taiwan. Around 1997 to 1999, almost every Bboy in northern and middle Taiwan was belonging to TBC. As some of the dancers left TBC, there was new dance studio coming up. That was Dance Soul, the well-known professional street dance and artist-training company, which focus on other style of dance (e.g. Hip Hop, Jazz, Locking, Popping, and House…etc.).
End of 1990’s, Doobiest, an organization which had tremendous influence on Taiwan’s Hip Hop culture, was settled up by Goldie and the first Bboy DJ- DJ Chicano. They began with the idea of “Workshop.” At the time when the internet wasn’t so popularization, it was hard getting new information about Hip Hop. Doobiest was the pioneer who brought Hip Hop back into Taiwan directly. They were not only the agent of Hip Hop clothing brand (Tribal), but held large-scale Hip Hop activities, inviting famous dancers to Taiwan express Hip Hop spirits and elements, such as EasyRock, Ivan, and Mr. Wiggles. Until now, the Hip Hop Fiesta, held by Doobiest, was still the most representative activities for all the dancers in Taiwan.
1991-2001 Thanks to those people’s effort, Taiwan’s bboy culture began to grow. And I am bboy who belong to this generation. The crew I lead, HRC (Hyper Rush Crew), was also gathered by a bunch of high school bboys at the same time.
Taiwan bboy can divided into 3 groups, northern, middle, and southern Taiwan. Because each group only battle but seldom exchange informations, those bboy has a lot of differences in style with each others.
In northern Taiwan, there were TBC (The Best Crew), Rockers, SBC(Suicidal Breaking Crew), B-MAX, Old Top, SFC(Special Force Crew) and JTZ.
In middle Taiwan, there were Double K, KGB (Keep Going Breaking), and S.G (Skill Gang).
In southern Taiwan, there were KBC (Kaohsiung Breaking Crew), Breaking crew BBOY Crew and the Air Style BBOY Union.
Those bboy crews I mentioned above were really famous that time, but most of them faced the same problem which caused the disbandment of those crews. That is the military service which all the Taiwan male grown-ups have to encounter. Only a few bboys kept bboying as their career after the military service.
The feature of this generation’s breaking style was very limited. Due to the delayed of information receiving, lot’s of bboy didn’t know the importance of music and style. Mostly they did powermoves and some stiff and strong freeze. They ignored the basics, such as top rock and footwork, and didn’t even know how to dance on the beat and dance with the groove. Hip Hop party and activity are rare at that time, so free space on the street and the school’s ball became very important to bboys which they could find chances battle with other bboys. And a department store at Hsimending is the most important battle sight at that time. Since Hip Hop activities were so infrequent, so every single event would attracted almost every bboys in Taiwan and created lots of discusses.
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