Jesse Warren

    Dancing in Dongmen

    IT’S Saturday night in Dongmen and a crowd has gathered around the platform outside the Shenzhen Cinema. Funky old school rap tunes emanate from a sound system consisting of an iPod and portable speakers. Young men dance to the beats, performing a variety of highly complex, acrobatic maneuvers, leaving the crowd transfixed. It’s a common sight in Dongmen that plays out almost every night of the week. The young men are b-boys, also known as breakdancers.

    B-boying, like most elements of hip-hop, originated in New York City in the 1970s. The block parties that spawned hip-hop culture provided a ripe environment for creative dancing. As DJs played high energy, instrumental “break” sections of songs, dancers began showing off new moves. Circles of onlookers formed, and modern b-boying was born.

    The scene in Dongmen is similar, but instead of performing at parties, local b-boys are performing in public. A frequent fixture in the b-boy circle there is Wang Luyuan, known as Enjoy. Cited by his friends as one of the best b-boys in Shenzhen, Enjoy elicits a strong crowd reaction each time he performs. But the 20-year-old from Hainan is humble. “I just feel happy dancing with my friends,” he says.

    Enjoy dances in Dongmen about four nights every week, and also teaches dancing in the nearby Culture Park once a week for free. Emphasizing the open nature of the group, he says: “Anybody can come here if they want.” And they do. A young man named Baker stands to the side observing, waiting for his chance, trying to “get the feeling” of the circle. Initially restrained by the watchful eyes of the crowd, he finally enters the circle and dances with textbook precision.

    B-boying in Dongmen is no office job, but these youngsters mean business. A young man named Joker produces a sleek bilingual business card of Wabble Streets Crew, complete with phone, address, and website. He and Enjoy are members, and claim their crew is among the best in Shenzhen. The city boasts at least 10 crews, they say.

    In New York City in the 70s, some b-boy crews could be traced to gangs. They would show up at block parties and compete on the dance floor. “Instead of getting into trouble on the streets, teens now had a place to expend their energy,” says Jeff Chang in Foreign Policy magazine. For this reason, hip-hop is credited with reducing street violence and other crime, as dancing promoted healthy competition for youth.

    Similarly, b-boying has given the dancers in Dongmen a creative outlet. Enjoy describes the other crews as enemies, “but only during contests. We get along well, and we are all friends through dancing.” The polite, soft-spoken young man prefers underground contests, which occur several times a year in the city.

    These young men, mostly in their early 20s, have witnessed a decline in b-boying over the years. “People are growing up and getting jobs. They don’t have time to dance anymore,” says Joker. But if there is one place besides Dongmen where b-boying is thriving in Shenzhen, it’s in the schools. “We all began in school,” says Enjoy.

    Back to school

    The sun is setting as the bell rings and hundreds of students rush to the basketball courts at Shenzhen Foreign Languages School in Futian. Du Bang, known as KJ, occupies a prime spot on the slick surface between the courts and performs a few b-boy moves. Classmate Chan Qiuhua, who goes by the name Bilky, approaches and responds with a few maneuvers in front of him. Taking a page from a classic old school b-boy battle, the two 15-year-olds represent the burgeoning dance scene in Shenzhen’s schools.

    “I just want to show the best part of myself,” says KJ, who has been dancing for three years. But maintaining his b-boy hobby hasn’t been easy, especially as a student. He left a dance crew in order to study more, citing the busy life of a Junior Three student as being full of homework and night classes.

    Bilky faces a different kind of pressure: that of her parents. “They don’t like it because they want me to study, but I think it’s like a sport. It’s healthy,” she says. She wants school support: a dance room, sound system, and inner city competition. Citing an estimated 60 dancers at her school, she optimistically says: “Shenzhen is a young city with a positive culture and a bright future for dancing.”

    Both students await the move to senior school, where they say more students dance and more teachers support their hobby. Despite the immense pressure of school, they still find time to dance everyday and perform at school several times per year. “It’s a culture and a spirit,” explains Bilky. KJ responds: “I hope this spirit can be accepted by more people.”