A slightly dazed Benson Lee made no attempt to hide his exhaustion as he introduced Planet B-Boy. "We're having the after-party right now," he said, rubbing his eyes, "so sorry, I'm kind of out of it." After three years spent following the frenetic world of b-boying (or break-dancing), it's no wonder Lee looks a little bleary. Planet B-Boy is his first documentary (finished just last week, he admitted), a tribute to the overlooked art from a self-proclaimed 80s "closet breaker." The film follows five crews in preparation for the break-dancing world championship, the Battle of the Year, and it moves almost as quickly as the breaking itself. As they train for the competition, dancers from the US, Japan, South Korea and France dish about their families, their hopes for success, and their misunderstood craft. But mostly, they just dance. And it's plain awesome.
The sheer physical impossibility of breaking is enough to please most audiences, but Planet B-Boy attempts to push a little further into the method behind the moves. To the uneducated, a breaker's movement is almost indecipherable: head-spins blur into pretzel-twists, a human pyramid forms out of thin air, and suddenly someone starts seizuring. It's hard to keep up. But as the dancers explain their dance and their motivation, it's obvious that they're more than superhuman back-flippers. There is an artistry behind their shoulder-bounces and a theory to their footwork, even if it's impossible to figure out just how it's all put together.
Lee undertook Planet B-Boy in part to make this artistry known. He hopes the film will revise the rough, negative image the media gave b-boying in the 80s. "All the dancers take out so much aggression, you interpret it as hate--but it's not that," he said, with a noticeable jump in energy. "Breakers are spiritually fulfilled and pretty calm. I wish more political leaders broke."
Lee also addressed the perception that break-dancing died with the end of 80s hip-hop. "It's an insult to the culture to say B-boying is back," he insisted. "It never went away." Lee expressed his hope that Planet B-Boy would bring the art back into the mainstream, then announced that the South Korean crew Last For One was battling right next door at the after-party. A small crowd immediately left the theater in hopes of last-minute tickets; Lee fielded a few more questions and followed the group of new b-boying fans out of the theater, his mission at least partially accomplished.
-Amanda Dobbins
Watch the Planet B-Boy Trailer:
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