In October 2023, members World Dancesport FederationNor will the WDSF, breaking to learn that the sport they’ve been trying to get to the Olympics for years, will appear at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
In response, the organization’s president, Sean Tay, made a grand announcement. “Ensuring the success of braking’s Olympic debut at Paris 2024 is therefore at the forefront of the WDSF agenda,” he said. said. “Our performance in Paris will define the future of dance within the Olympic movement.”
…oops?
Going into the game, a lot rode on Braking’s shoulders. But no one counted out Raygun — the newly infamous, 36-year-old, last-place Australian b-girl (aka Breaker) whose performance The Paris stage included “original” moves such as eccentric floor-writting, awkward freezes and kangaroo hops.
Raygun, real name Rachael Gunn, immediately became a viral sensation — notoriety that only skyrocketed when the public learned that Gunn, who had never won any of her Olympic battles, actually had a PhD in breakdancing. Yes, indeed. Song’s performance only eclipsed Japan’s two actual breaking gold medalists Yuasa Ami and Canada Phil Wizard (Also a 16-year-old Australian b-boy Jeff Dunn), it has arguably become the defining moment of the Parisian Games Controversy And Absurdity.
But alongside the widespread derision of Gunn, there has been speculation that Gunn’s presence in the games may be somewhat wrong, even corrupt. Surely, this can’t be the best Australia has to offer? How did Raygun end up at the Olympics when, for example, a couple of B-girls were performing the moves in Melbourne last weekend?
To answer this question, we need to dive a little deeper — so let’s (sorry) dive in.
Reports that Raygun rigged his way into the Olympics couldn’t be further from the truth…
For decades, WDSF was dedicated to ballroom dancing. The association began in the late 90s with a focus on winning a spot for ballroom dancing at the Olympics, with its next pivot, around 2017, to breaking through. A quizzical backstory, yes – but that doesn’t make the company any less legitimate. Official sealaka Rush, a judge for the Women’s Breaking Finals for Oceania Championship Song, posted a 90-minute livestream Instagram comments In response to the debate on Tuesday. He noted that the WDSF judging system, used in the Olympics and its breaking qualifiers, requires judges to be experienced in the breaking scene, as competitors and judges, as well as pass multiple tests. “You have to be trained to be a judge,” he emphasized.
It wasn’t even Song’s first rodeo. Prior to her Olympic appearance, she represented Australia at multiple World Championship events between 2021 and 2023. to judge Red Bull’s premier BC One braking competition. He is an established local champion.
Still following the song’s appearance at the Olympics, a application The publication claimed, without sources, that Gunn and her husband, coach Samuel Freeke, rigged the entire WDSF system to secure a place in the broken, Olympics. The petition falsely claimed that Gunn judged himself at the qualifying Oceania Championship competition — even though the list of judges for the event readily available on the WDSF website.
More other rumours accusedAgain with no apparent sourcing, Ji Gunn and her husband were the masterminds behind the Australian Breaking Association, better known as AUSBreaking – Another one Easily debunked A spokesperson for AUSBreaking also confirmed in an email to Vox that Gunn and her husband did not find the organization. Gunn does not appear to be directly responsible for managing or funding any breaking groups, which perhaps also refutes the petition’s claim that he denied travel funds to marginalized dance workers from Australia’s Northern Territory.
…but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand how he got there
The subtext of this criticism — that the song benefited from its whiteness — has merit. Gunn was educated at one of Sydney’s most elite high schools; He had the opportunity to pursue a PhD in an obscure field, and the resources to finance appearances at international breaking competitions. Her white privilege in a dance scene that culturally appropriates makes her an easy target for criticism. At the same time, some have tried to argue that he represents just the opposite—a “Diversity rents“And the Australians”awakening“It’s gone wrong. “People jumped in and used him as the new scapegoat to further their cause,” Wepiha observed on his livestream.
“We never thought this would happen,” he told me. “He’s getting smashed by a lot of people.”
Still, while the rest of the world has put Gunn through the ringer since his Paris appearance, the real breaking community seems to be assembly behind him
“This is what happens when people outside of our dance want to control the narrative but we have absolutely no technical knowledge of the dance, especially in the context of Oceania,” said Dujon Cullingford, a veteran breaker from New Zealand who competed in the Oceania qualifiers. Wrote a Facebook post Arguing against the notion that Gunn benefited from any factor other than a small talent pool.
He emphasized that the fractured community of Oceania is small; Gunn’s own one essay Australian breakers put the number at around 400, and Waipiha claimed the WDSF would have to be “brought out of retirement” to make up the number of competitors. One of the main criticisms is being bandied about as a public concern perception That WDSF is definitely not promoting their events within the “real” breaking scene, but rather elite communities like universities. But both Cullingford and Waipiha rejected the idea. “It’s very easy to know if there’s a jam because the view is small,” Wepiha said.
“Here, like other countries, we feel the pressure of cost of living and the breaking scene is small so it doesn’t create many people who don’t have the time to teach, lead and organize the community in the same way. ” Cullingford said.
He noted that, further reducing the small talent pool, many breakers chose not to compete in the Olympic qualifiers because they did not want to spend the cash required to compete in Sydney last November. Additionally, many breakers had no interest in participating due to the feeling that the establishment’s efforts to break rope within the strict organizational structure of the Games were antithetical to street dance culture. According to Wepiha, many dancers feel that informal jams are more expressive with less strict judging — the kind of breaking they want to do, as opposed to Olympic-level competition.
And then there was Raygun.
“He was just as excited as everyone else,” Waipiha said on his livestream of Gan’s Oceania qualifier. “He won fair and square.” He noted that only one of the 10 judges at the event was white and none were Australian — a fact AUSBreaking also confirmed to Vox. “He won by majority decision, he fought like everybody else … it’s not that deep.”
You can judge for yourself: Raigun won the Oceania Championship which secured her place at the Olympics, with a total of 51 points to her opponent Holly Molly’s (Molly Chapman) score of 50. The crucial final points in this battle came when the pair faced off, with Raygun winning two of the three rounds.
Since the song has become a viral sensation, many people have watched the battle and claimed that Molly is the clear winner, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, these judges looked at their overall performance throughout the competition. If Molly had recycled moves from previous battles while Raygun kept things unique, the judges would probably have favored Raygun. Other factors to remember include who was hitting more beats, which dancer spent more time moving the floor as opposed to a transitional dance move called toprock, whose movements were stronger and more fluid, whose moves were crisper and more precise, and whose transitions were more interesting.
Before that, both Chapman and Gunn competed at the World Championships in Belgium in September 2023. Although none of them qualified, out of 80 contestants, the song Placed 64th — a full 15 slots ahead of Chapman, who came in last.
All of this means that, despite the viral narrative attached to it, it’s not as easy to write off the song’s entry into the Olympics as a comical fluke or a sign of privileged corruption. In fact, according to Song, he wanted to bring a style of movement to the Paris Games that was less about meeting expectations and more about making an indelible impact.
“All I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative — that’s my strength, my creativity,” Song told ESPN.
“I will never beat these girls for doing the best, moving and driving energy, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because of how many opportunities you get … to do that in life.”
Score by score, Raygun’s dancing is actually not that bad. Really.
Gunn has been reflecting what his style has been for some time. In one of his academic essays on breaking, he arguing“Gender norms both define and limit my physical potential.” Gunn also writes about what he sees as the “ideal construction” of masculinity in dance.
In other words, the weirdness of Gunn’s dance… might be the whole point. Moreover, in more informal breaking venues, it’s not even that weird. “What Raygun showed at the Olympics is that breaking is a spectrum,” Waipiha said on his live stream. He argued that his style represented a more informal, self-expressive side of street dancing. “He went out there and did what many of you complain could never do. He was his true self.”
You may well ask: But shouldn’t we hold the Olympians to a higher standard of excellence? Even if that superiority is forged from a masculinist construction of sports and dance?
Well… what are we? There’s every indication that Gunn is currently the most famous B-girl in the world, and while most people are laughing at her, not with her, somewhere in the wide world of Bhangra, other B-girls can feel inspired instead of ashamed and disappointed.
After all, even by Olympic standards, the song didn’t do that badly. if you look Scoring by judgesFor example, regarding his battle with US breaker LogistX, you can see that while he held zero rounds, a handful of judges had him beat LogistX in some subcategory, usually originality. Meanwhile, while Logistx wins most categories, it usually does Only the best wins by a few percentage points.
In other words, Gunn arguably put his own once-in-a-lifetime under pressure at the Olympics, and he did so while trying out his own unique style.
Was it great? No. Was it bad? Apparently not as bad as we thought.
Leaving us with a mess of ambiguity; Many (though of course not all) heaping criticism on Gunn are people who barely knew what breaking was a fortnight ago, while many rushed to defend him as breaking veterans. Among those who just want to make memes. There are some Australian breakers in the situation anxious The backlash would drive away sponsors and support – which, Waipiha told me, was already a concern given the lack of government funding to break through as an art form.
As for Gunn, “he’s a human being above all else,” Waipiha said. “We hope first and foremost that he’s OK.”
Yet if there’s one thing we know about breaking, it’s that it takes a lot more than mockery to break.
