Editing Logan Edra (section)

====Culture Change====
Of course, some elements of a traditional battle have been tweaked in its translation for the Olympic stage. Most notable is the more regimented scoring. “In cultural breaking events, it’s based off of opinion—it’s super-subjective,” says Montalvo. But at Olympic competitions and qualifiers, there’s a structured points system. That rewards a slightly different strategy, Montalvo believes: “You have to be more explosive from beginning to end, getting straight to the point, doing big moves on the beat, ending off with a big freeze. And if you’re too complex, really being super-creative, I feel like you don’t get too far.” Because judges are ticking off particular boxes to tally the score, dancers need to be well-rounded, whereas, Louis says, in other competitions a breaker could just do one thing really well and win with that. 

Po Chun Chen, aka “Bojin,” head of the breaking division of the World DanceSport Federation (the organization helping to oversee breaking at the Olympics), acknowledges that it’s been a challenge to balance the sport and the culture in a dance form started by oppressed people looking for a way to freely express themselves. “We cannot lose the original soul of breaking, which is the freedom,” he says. One way in which the WDSF is attempting to honor the hip-hop roots of breaking at the Olympics is by starting out the competition with the judges showing off their own skills in a cypher as a way of celebrating the culture. Though the practice would be unthinkable in figure skating or gymnastics, “this is our culture,” says Chen.