Five-Borough Freestyle: Bone Breaking

The style of dance known as bone breaking looks as extreme as it sounds: arms appear detached, joints seem to circumvent sockets, and moves that look excruciating occur with liquid ease. It has roots, as a technique, in flexing (which we will cover in a future episode), but in recent years it has flourished as its own distinct dance form.

Khalil (Killa) Williams and Xavier (X) Days are young—nineteen and twenty-one, respectively—but they are champion bone breakers, undefeated in dance battles throughout Brooklyn. Killa began dancing Bruk Up, using its glides and glitchy pops to enliven traditional bone-breaking moves; X has focussed on a purer version of the style. The two best friends are members of Next Level Squad, a Brooklyn-based group of élite dancers who specialize in bone breaking. Recently, they travelled from Bed-Stuy to lower Manhattan to dance through the bone-white World Trade Center Transportation Hub.

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