Xeni on NPR: Renaissance of Breakin'

On today's edition of the NPR show "Day to Day," I report on one of the cooler '80s flashback trends -- break-dancing, which is enjoing a popularity boom among urban youth. From headspins to poppin' and lockin', b-boy style is back in the house, yo.

I went to one underground hiphop dance competition in LA recently, and talk to some of the participants on today's program. At left, one of the judges bursts into a spontaneous headspin at the end of the b-boy competition. View more snapshots I took at the event here.

More story background: website of competition organizer Joanna Vargas, an LA-based choreographer: Link. Bboy.com, a popular website for the breakin' community... several judges and dancers described it as a popular networking hub: Link. And Culture Shock, one of the larger groups that participated in "MAXT OUT" competition -- two members were interviewed in today's NPR piece: Link. A lot of the teens I spoke with talked of hooking up with other dancers on Myspace.com and Friendster. Among dancers, the most popular way to hear about new underground hiphop seemed to be a combination of word-of-mouth and (a) Kazaa, or (b) burning CDs for each other. Everyone complained about how suck-ass commercial urban FM radio programming has become.

Listen to NPR show audio here after 12 noon Pacific Time.