WALIOHAMASISHA NA KUTOA KIPAUMBELE SANAA YA MAVUNJO KWA JINSIA YA KIKE NA HISTORIA ILIYOFICHWA
(B-Girls who helped start the female breakdance trend The Untold B-Girl History)

B-girls history dates back to the early 70's with the first official all girl crew called the "Zulu Queens". These ladies were the first to do the top rocks lil burns here and there but they weren't into flares head spins etc...it was more of stylish point of view not getting dirty on the floor. Remember this is the early stages in the b-girl movement so it was like a party thing, hanging out and calling guys out for fun. One of the members I remember off the top of my head was Sha-Rock from a group called "The Funky Four Plus One" which was formed in 1976. Sha-Rock later became big as a female rapper and in the rap world. I also remember meeting Ez-Rock out in California back in 1995 she was a Zulu queen from the San Diego chapter! she had pretty much paved the way for a lot of girls who were out there battling and traveling the world with the Rock Steady Crew in the early 90's with Crazy Leggs. Ez-Rock still break dances today but she is more on the mother tip because she has a little girl to raise but she still down to represent. Then there another b-girl by the name "Honey Rockwell" from New York very down to earth b-girl and a full time mother she got down with the rock steady crew in the early 90's she toured the world and also and went to jam on the Groove Tour. You can see some of Honey Rockwell's break-dance videos on YouTube. There are more b-girlz I could speak on but I just wanted to write quick little history for all the b-girls out there. Some of the b-girls I mentioned may be order than you but you still got to give them respect, without them there would be no foundation for b-girls to showcase there talents. - (Read more about Honey Rockwell - below)

Honey Rockwell BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in the Bronx, Ereina "Honey Rockwell" Valencia started her dance career at the Bronx Academy of Dance when she was seven years old. Enrolled in gymnastics and dance, Honey hated taking ballet and jazz. She says, "I wasn't good at picking up choreography but I was good at being acrobatic. I was a better flipper than I was doing those dance styles." Continuing with gymnastics all throughout high school, Honey was influenced by the dance scene around her and started picking up breaking moves on her own. She says, "I'm an '80s kid. It was my era, my generation that I grew up with. I lived in the Bronx. Everybody did it around me, everybody did it in my school. I incorporated it in my routines, in my gymnastics routines."

After graduating high school, Honey was offered the role of a dancer in Mannequin 2: On the Move, where she would meet the man who would change her life.

"I met a guy by the name of Louie New Wave. He introduced me to the whole world of the b-boy world that was happening in the '90s. He definitely was a mentor of mine and definitely transitioned my path in this world. I look up to him, I loved his dance style. He was a popper and a waver. He's just off the hook. So he was the turning point of my life. That was like 1990."

After taking some time off to have a baby, Honey called up Louie New Wave to start training again. In '93, he took Honey to her first practice where she would meet her breaking mentors. "I met Crazy Legs, Ken Swift, Mr. Wiggles, the whole GhettOriginals Dance Production, as well as some other guys. And the girls, Rokafella was there.. Masami, Zoraya-Wiggles' wife, Deena, Wandee."

However, Honey wasn't accepted right away. She had to prove she was worthy of Rock Steady's tutelage.

"Some members didn't want me, they were like 'Who is she?,' which is true, very true. But, you know, I guess I showed them proof. I had people in the crew that did believe in me and wanted to give me that opportunity. So they did, like Flowmaster worked with me a lot, Gremlin worked with me a lot, Legs worked, everybody worked with me big time. In order for me to be down, everyone wanted me to be good."

The next step was getting her name, a process that had a little hiccup. "I'm embarrassed. I gave myself my name ... My real name is Ereina. So I was like 'Hmmm.' Rokafella already gave herself a name. Her name's Anita but her b-girl name's Rokafella. I was so jealous. Fucking illest name. I was jealous. I was like Rokafella, fuck! What can I make my name? So, I was like Ereina, I do back handsprings, I do flips. Rainbow."

And how long did Rainbow have her b-girl name for?

"Until I figured out it was gay pride. So, on tape, we're doing a performance and Wiggles has to do this thing: Next up, Rainboooooow... And then they were like 'You gotta change your name. That's not your name.' I was like 'Whatever, that's my name for now.' And Gremlin used to call me Honey. 'Hey Honey, what's up? What's good, Honey?' He called everyone Honey. And then we were at a practice spot in the Bronx and the avenue we turned on was Rockwell Avenue in the Bronx. Kwikstep saw the sign and said you should call yourself Honey Rockwell. And they were like 'Yeeeeah, Honey Rockwell. That's it.' It's funny, I saw it and was like 'Oh yeah, maybe.' So we started writing it graffiti style. It stuck... It's so funny, how you get your name. And it's stuck and been out there for awhile."

What's interesting about Honey is that her b-girl training started as a grueling preparation for a theatrical production. She says, "Training was every single day, eight hours a day. It was for the show though. We were training for something. I came in when there was things about to happen. As soon as I came in and they saw potential in me, they asked me to be a part of it. And it was eight hours a day, literally. Intensive choreography practices. And I was learning how to do the movements, learning the whole style, as well as the choreography, which I sucked at."

However, practices weren't just in the studio. After rehearsals were over, Honey would hit the clubs because "going out was our training." She says, "We didn't have practice spots. No, there was no practice spots back then. Nobody was throwing 'Oh, come over, come to a session at PS whatever.' My house was the practice spot. I remember Storm, and some other dudes that came randomly from Germany, they put water all over my floors and started doing windmills."

The show that Honey had to train so diligently for was Jam on the Groove, the first hip hop musical to debut Off-Broadway. It toured all over the globe and opened in 1995 at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City. In '96, it was nominated for a Drama Desk Awards for Best Choreography, competing with Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, the production that took home the win that year. The dance company behind it was GhettOriginal Productions, a group formed by members of the Rock Steady Crew and Rhythm Technicians after showcasing a piece called "So! What Happens Now?" at Performance Space 122. The piece was inspired by the death of b-boy Buck 4.

Honey credits Jam on the Groove with bringing b-boying back to the masses. In the late '80s, early '90s, breaking was allegedly dead, with much attributed to its demise: media saturation, overexposure, b-boys exploited for their talents by big business, and the supposed banning of breaking on public streets. Others say it never died, it just went underground, out of the mainstream's eyes and ears.

The way Honey tells it, another factor contributed to it. "For the most part, people were dancing, kind of like the birth of House, from what I can remember, so that's when House music was coming out, and people started getting more into that %u2026 House was the closest thing to footwork, you know. So there wasn't really a style of music we could do, that breakers could do. The style was House or Hip Hop." Honey continues, "The music was hot though. The music was fire. The birth of House and Hip Hop. Music was dope. And then they stopped playing, actually they still don't play stuff in the clubs like breakbeats and shit."

It's a salient point, that the music just wasn't there for b-boys and b-girls to dance to in the clubs anymore.When Jam on the Groove started touring in the early '90s, Honey says the show made it acceptable to b-boy again. "93, '94, we toured it. We toured it around the world. People were like 'What? You're back? It's back out? What are you talking about?' People were in shock. People were like, some people were like 'Thank god it came out, now I can come back and practice.' The old school guys wiping off cobwebs, coming back in. People were

like, it was something for somebody to do again, it was another outlet again. People could practice again. And then it just exploded. The show we did, Jam on the Groove definitely was the train to get on, the train that definitely put people on. 'Hi, we're back,' you know, and it's never stopped since then. That's what, '94-2010, 16 years."

Breaking is now stronger than ever, with b-boys putting together jams and events, taking the reins on their own culture. And as with all cultures that survive through the ages, it is an ever-changing thing. Recently, conversations about whether b-boying should be categorized as a dance or a sport has been surfacing in different breaking forums and jams. Many have offered their opinions and Honey isn't shy about hers. Her thesis is about semantics.

"Why does it have to be called a sport? Call it a dance competition... Or, what's wrong with the word sport? We don't have to call it a sport, we could just say it's a dance battle. That's it, it's another category. It's another genre of competition. Dance battles. You've got, what are some other names for um, you've got scrimmages, you've got meets, you've got games, so we've got dance battles. You don't have to call it a sport. Don't call it a sport. They are competitions though and people are winning trophies in battle."

Semantics may not matter to Honey, but she wants b-boys to get paid for doing what they love to do. She says, "I'd like to see the evolution of it becoming seen on ESPN, or a channel like that where you could see, watch that on TV instead of watching a basketball game. I'd like to see them win money and be sponsored by %u2026 sponsors. It's already happening."

And because Honey knows the culture so well, she ends her argument with "I'm open-minded about that. I know people are gonna hate on that but whatever."

THE CONVERSATION turns towards the current b-boying scene and Honey says, "It is insane now. The difference is that more people respect it, more people are doing it. It's nice, it's a nice feeling."

For Honey, the one major difference between the scene back then and the scene now are the b-girls. "There's a lot more now, of course there are thousands, I'm amazed. There's no words to describe going to a jam and seeing b-girls. It's emotional for me. You know, because there was none. There was always preachy, we need more b-girls, we need more b-girls." Honey continues with what she hopes for b-girls in the future, "I'd like to see b-girls do every single thing that a guy can do. And I think it's already reached that level, I think b-girls are already like, every power move, endurance, the style. I think there's been enough years since I've been down, 16 years, that girls have like went over the top and everything, so I'm pretty impressed. But the sky's the limit."

So much has changed since Honey Rockwell started b-girling full force back in the early '90s. The pioneers and legends of the dance are getting older and if b-girls like Honey Rock don't know their own history, then as the dance changes and evolves, who's going to remember what the roots of it were? Is it important to know the history? "Absolutely. I mean I'm open-minded. I'm like the wrong person. If you were asking..(story continued below)

... this to guys that invented the dance, or like legends and pioneers like Kenny and stuff, yeah then they're going to be like 'Oh, most definitely.' I'm open-minded. 'Cause I feel like, hey, if this is keeping you out of trouble, and you're doing something positive with your life, I'm not going to hate on you not knowing your history. I'm open-minded like that. You're here to take my class. If you want to know this, if this is something that really really you're into, yeah, then this is important. If you're into it. What ballerina knows who invented ballet? And what year? You don't always have to know that. It's nice to know the vocabulary. I mean it's fairly new. It's thirty-something years old. You should know the vocabulary. There should be set names to

different movements. And I think we need to respect because we have living legends that are still alive. So I think we do need to pay that respect. I'm sure the ballerina culture, their living legends, they were giving them their respect. I'm sure they pushed and pushed and pushed to become a nice recognizable dance form. And this is what we're doing now. It's almost there, we're almost there. The thing we gotta get together is have these OG's document the movements and before, you know, god forbid people start dropping and it's already happening. We're hitting our fifties guys, we're not getting any younger. And these guys, you know, things that they've done in their past is affecting their today, their present, and their future and, you know, we gotta hit them up and get as much information as we can. It's very important. It's a lifestyle that we live right now."

What's next for Honey? Transitioning from a dancer to a businesswoman.

"I'm taking my baby steps. I formed my own company, Rockwell Dance Company and also Rock Da Floor [with Kid Dynamo and Bam Bam]. And teaching classes and outreach, lectures. Just the company growing a little more professional. Merchandising, videos. Just expanding more on a professional level, transition my career from dancing to more of a business, sending people out for shows, getting the company tight for whatever it is people want to do."