Lifestyle
For Ukraine’s Olympic breakdancers, ‘shining’ is more important than winning
Oleh Kuznetsov, who goes by B-boy Kuzya, performs the freeze element, freezing for a few seconds in unusual and extremely difficult positions.
Anna Gondek-Grodkiewicz for NPR
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NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. For more of our coverage from the Games, head to our latest updates.
WARSAW, Poland — A rocking beat of energetic music fills every corner of a spacious, sun-drenched sports complex in the Polish capital. After some stretching and warming up, three breakers and their trainer are practicing complex dance and acrobatic moves.
Breaking, also known as breakdancing, is making its Olympic debut as a sport this week in Paris. A team of female and male Ukrainian athletes, called “B-girls” and “B-boys,” have gone through a three-year selection process on their way to the Summer Games and finally got together in a training camp here last month.
Kateryna Pavlenko, 29, or B-girl Kate, looked at herself in the mirror as she danced, a look of growing confidence on her face. “When we just knew that breaking is going to be in the Olympics, I had no doubt I’m going to do everything to end up there,” she said.
Kateryna Pavlenko, 29, aka B-girl Kate, was born in Kharkiv and moved to the U.S. in 2021. As soon as she found out that breaking would be in the Olympics, she knew she would be there.
Anna Gondek-Grodkiewicz for NPR
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Pavlenko, another Ukrainian b-girl, Anna Ponomarenko, and two B-boys came here to train for the Games. In a one-on-one breaking competition, two dancers take turns showcasing their skills, moves, character, style and musicality, each trying to outshine the other. After all the rounds are completed, judges determine the winner.
Ukrainians have known breaking since Soviet times, when authorities disapproved of it, which gave it a special appeal as a kind of cultural forbidden fruit. They usually first discovered it thanks to video cassettes of movies such as Breakin’ (1984) that were brought home by citizens, often diplomats, who had the right to travel abroad.
After the Cold War ended, many teenagers watched battles — or competitions — of American B-boys and B-girls on pirated hip-hop music videos, pausing them to learn the moves and style.
Georgii Matiukhin, the team manager, was one of those teens.
“We were a generation without any school,” Matiukhin said. “We found VHS tapes, watched them, and tried to repeat. The first tapes we watched were American breakers Rock Steady Crew, from New York, and style elements from the West Coast.”
Breaker Kateryna Pavlenko (from left), team manager Georgii Matiukhin and coach Denys Semenikhin show their pride in representing Ukraine at the Olympics.
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In the early 2000s, Ukrainian breaking made its way to international battles and championships, where Ukrainians showed good results.
Matiukhin said he believes breaking has gained such popularity and development in his country because dance “has always been in the blood of Ukrainians.”
Breaking, which was born in the Bronx, now shows many cultural influences, notably from South Africa and Brazil. Ukrainian folk dances, such as the arms-crossed, foot-kicking hopak, are also an inspiration to many — especially the three athletes training here.
Denys Semenikhin, B-boy Gimnast, is the coach of the Ukrainian Olympic breaking team. He started breaking in 2001 and was born and lives in Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine. He says the psychological state of athletes is no less important than the physical. The opportunity to represent Ukraine during the war is a great honor but also a challenge for the athletes, he says.
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Oleh Kuznetsov, or B-boy Kuzya, age 34, says his footwork demonstrates how classical elements from Ukrainian folk dances can be interpreted in modern breaking. For him, representing Ukraine is a great honor.
“I want to show that we have nice big and shiny souls and that I am representing my country and my culture,” he said.
At the Olympics, Ukrainian breakers will compete in groups of athletes in a battle format. Nine judges will evaluate the athletes according to criteria including originality, technique and “vocabulary,” or the variety of dance moves deployed.
Unlike in figure skating, where athletes practice the same choreography for months, even years, in breaking, the athletes do not know the music in advance, so the ability to adapt and improvise is key.
Oleksandr Gatyn-Lozynskyi, B-boy Lussysky, the team reserve (left), and Oleh Kuznetsov, B-boy Kuzya, work out and stretch as part of their preparation for the Olympics.
Anna Gondek-Grodkiewicz for NPR
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Denys Seminikhin, the team’s coach, says the breakers’ psychological state is no less important than their physical fitness, emphasizing that representing the country during the war is a great challenge for the athletes.
“Shining is more important than winning,” Pavlenko said. With her performance, she says she wants to return the world’s attention to Ukraine.
“Of course, I want to win a medal,” she adds. “I feel proud to represent my country and I want to make my people proud, as well.”
Oleh Kuznetsov, B-boy Kuzya, trains for the Paris Games. “I want to show that we have nice big and shiny souls and that I am representing my country and my culture,” he says.
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Since leaving office, former Vice President Mike Pence founded the policy and advocacy organization Advancing American Freedom.
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Since leaving office, former Vice President Mike Pence founded the policy and advocacy organization Advancing American Freedom.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Former Vice President Mike Pence played a key role in bringing President Trump to power in 2016. By putting his name on the Republican ticket, he helped reassure the Republican establishment and evangelical voters who were wary of Trump’s brash brand of populism.
Pence’s departure from Trump’s leadership of the Republican party began when Trump called on Pence to refuse to certify the results of the 2020 election — pressure Pence rejected.
“For four years, we had a close working relationship. It did not end well,” Pence wrote in his memoir So Help Me God, which was released in 2022.
In the years since leaving office, Pence has been advocating for an ideological restructure of the Republican party, and founded the policy and advocacy organization Advancing American Freedom. Pence builds on the theme of reimagining the Republican party in his new book What Conservatives Want, which provides a critique of the second Trump administration and what he terms the “populist right.”
In an interview with Morning Edition, Pence detailed to NPR’s Steve Inskeep his critique of the second Trump administration, shared his perspective on civil rights legislation and challenged Trump’s tariffs and other interventions in the economy.
Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue play button above; and read highlights from the conversation below.
‘The populist right’ does not represent conservative beliefs
Pence believes that Trump has embraced “the populist right” over traditional conservatives in the Republican party.
The sale of economic American company U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel in Japan exemplifies this shift, Pence said.
In his first term, President Trump opposed the sale. But in his second term, he approved the sale and took a golden share — a class of shares in which a government can own a very small percentage of the company but has outsized voting rights.
Pence said that he was taken aback by Trump’s decision to take a golden share.
Free trade is essential to American conservatism
Pence takes umbrage with his former boss’ tariff-laden economic policy.
Pence said it violates conservatism’s bedrock belief in the power of free trade, and Trump has gone about granting exceptions to tariffs in an unfair way.
Granting waivers to large corporations from certain tariffs is “one of the lesser reported aspects of the tariff regime that’s been imposed by the administration,” Pence added.
Trump and Pence ran in 2020 on a mission to “drain the swamp,” rooting out government corruption and wasteful spending. However, Pence said Trump appears to have shifted from those goals.
“There’s maybe nothing more swampy than the battle over getting tariff waivers for big business,” Pence said.
Women’s rights on the right
There is a debate among the ultraconservative right about the role of women in civic life.
The concept of “household voting,” has become a familiar talking point for ultra-right-wing communities online. Supporters of “household voting” advocate that every American household should get one vote, the vote being that of the husband’s. This concept has been promoted by figures such as Abby Johnson, a prominent anti-abortion activist who spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention. When asked about whether he supported household voting, Pence said he is not aligned
“It’s one person, one vote in this country. And people have bled and died for that principle throughout the years of our history,” Pence said.
He added that American families don’t need to be propped up by government programs to boost childbirth. “What American families need is an application of the kind of principles that will create higher wages, more opportunities, more jobs,” Pence said.
Should conservatives stand for civil rights?
Pence said he was an admirer of senator and one-time presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
Notably, Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Should conservatives stand for civil rights?” asked Inskeep.
Pence responded that civil rights are important to conservatives, but that equality of opportunity is what legislation ought to enshrine, not equality of outcome.
Pence added that he stood by the Supreme Court’s decision to ban partisan gerrymandering on the basis of race, rendering ineffective a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Milly Alcock in Supergirl.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Hollywood’s newest Supergirl is kind of a dirtbag — in the good way. Fearless and grumpy, Supergirl (Milly Alcock) sets out on a quest to support a new pal’s revenge journey and to make a point that should be clear by now: Never mess with a lady’s dog. Also featuring David Corenswet and Jason Momoa, is Supergirl a worthy follow up to Superman?
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