<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/aug/14/raygun-breaking-paris-olympics-australian-dance-industry>
"For Australia’s B-girls, it’s been a tough 72 hours. As Rachael “Raygun” Gunn
went viral after her performance at the Paris Olympics, the tight-knit breaking
community at home has been dealing with the fallout.
“It’s really affected us. We’ve got B-girls in tears about it,” says Leah
Clark, who has been a B-girl for the last 24 years and runs a dance performance
space in Brisbane.
“How do I go to work now and try to get our sponsorship and get our grant money
for breaking programs [for a sport] that’s just been made a mockery of? And how
do we go and represent our country at other world level events when Australia’s
been made a fool of? … This is actually affecting us on a much larger scale
than just memes.”
While much of the global reaction to Gunn’s performance has been jovial or
supportive, with Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, praising the
cultural studies academic for having “a crack”, there have also been darker
elements.
Clark says she has been trolled online and has received prank phone calls at
work. Many Australian B-girls have had to switch their social media accounts to
private to dodge the hate; others have posted online about feeling despair over
breaking’s depiction on the world stage."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
