When it comes to Olympic sports, Breakdancing is not the first discipline that comes to mind. Breaking as the dance is commonly known made its debut at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires and then joined the likes of surfing, skateboarding, and sport climbing as one of the new sports for the 2024 Games in Paris.
Courtnae’ Paul is one of the top B-Girls in South Africa and is hoping that she will be able to represent Mzansi at the Olympics later this year. Paul has traversed across the world in a bid to hone her skills as B-Girl and despite having to find funding or funding her trips she has managed to get her name out there over the past few years. Unbelievably, becoming a breakdancer was not the original career path that she thought of. Paul played soccer, kickboxing and did gymnastics as a youngster but then started dancing later on.
Born in Redhill, in Durban, Paul now calls Johannesburg home and has become a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to her career. She is also a hip-hop and Afro DJ which has kept her busy when she isn’t on the dance floor competing.
gsport was lucky enough to get some time with Paul who has become accustomed to juggling all that’s on her plate. She has also progressed to the Olympic qualifying events coming up and Paul will have to be at her best to book her ticket to Paris.
Tell us a little about how your B-Girl journey began?
I started playing soccer and doing gymnastics very young, I then went into kickboxing from about the age of 10 and 11. I only started dancing late at around 11 or 12 years old and completely by chance but it was just a culmination of things. I have always been a sporty girl being in the soccer team but the break dancing was never part of the plan, I come from a small POC community in Durban, you spend a lot of time with the kids outside, whether it’s on the bike doing random stuff and you never know what that exactly is.
Fast forward to the Missy Elliot music video era, it was really just me taking the skill set from gymnastics and all these things and trying to do it to music there after. I would say I only turned pro when I moved to Johannesburg when I turned 21. Even now I am still quite shocked about it to be honest.
What is about being a B-Girl that excites and fulfils you?
Theexciting thing about is how difficult Breaking is, I am quite a busy body, I get quite obsessive about the things that I enjoy. I am someone that doesn’t half-a*** anything, even if it’s the most simple thing, if you take my shoes, they need to be the cleanest that they can be! Once I got into dancing, I needed to go full out with it. By the ages of 15 and 16 I got my first professional gigs in Durban, I started managing dancers, booking gigs, making no money but I just felt like there so much more the this.
Once I got into Breaking, it was a culmination (of things), there aren’t a lot of females in this space and I was sick and tired of hearing that this sport isn’t for us. So, I need to prove somebody wrong, whoever that somebody is. The second thing is, it’s such a weird thing, right, you not meant to stand on your head, so that really interested me, the dangers and risks that comes with it. Breaking is a kind of thing where the learning never stops, there’s always something else that you need to add on. It’s just exciting, knowing that I will never be at the end of my rope.
You are hoping to be part of the Olympics this year, what has that journey been like?
It’s been incredibly difficult, imagine waking up in lockdown and hearing Breaking is part of the Olympics and you now have so many checkpoints to go and tick off in a year. You go from Seoul to Kitakyushu in Japan and the next thing you are in Morocco … firstly, who can afford that!
If you are not from Asia, the USA or Europe, you can absolutely forget about it. I travelled the most out of South African team, and it’s something I really try to do and I say to myself, maybe there is an extra pair of shoes I don’t need this month. I have travelled the most, I have won our back-to-back qualifiers the most, it’s great but it’s just so difficult.
Imagine travelling +- 35 hours one-way, you travel the night before, you competing the very next day. Other countries get in a week before, it’s really an eye opener, but I am just so grateful to be part of this journey.
As it stands I have qualified for the OQS (Olympic Qualifying Series) in May and June to go to Singapore and Budapest, where essentially they take the top 10 to the Olympics. The level (of the competitors) is extremely high and they have access and support like no other, but I will absolutely fight tooth and nail. What is cool is that when you are travelling to these international events it’s good to see we (South Africa) are not the bottom of the barrel. Making sure we can make an impact and that there is African representatives is very important to me, and showing people we have so much more to offer.
You have are regular competitor on the international stage, how do you feel this will help, should you make it to Paris?
It will make all the difference, again I am going up against people that do this every week, and when I say locally, I get to compete five times a year if I am lucky, and that’s not even at a high level.
They get to do this literally every two weeks, they bounce between different events that are of the highest level in the world. Breaking unlike other sports, there is so much that is left to chance, there’s a DJ that plays their own music, it’s not coming with a USB and making a request, you don’t know what floor the competition is on, there’s so many variables that you have to figure out.
I am used to it doing it every week, but I don’t want to say it’s not difficult, because it is. You must also add on flying for 20 hours, and then you can’t stand up because your back is in pieces.
What makes it harder is that if you don’t have a global name, like these other dancers do, and I am relatively known and they are competing against people that they see every week, so you also competing against somebody looking at you, and going: ‘We don’t know her’.
It’s not like other sports where you go, ‘She clearly ran the fastest, she knocked somebody out or she scored a goal’, it’s all judging-based. I try to put myself in the best possible position and I am going to try and compete in the national Jams before the OQS happens, we have one in Johannesburg, and then one in March, so I am really just trying to put myself in the most uncomfortable positions as I can, so that I am not shellshocked when I get there, I need to be able to pull it together.
Not many people can say their discipline is at the Olympics, what does that mean to you what you are able to compete on such a stage?
It’s the ultimate flex when you look at it especially, from a dance point of view. Dance in South Africa is always seen as the bottom of the barrel, and I think my role is showing people that, we are not these dumb, gone to waste street kids, dancing on the the corner. We can still be artists we can still demand certain rates, we can still be treated in a certain way and we can be main acts.
That, for me, being in the Olympics is almost like the ultimate validation, even the oldest granny in Zulu Land will know if I say to her, ‘Mama, this sport is going to the Olympics!’, she will know. If you walk into a boardroom and say the same, they will understand. For people around the world it’s a big thing but for people in South Africa and on the continent, we don’t get platforms.
What would like to see leaders do to improve women’s sport in SA?
The leaders have responsibility, if we are talking about people within arts and culture, and sport, you literally have a responsibility, that is your job, we not asking you for favours, we are asking you to do the things you have been enlisted to do, the funds exist.
I need people to stop being greedy for a change, because that’s honestly what it feels like. It’s takes one person to be a little bit too greedy, you short-circuit the generations to come. If I am the only person in my family that manages to make it out, and I am able to travel and go and compete but I am relying on these funds to get me there, you are robbing people of their future.
Honour your responsibility and actually be interested, I would never be in a job that I didn’t care about, so if you are not interested in sport and art step away, let younger people or whoever is interested come forward and take on those roles.
Besides wanting the gold medal, we need to cultivate talent, and I feel like that is what we need. We don’t have grass roots training, we don’t have enough investment and infrastructure and people that understand what it takes to be an athlete in these positions, or even care what it takes to be an athlete.
They just expect results.
How do we get athletes on a better platform, treat them better? I am not saying roll out the red carpet, there is so much room for us to grow if we have the right support and structure. I want is to move away from being the poor African, and I want us to be known for how good we are!
Photo caption: When it comes to Olympic sports, Breakdancing is not the first discipline that comes to mind. Breaking as the dance is commonly known made its debut at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires and then joined the likes of surfing, skateboarding, and sport climbing as one of the new sports for the 2024 Games in Paris. All Photos: Supplied
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