Introduction

          Break dancing was an influential form of dance in the urban minority populations of New York City during the end of the 1970's and early 1980's, that was familiarized in part with the competitive and athletic moves of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that was popularized during this same time period. I argue that both break dancing in New York City and capoeira in Salvador, Brazil emerged as nationally identifying factors for populations of African descent (and populations of Puerto Rican descent in terms of break dancing), as ways of representing themselves through dance that allowed them to voice their struggle against oppression. Both forms of dance were unifying within the founding populations, allowing the participants to form groups with small amounts of members that became like a second family. Both styles of dance eventually rose to international popularity around the 1980's. Yet regardless of this fact, each form of dance leaves with it a nationally identifying factor in that it spread from minority populations to be recognized nationally by populations within each country and then became an identifying and unifying factor for people especially of the marginalized classes.