Youth Radio Reveals The Science Behind Turf Dancing

One of the defining features of turf dancing — a graceful, Oakland-grown dance style — is “bone breaking.” That’s when a dancer twists his or her arm beyond what seems humanly possible, as if casually dislocating a shoulder without even the slightest grimace. Aside from eliciting dropped jaws, the hair-raising moves also bring up many questions: How is “bone breaking” physically possible? Does it hurt? Is it dangerous in the long-term? 

To provide some answers, Youth Radio producers Chaz Hubbard, Ike Sriskandarajah, Jenny Bolario, Mikey Prizmich, and Luis Flores created a video short in which the talented turf dancer iDummy, aka Levi Allen, visits a sports medicine doctor (and former Cirque Du Soleil acrobat) in search of a professional opinion. The video was released this morning. Learn a few things by watching it below.  

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This video follows up on another that the same group of Youth Radio producers put out last December, which goes into the history of turf dancing and features iDummy and the rest of his crew explaining why they choose to perform on BART. Check out that video here. 

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