My fascination for breakdance has led me to the Urban festival, held partly at Kiasma, Helsinki’s museum of contemporary art. Today I went to see a documentary on some b-boys. How they tried to live of their dance.
And it was interesting, because when the documentary started they were like 17 year old kids, getting into trouble, dancing more than they went to school and so on. And I though; what a waste of time, doing a documentary on some lousy teenage punks that are half decent dancers. But as the documentary went on you started to notice the difference. They grew up, got more responsible. I guess you could say that they got more responsibilities which forced them to see things differently.
And I came to think about the rite of passage that they hold in lots of tribes all over the world – when a boy is supposed to become a man. And I got it. It’s not about the pain or killing an animal or whatever. It’s about these kids being away from their mama long enough to realize that they have to wash their own socks. That they are on their own.
And maybe they do have these rites for women as well, but the thing is; girls have probably had to wash their own socks their whole life already…
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