Dance battles: how do they work?

What is a dance battle?

During a dance battle, dancers face each other and take turns on the dance floor to show they have the best dance skills. Battles are sometimes done 1 versus 1, but you also have 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, 4 vs 4 or crew battles. A crew battle usually involves dancing in a formation of 5 to 10 dancers, and sometimes even more.

There are 2 types of dance battles:

• Some dance battles are all-style. This means that all street and urban dance styles such as breakdance, hip hop, popping, house dance and locking may be mixed. Therefore, the music played is usually compatible with all these genres.
• Some dance battles purely focus on one dance style style, like a breakdance battle. In that case, the music will also play something specifically for that dance style.

To see an example of a dance battle, watch the video below.

History of dance battles

During the birth of hip hop culture in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many breakdance battles arose during neighborhood parties in New York. In those early years, a dance battle simply arose during street parties or training sessions, which often happened in New York's parks. Often a battle went on for more than 10 rounds. Soon, battle events were set up. These were often small-scale events where local breakdancers got together to compete. They were often held in community centers, parks and sometimes in nightclubs. At such battles, you could register and simply compete.

This phenomenon was soon picked up by the rest of the world. One important moment was the legendary battle of Rock Steady Crew vs. New York City Breakers shown in the 1984 movie Beat Street. Battles were actually not only a part of breakdance culture, but of all urban dance styles.

In the 1990s and 2000s, dance battles became bigger and bigger. Battles like The Notorious IBE and Red Bull BC One managed to attract a lot of dancers and huge crowds. This growing popularity shows in breakdance being included as an official sport at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

How does a dance battle work?

A dance battle usually starts with the qualifying round. In this round, often all participants are allowed to do a showcase round or a showcase battle. All participants are allowed to dance once or sometimes twice. The judges decide who is allowed to continue.

After the qualifying round, the knockout battles begin. This means that you are assigned an opponent to compete against. The winner goes on to the next round. Usually 16 people are chosen. This means there are 8 battles and thus 8 winners. This then goes to the semifinals, with only 4 dancers left. The two winners of the semifinals then make it to the final and get to compete for the win. Sometimes there are so many participants that they even choose a top 32 from the qualifiers.

Often, they put the 4 best rated qualification rounds in the corners of the battle bracket. This is how the best rated dancers will have the best chances to meet in the semifinal. This makes it fair, but also exciting for the audience. 

A dance battle itself usually lasts between 1 and 5 rounds. This means that in one round one dancer goes, and then the opponent responds to that.

We recommend to watch this crazy popping battle below.

Dance battles at the Olympic Games

Breakdance / breaking is a new sport at the 2024 Olympics! This will increase the visibility of breakdance among a wider audience. However, the dance battle system at the Olympic Games is a little different than usual.

It starts with the qualifying rounds, where all bboys/bgirls have to battle 1 round. However, based on your result from the qualification round, it will be decided who you're battling up against in the next round. The worst result will battle against the best result, and the second worst result against the second best result, and so forth. So, in the qualification round, it is very important how you perform besides just making it to the next round.

The next round is the top 32 battles! Everyone will be rated again in a battle of 2 rounds. The top 16 best rated dancers go to the next round. So it could be that you lose your battle, but that you do go to the next round because of your rated results. It's also possible that you win your battle, but don't make it to the top 16 best rated dancers.

The top 16 rated bboys/bgirls get into round robin. This is a pool round where there are 4 pools with 4 breakdancers per pool. Every dancer will battle against everyone in their pool for 2 rounds. This means 3 battles per person. The 2 best from each pool go through to the top 8 battles.

In the top 8 battles all bboys/bgirls battle 3 rounds in a knockout system. The winner of these 3 rounds goes on to the top 4. The 2 winners of the top 4 compete for 1st place (gold medal) and 2nd place (silver medal). The losers from the top 4 battles are competing for 3rd place (bronze medal) and 4th place.

Watch this video below with the most amazing moments from the qualifying rounds for the Olympics.

Judges at dance battles

Every official dance battles has judges who decide who wins the battle.

Usually the judges are picked because of the status they have achieved in the dance community. Often, they are chosen because of their different styles, so the judges have various dance preferences.

A lot of dance battles have three different judges. Then it makes sense that there is one person who is more known for his style, while another is more known for his dynamic big moves, such as power moves, tricks and flips. The third person is then often either a more allround breakdancer, or just an old school breakdancer. Sometimes more than three judges are chosen. Then they will also pick the composition by style differences.

In a lot of dance battles, judges do a judge demo. This means that all judges will show their dance skills on-stage. Many dancers find this an important element because it keeps the judges accountable to having skills. At the same time, there are some dancers who think this tradition should stop. They argue that what makes a good judge is his judging ability and not his skills as a dancer. Often events want famous dancers as judges. One of the reasons they want this is because it will bring a spectacular judge demo.

How do judges choose a winner?

In normal knockout battle rounds, the judges decide who the winner is after each battle. They do this as follows. The host or MC of the battle counts down, 3,2,1, then the judges point with their arm towards the dancer they think did better. The dancer with the most votes wins. The judges also occasionally can make a cross with their arms. This means that the judges thought it was a draw, and cannot determine who was better. We call this a tiebreaker.

Imagine there are three judges. One gives a tiebreaker, one points left and the other one points right. This means it is a draw. In that case, both dancers will have to dance one more round, called the tiebreak round. After the tiebreak round, the judges vote again to decide who wins.

So normally the judges and the audience watch the whole battle and after the battle, the judges decide who won. The problem with that is that judges often forget what exactly happened in the first round, and thus judge on what they saw in the last round. This is why another judging system was created called the Kozen judging system. In this system, judges choose a winner after every round. A live scoreboard displays the score after each round.

Since breaking is part of the Olympics Games, a new judging system was developed specifically for the Olympics. The judges will rate every dancers on 5 criteria:

• Technique
• Execution
• Originality
• Vocabulary
• Musicality

The judges at the Olympics have a tablet with a crossfader for each criterium. Every time the dancers have danced one round, the judges compare the round for each category. The score appears on the screen after this round and that is how the contestants and the audience know who won. There are also three more buttons that judges can press for penalty points:

• The misbehavior button. Judges can press this button if they feel that someone is showing disrespectful behavior.
• The bite button. Judges can press this button if a dancer copies somone's moves or styles completely from the beginning. This is not appreciated. After all, it is important that dancers have developed their own style.
• The crash button. Judges can press this button when the dancers makes a crash / falls during one of his moves.

All judges must complete a course before they are allowed to judge at the Olympics or qualifiers for the games.

Biggest dance battles

Some of the biggest urban dance battles in the world are:

• Juste Debout
• Summer Dance Forever
• Red Bull BC One
• The Notorious IBE
• Battle of the Year
• UK B-Boy Championships
• Freestyle Session
• Olympic Games 2024

For example, watch this fantastic bboy final from the Notorious IBE.

Improve your dance skills

Would you also like to participate in dance battles? Then MyGrooveGuide is there for you! MyGrooveGuide offers online dance classes in breakdance, popping, hip hop and house dance. The online classes incorporate the element of freestyling, which is exactly what you need as a dancer to compete in a dance battle! See our overview of classes.