Martha Cooper

Intense faces, stoic with anticipation gaze at pre-eminent B-boy and member of the renowned Rock Steady Crew Marc "Mr. Freeze" Lemberger midperformance at The Kitchen on Broome St. in 1983. Fueled by both excitement and anxiety Mr. Freeze suspends half his body in midair with only his fingertips tethering him to the stage. Mr. Freeze recalls this as the first time he performed in front of an audience this size, as he was more accustomed to dancing in front of fellow crew members or rival breakers in battle.

A few years after breaking was invented, Mr. Freeze and the Rock Steady Crew took the dance style to new heights by adding acrobatic elements to their choreography. Breaking's marriage with Hip Hop started in the Bronx, where DJs like DJ Kool Herc would employ breakdowns (aka the "breaks") by repeatedly looping percussive sections that allowed dancers to show off the main varieties of breaking: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes from whence Mr. Freeze gets his name.

In this shot by Martha Cooper, Keith Haring is featured prominently in the first row, observing with great intrigue. Speaking on Haring’s artistic practice in relation to Hip Hop. Fred Brathwaite aka Fab 5 Freddy stated, “He would look at dance and see things, and he would freeze moments in his mind, and go into the studio and paint them. You could feel the movement and rhythm in his work.” Keith Haring’s attendance and Martha Cooper’s photography show the ubiquitous nature of Hip Hop.

Martha Cooper focused her personal practice on the documentation of graffiti and street art, on this day she lent her expert eye to capture a breaking virtuoso. When Martha wasn’t sneaking into train stations to capture writers tagging their names on metal canvases, she frequented events such as this one and even now remains a powerful force in the documentation of Hip Hop Culture.