Meant to b: A Wknd interview with India’s breaking champ Siddhi Tambe aka Bar-B

Tambe, 18, the version you meet off-stage, is gentle, soft-spoken, an introvert. She’s a microbiology student, daughter to an anganwadi teacher and a hospital ward attendant in Mumbai. Bar-B, the performer, is edgy, competitive and confident. She’s won a series of contests; had her heart broken when a trip to Paris fell through; and is headed to New York in November.

In June, Tambe aka Bar-B competed against b-girls from across the country to win the annual Red Bull BC One Cypher India breaking championship. This November, she will be the first in her family to get on an airplane when she heads to New York to compete in the Red Bull BC One World Final.

Hip-hop isn’t just a dance form; it’s become her identity, she says. The moves are creative, challenging and defiant. “They give me a sense of freedom and purpose.”

Tambe has been dancing since she was 10. At community events, at birthday parties and Ganeshotsav mandals, people would notice her energy and her style, says her mother Sneha Tambe, 40, who works at a government-run crèche. “Her father Sumedh and I knew all she needed was some formal training to get noticed in the world. So despite the additional financial burden, we signed her up at a local dance academy.”

At the 3D Dance Academy near the Tambes’ home, instructors found that the little girl could copy all their moves, no matter how daring the flips or how complicated the footwork. “I didn’t know this was called breaking,” Tambe said, laughing. “The back flips, head spins and windmills were fascinating, and I just enjoyed the challenge of trying to execute them smoothly.”

The term “breaking” is attributed to DJ Kool Herc, from the Bronx in New York City. During block parties in the 1970s, he isolated beats to create breaks in songs. The moves that formed around these jagged rhythms became a battle dance, a means of expression, a form of rebellion. Using a mix of funk, soul, jazz, techno, rock and disco, young people invented newer and newer moves; over generations, they staged face-offs, found fame, and spawned a global movement.

In Mumbai, as in many parts of the world, the hip-hop movement serves as a means of expression and rebellion among youngsters, especially from lower-income groups. Some of Mumbai’s best-known rappers, beatboxers, b-boys and b-girls have emerged from the vast slum of Dharavi. They use hip-hop and its spotlight to hit out at capitalist and casteist systems, and to demand a change in how they and their communities are viewed.

Meanwhile, the global sports community has been taking note of this subculture. Breaking made its debut as an Olympic sport at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. It will feature at the Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024.

As Bar-B, Tambe is looking to carve her own niche. She wants to be the b-girl who dares.

Her favourite move is a particularly risky version of the “coin drop” in which the dancer does a flip, lands on their back and does floor swirls on their shoulder before pumping back into a standing position. It has taken her months of practice and several injuries to ace the move. “I’ve lost clumps of hair, injured my shoulders and knees many times. I once came home with a bleeding scalp, but it’s all a part of the learning process,” she says.

She owes a lot, she adds, to the help of her seniors on the city crew 3D. Many have since moved on to jobs, marriage and raising families. So Tambe now turns to the YouTube channels of world champions for inspiration.

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As with any pursuit of excellence, breaking at this level demands sacrifice. Early on, Tambe gave up dreams of becoming a doctor. Juggling classes with three or four hours of dance sessions a day would have been impossible as a medical student.

In the one-room home she shares with her parents and elder sister, she now spends increasing amounts of time on Instagram, where her follower count is slowly inching upwards (from 1,000 to 2,600 in the month since her win). And she spends hours dancing alone — perfecting her toprocks, downrocks, power moves and freezes.“It can feel overwhelming to be in the limelight,” she says, “but I hope I can inspire other girls to express themselves through dance.”