The aesthetics of the 2000s, maximalism tangled up with counterculture, feel both distant and strangely magnetic now. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the decade shaped more than one generation and set a cultural direction that still holds today, stirring genuine nostalgia even in those who never lived through it.
But what does this culture look like in Uzbekistan today? Behind the cinematic image of street dance lies a real community that continues to survive, grow and fight for its place within the city’s cultural landscape.
A Little Background
Most contemporary street dance styles in Tashkent trace their roots back to the street dance culture that emerged in the United States between the 1970s and 1990s. Economic crisis, racial segregation and a lack of opportunity created an environment in which young people searched for an outlet for their energy and, sometimes, their anger. These styles developed on the streets, in clubs, at block parties and hip-hop events. What united them was freestyle culture: movement born through improvisation.
Today, three key styles stand out: the athletic language of breaking, groove-based freestyle hip-hop and popping, built around muscular control and precision.
Still, the history of dance culture is perhaps better left to theorists, because street dance has always been shaped less by institutions than by community itself.
On 20 December, Tashkent hosted the annual Unity Base battle. It seemed like the perfect occasion to ask: what defines Tashkent’s street dance scene today? How did the community take shape? What challenges does it face?We spoke with Unity Base founder Tima Unity, professional dancer and breaking athlete Dmitry Lukashev, creative practitioner and dancer Arthur Sadriev (ARTHUR OVERHITZ), and Overhitz founder Vladimir Meshcheryakov.
Why Street Dance Is an Art
Street dance is often dismissed as something temporary, adolescent or unserious.
"Street dance was viewed sceptically for a long time, like anything new that people had not yet learned to understand," says Dmitry Lukashev.
Part of this perception comes from the nature of freestyle itself. To an outside viewer, it does not always resemble a finished work of art. Yet within the culture, freestyle functions as a system of improvisation, a particular way of thinking and interacting with music. A dancer responds in real time to rhythm, pauses, musical structure and emotional state. It is a language without a memorised script, but with its own grammar, dialogue and accents.
Tima Unity, also known at local battles as MC Fromunity and one of Tashkent's battle organisers, explains:
Freestyle comes in many forms, and it is not always art. Freestyle is about the moment and the sensation. Choreographed pieces in street dance styles, or presenting dance through a carefully made video, can become art. Street dance has many branches, but overall it is more about culture. And even that word eventually shortens to "subculture."
Tima Unity
Thus, in street dance, art does not lie in freestyle itself as a form, but in dance’s ability to move beyond pure improvisation and become a statement, a performance. In those moments, movement becomes a way of speaking about personal experience and inner states without using words.
Creative artist and professional dancer Arthur Sadriev (ARTHUR OVERHITZ) highlights this aspect:
Through dance, we are able to convey emotions that matter first and foremost to the dancer, yet in which others may recognise something of their own. These are feelings that, for various reasons, cannot be expressed in words. Yet they cannot remain unexpressed either. By dancing, we tell stories. We speak of pain and joy, sadness and love, of inner states that are difficult to explain directly. In our craft, the body alone is not enough. Gestures, facial expressions, pauses and small details all matter.
Artur Sadriev
Questions about the cultural value of street dance still persist today, especially in environments where it is seen mainly as entertainment or a passing trend.
Are street dances culturally valuable? Absolutely yes. Dance has evolved enormously and shown that it has a great future. Street dance has given people freedom, a sense of rhythm, awareness of themselves in space and the opportunity to create. People who dance become physically stronger and more flexible.
Dmitry Lukashev
To understand the scale of street dance culture today, it is important to move beyond a local perspective and look at how it exists globally.
Street dance is an entire culture with its own branches, MCs, DJs, dancers and the artists whose music we dance to. Many artists stage theatrical productions in major theatres across Europe, Japan and Russia. In many countries dance has already become an inseparable part of culture. In Japan, for example, the government actively supports breaking, while major brands such as Nike, G Shock, Casio, Adidas, Mercedes Benz and Red Bull invest in the scene. As a result, more and more people become interested in and support dance culture.
Dmitry Lukashev
The distinctive feature of street dances has always been not only their unique movement techniques, but also the environment in which they exist. These styles were born from live human interaction. Gradually, a community was formed, and it is from this environment that the battle naturally emerges—not as a competition, but as a form of communication within the culture.
The Battle as a Form of Dialogue
Battle is the heart of street dance culture. Although the word "battle" literally translates as fight, in street dance culture a battle originally served the opposite function, reducing the level of real conflict.
Dance allowed people to release tension without breaking the connection between them. That is why, after every performance, dancers often shake hands or hug each other.
There is no fixed hierarchy here. In a battle, even the most famous dancer can lose, and that's what makes it democratic. Reputation does not guarantee victory here, and respect must be earned anew each time. This creates a situation rare for social structures: status is not fixed, but fluid, just like the dance itself. Such a system does not divide, but keeps people together.
The key element of a battle is the circle. It unites both physically and symbolically. Unlike a stage, there is no distance here between the participant and the audience: anyone can become part of the action. You may not dance, but you are already inside the process, you are a witness and a participant, and for newcomers, the battle is an entry into the community.
Common Language and Mutual Recognition
Battles create a common language. Dancers learn to read each other's movements, respond to them, respect the opponent's musicality and style. Even when styles are different, the very fact of participation means recognition. This is especially important in multicultural and multigenerational communities. Battles erase boundaries—between countries, schools, generations.
You can see how the idea of battles was implemented in the example of the Tashkent project Unity Base.
Unity Base: A Point of Connection
The annual Unity Base battle is one of the few events that brings together street dancers from different styles and schools. The project did not appear overnight or follow a conventional path. The road towards its creation was far from simple.
Everything began long before the name Unity Base itself existed: in a cramped hall and a large community already searching for points of connection.
When we, freestyle dancers, both future and active battlers, were just starting out, there were around 300 of us across all the schools combined, though at most 200 actually danced in battles. Somehow, we managed to fit that entire crowd into a modest 100-square-metre hall. There was never enough space, but you cannot imagine the energy inside those four walls.
Tima Unity
It was precisely this feeling of belonging, shared energy and constant exchange that later became the foundation of the project: a space where bringing people together through dance mattered above all else.
Tima Unity entered the industry almost by accident, investing in the dream of several dancer friends who wanted to open a studio. When the partnership eventually fell apart, he was left with an unfinished project on his hands.
“I had absolutely no idea what to do with it, but at the very least I needed to earn back the cost of renovating the studio. I was neither a teacher nor a choreographer. For me, everything started with an adventure and faith in other people,” recalls Tima Unity.
The idea of organising battles emerged even before the studio officially opened. At the time, dance schools in Tashkent existed in a state of fierce competition, and events held on someone else’s territory were often ignored.
We wanted to create a place where everyone would forget whose territory it was. That is how the name Unity Base appeared: a base, a point of connection. We did not have our own groups or dancers, and we believed that was exactly why people would come to us.
Tima Unity
A Small Stage: Dancing Under Constraints
The context in which Uzbekistan’s dance community exists is far from ideal. Despite its depth and expressiveness, street dance is still rarely perceived seriously outside the community itself. For wider audiences, it often remains something marginal or unserious, and this is exactly what dancers in Uzbekistan continue to face.
As Vladimir Meshcheryakov, hip-hop dancer, Gorilla Energy Pro Team athlete and founder of the Overhitz crew, explains, street dance culture encounters systemic challenges.
To the public, we are still a culture people do not really understand. And when we try to raise our flag abroad, our state is not particularly interested in it and, in some ways, even disapproves of it.
Vladimir Meshcheryakov
According to Vladimir, the active core of the scene, those who truly live the culture, travel and help develop it, consists of only around 50-60 people across the entire country. There may be hundreds of students, but the core community remains very small.
Economic realities create additional challenges. The kind of partnerships with brands that are common in the West remain rare here. “Brands are not ready to work with dancers in that way. They look at follower counts and reach, not at the quality of the dance itself,” says Vladimir Meshcheryakov. For dancers, it is difficult not only to find work, but also to secure space for the full development of their projects.
Building a Community and Its Challenges
On one side are experienced dancers who have spent years in the industry, travelling abroad, competing in battles and attending workshops led by some of the world's leading figures. In his view, these dancers set the benchmark for younger generations through their own growth and by passing knowledge on.
On the other side are children and teenagers entering the culture through training sessions, fundamentals and local battles. Their development depends directly on the number of jams and events available, which Uzbekistan still lacks.
At the same time, Dmitry points to another issue within the scene: the tendency of certain coaches and crews to isolate themselves from the wider community.
There is also a darker side to this development. A lot of people try to distance themselves and train somewhere in their own studios, away from the rest of the community. These divisions slow the scene down, because the mindset passed on by such coaches to their students is built on that same separation. But growth is only possible through communication and exchange, not isolation.
Dmitry Lukashev
Arthur Sadriev (ARTHUR OVERHITZ) believes the street dance scene is developing slowly but steadily. The community has become more united and battles are now taking place more frequently, though the lack of international judges remains a serious issue.
The main difficulty is that growth requires money: classes, travel and opportunities that not every dancer can afford through dance alone. Growth does not happen only through battles. You need to attend workshops and travel abroad, across the CIS, Europe and China, to understand the level that exists beyond your home environment. And none of this works without consistent and productive training.
Artur Sadriev
How to Survive, Grow, and Why Geography Matters
Street dance has no academic system. Despite all the difficulties, the community continues to develop its own ways of growth.
One of the main factors in a dancer’s development is travel. But not as a tourist. You travel to attend battles and workshops, to exchange experiences with other people. It becomes a window onto the world, a source of new knowledge and motivation.
Vladimir Meshcheryakov
Another important aspect is teaching.
“When you start sharing knowledge, you ‘empty yourself’, and that creates space for new knowledge. The cycle of learning, sharing and learning again becomes the engine of both personal and professional growth,” he explains.
A third key lies in exploring related creative fields. Many dancers move into DJing, drawing or studying music more deeply, all of which enriches their dance language.
A dancer is an instrument. And the better tuned and more multidimensional that instrument is, the more interesting its sound becomes.
Vladimir Meshcheryakov
Finally, the fourth key is perseverance and mindset.
If after losing you are ready to return to the studio even more determined to prove that you can do better, then you will achieve what you are striving for.
Dmitry Lukashev
Speaking about his own journey, Bboy Lookout says he has spent more than eleven years in breaking, during which he has won numerous battles, trained young dancers and represented Uzbekistan on the international stage. His main goal is to prove that dancers from Uzbekistan can compete at a global level and to pass that path on to the next generation.
I come from an ordinary family, and I used to hear things like, ‘Those dances of yours are not serious at all.’ But dance has taken me across half the world, and now my mother looks at what I do with pride.
Dmitry Lukashev
According to Dmitry Lukashev, street dance has evolved into a fully recognised cultural form with international visibility. He notes that the inclusion of breaking as an official sports discipline became an important milestone, helping preserve the balance between artistic expression and competition.
Breaking was recently recognised as an official sports discipline (it is precisely in this direction that art and sport are perfectly balanced). For example, major championships are held in Japan, and champions of the discipline compete all over the world, while the whole country supports its representatives. Russia, in turn, offers major advantages for admission to higher education institutions to champions of the breaking scene, while large sponsors such as Gazprom and Lukoil invest enormous amounts of money into organising high-quality competitions in this discipline. China has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in breaking in recent years. Over the past few years, the country has produced a huge number of street dancers. Everything I mentioned about other countries is also happening in China, where the growth in recent years has reached almost 600%. I may be wrong about the exact percentage, but I have no doubt about the number of new people entering the community. They are making waves across the world, and China actively supports its champions.
Dmitry Lukashev
The Future: Between TikTok and Tradition
Tima Unity points to another major issue facing freestyle culture today: in the pursuit of visibility and under the influence of TikTok culture, the spontaneity and freedom once central to street dance are increasingly being replaced by polished, trend-driven movement.
How did it happen that from one big family we turned into small isolated communities? That is a separate conversation, connected to the spirit of the times. Back then, life, people, and the atmosphere among young people were different. Today everything revolves around TikToks and reels, and that is no longer really about freestyle communities. It has become a race for numbers, where improvisation no longer works and everyone follows the same ready-made template. In the end, all that matters is who packages it more beautifully and whose version looks more appealing and marketable.
Tima Unity
A new reality is pressing down on the culture. That tension lies at the heart of the choice facing the community today: how to preserve authenticity in a world that rewards speed and visibility.
What This Difficult Path Ultimately Gives in Return
Dance gave me the opportunity for self-expression, communication skills and physical strength. I represented Uzbekistan, travelled to different corners of the world, and I believe that is more than enough to love what you do wholeheartedly.
Dmitry Lukashev
The ability not to be afraid of breaking rules and moving against the current. And for me, it is important that people understand what I want to express through my dance, so that it is not just a set of movements, but something meaningful.
Vladimir Meshcheryakov
