Chicago’s legacy breaking crews celebrate decades of dancing, training new generations of enthusiasts

In the early 1980s, the massive breaking dance craze spread from New York City and hit the streets of Chicago with a vengeance. When he was only 7 years old, Eric “Wicked” Delgado was infected with the excitement, and he showed off moves he learned from his brothers and neighbors on the West Side. “I remember it so clearly,” says Delgado, who formed the Phaze II breaking crew in 1982 with his brothers Javier, Carlos and Jose. “Walking to neighborhoods and just setting the linoleum down and battling other crews and then rolling up and walking back home.” Other times, the Delgados would see crews in their neighborhood and scream “Battle!” — igniting a competition in their garage. Delgado says his brothers “would just throw me out in the middle of the battle at the end like our secret weapon. And I would do back spins, head spins, windmills. All the stuff that grownups were doing, I was already doing at that age.” Phaze II co-founder Eric “Wicked” Delgado and his sister Norma in 1982 on the West Side. Delgado, now 49, is still dancing. The debut of breaking at the Olympics this summer has brought fresh attention to the...