Jeremy Perkins, 30, is a founding member of The Floor Spiders, a b-boy group celebrating its 10th anniversary at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at Vaudeville Mews, 212 Fourth St.
Q: How did you get started dancing?
My friend Lionel Lynner — who now lives out west — learned a little bit from parties back in 2000 or so. He showed me a little bit and we worked on more based on two or three VHS tapes. Later that year we met Marcus Martin, and we went on to found The Floor Spiders.
Q: How important is dancing to the hip-hop scene?
I think it’s very important. When you go back and research the origins of hip-hop culture as a whole, you see a lot of focus on the breaking. It’s what ended up shining the light on the MC/rapping portion. Because of breaking a lot of other aspects got popularized as well. It’s one of the things that started hip-hop culture as a whole and helped propel it across the world.
Q: The public tends to refer to the style as “breakdancing,” while the dancers call it “breaking” or “b-boying.” What caused the public to latch onto the term breakdancing?
It was a name given to the style by the media. The Freshest Kids, a group of New York City breakers, just went with it and never corrected it. It’s more of a misnomer, but it’s not like people will get mad at you if you use it.
