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Queen NV | On Making Space in Breakdancing
[Susanna Liu](https://www.instagram.com/susannafrc/?hl=en), aka Queen NV of Supreme Beingz and Florox—the NV stands for no victory for her competitors—is just one of the many b-girls making space for more women to feel welcome in the breaking space and opening opportunities for others to learn more about the culture. One Saturday, July 24th, Queen NV, along with many other b-girls and b-boys, gathered on a rooftop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to compete in the Red Bull BC One New York Cypher, an arm of the largest breaking competition in the world. Hosted by [Nemesis](https://www.instagram.com/nemesisnyc/) and b-girl [Trinity](https://www.instagram.com/bgirltrinity/) and judged by [Kid Glyde](https://www.instagram.com/kidglyde/?hl=en), [Neguin](https://www.instagram.com/neguinism/), and [Sunny](https://www.instagram.com/_sunnychoi/), the competition brought together dancers from New York and beyond to compete for a spot at the Red Bull BC One National Finals in Orlando, Florida this weekend August 21st and 22nd. Queen NV began her breaking career in college while in undergrad at MIT, now honing her craft for the past 18 years. During those 18 years, she’s not only competed around the world, but she’s been a voice for women in the scene and for more accessibility to the sport. Through this mindset, Queen NV organized [Breaks U](https://www.instagram.com/breaks_u/?hl=en), an organization to working to open collegiate sports to breaking and organize collegiate battles up and down the East Coast. Flaunt caught up with Queen NV before her competing in the Red Bull BC One New York Cypher B-Girl Battle the following day. Watch the film above and get ready for the National B-Girl Battles on August 21st, streamed below! **Tell us a little bit about yourself.** My name is Susanna Liu, my dance name is Queen NV, and I represent Supreme Beingz crew and Florox crew. I was born and raised in Boston, but my dance career really took off living in New York City, so I do consider myself a New York City b-girl. In my daytime life, I’m in marketing for a large global corporation, but by night, or whenever I’m not in the office, I am a b-girl. **Talk about being a PhD candidate and breaking.** I actually started breaking in college, so throughout the whole time I was in school, in undergrad at MIT through grad school at Cornell, I’ve been breaking this whole time and training and competing. So it’s kind of just juggling these two aspects of my life concurrently. After I graduated, I went over to management consulting, and now I’m in marketing, throughout this whole time I’ve been breaking. After my PhD program I kind of took a break, just because I was competing so much, and I think this is my comeback, I mean I’m hoping it’ll be my comeback. I don’t see it as a transition from school into breaking, it’s just been two parallel paths in my life this whole time.  **Talk about being a woman in a male dominated space.** I’ve been breaking for 18 years now, and throughout this whole time, well, women are still by and large the minority of the community, but when I first started, it was even moreso. Being a b-girl in that environment helped built my mental fortitude, because you really need to have your own self confidence, being able to navigate through the mansplaining, and understanding yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, and carving out your own path and sticking with it. There wasn’t a lot of b-girls around to talk to and be your mentor, so you kind of had to figure it out on your own. Over the years, in contrast now, there’s a lot of amazing b-girls coming up, and I think it’s due to a lot of effort from the community providing opportunities for b-girls, b-girl battles. A big part of it is Red Bull being able to provide a b-girl battle. When I was competing frequently, there wasn’t a b-girl battle for Red Bull. What really motivated a lot of girls, including myself, having been invited to this weekend’s New York Cypher, the b-girl battles provide this wide global platform of visibility to highlight women. And that helps a lot, especially for women all around the world, they’re able to see other women dance, and they get motivated by it.  **What do you hope to make of your comeback?** There are multiple factors why I feel motivated to come back. One is partially my age. I’m 38, and I think being able to show that you can have some sort of longevity in terms of this dance, and just trying to figure out how to work with your body, understanding how to take care of it. Recognizing that you can’t dance at a competitive level forever, I do hope to transition more towards the giving back to the community aspect. As I’ve been competing, I’ve been doing a little bit of that. I’ve been organizing events and teaching. My interest coming up is moreso around commentating battles.  It was a couple of years ago, my friend Candy, an amazing old school b-girl from Florida, I went over to her house to watch the Red Bull BC One B-Gil Battles. We ordered some desserts and sat down and watched the battles together, and we just started talking about the battles. The idea sparked of, ‘Hey, we should commentate some stuff, because we definitely need a female voice—experienced, we know what we’re talking about, we’re able to articulate our thoughts in real time.’ And so, we did! I had a couple of months of work at the time, so I YouTube’d everything and figured out how to set up a livestream. We were able to commentate a good number of larger scale events, providing that female voice perspective. Another thing outside of that is being able to bring accessibility to a lot of people who may not be familiar with breaking, but want to be exposed to breaking and having this commentary explaining what it is.  SI202107280073\_news.jpg ![SI202107280073_news.jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56c346b607eaa09d9189a870/1629441741343-CED8ZATKKC6Z1841Z43L/SI202107280073_news.jpg) **What is the importance of accessibility to breaking and education on breaking?** I got exposed to breaking in college, and if it weren’t for breaking, I think my viewpoint of the world would be very limited to my own social circle and the people that I work with. Having been exposed to breaking, it opened up two sides of my mind. One side is the emphasis on creativity and identifying your own moves and movement. On the other hand, I’ve met so many people from different walks of life and different socioeconomic classes. I’ve been to so many places I wouldn’t have been able to go if it wasn’t for breaking. Being able to encourage anyone and everyone to come into the community, it will definitely enrich their lives. That’s why I’ve been so active in the collegiate scene.  **So then tell us about Breaks U.** That’s exactly why I started Breaks U. College is a time when people want to reinvent themselves and explore new things and hobbies. For me, breaking was the thing. I started organizing events very early one, my second year of breaking at MIT. At that point, I thought it was a really good idea to have collegiate battles. I wanted to organize it for a couple of reasons. One, school pride, obviously. Two, it creates a safe space for college dancers who are just starting off to battle and experience what the culture is like. A lot of the time, people are intimidated to go into these higher level battles, and they don’t get far. So this is a safe space and to foster that environment. So when I moved to New York City, I worked with NYU to establish Breaks U and grow that idea. This was back in 2007. As word spread, we had more breaking clubs from up and down the East Coast. Even Canada came through. It was so amazing seeing fellow college students come and break and have an amazing time.  **What do you see for the future of the scene?** That’s a lot! I envision one day where you can walk down the street, and you’ve just won Red Bull, and people will recognize you. People will understand what breaking is and understand the importance of originality and creation and be able to watch it on TV like other sports and understand it and follow dancers that are favorites of theirs. I also envision seeing leagues in colleges on the same level as basketball and football. Similar with kids leagues, like you send your kids to soccer camp, or you send your kids to breaking camp. It would be amazing. I think what would really help is being able to have breaking accessible publicly, and Red Bull plays a role in that with its global presence. Secondly, the Olympics in Paris in 2024 is the next milestone we’ve hit which will add even more visibility. Once people start knowing more and more about it, people will start organizing these leagues and camps, and the schools will come together. Hopefully things will fall in place. I think we’re on track!