Break Dance is manufactured by Huss Rides and is essentially a souped up Tea Cups ride. Break Dance can be classified as a “music ride,” a ride that uses lights and music as way to draw in riders.
The ride is comprised of a large turntable holding four or six satellites, depending on the model. Each satellite holds four cars that are able to freely spin. The cars are mounted in such a way that they’re level when pointed outward but tilted when pointed inward. Some Break Dance rides have cars equipped with a wheel which riders can turn to spin the car.
According the the Huss Rides website, among other features of Breakdance such as “variable electric motors” and being “an impressively large, fast and attractive ride”, they also add in that this ride has “a high flirt factor due to gondola design and opportunity for interaction.” Well damn, those people at Huss just thought of everything, didn’t they?
The Ride
Riders choose a car and flip down the overhead lapbar. The bar has a sliding lock on one side operated by a small handle. Some models of Breakdance have locks that can only be opened by an attendant, because you know, us riders can’t be trusted to not open the lock and be flung from the car. Once everyone is loaded, the turntable and satellites begin to revolve.
The ride now depends on how fast the park or carnival wants to operate the ride. Some places may run it on a slower speed to appeal to families, while others may crank up the speed to draw in teens and adults.
The best Breakdance I have ever been on was at Astroland located in Coney Island, NY. The ride was run as fast as it could go and whipped riders around mercilessly throughout the cycle. It was the only ride where I found myself clinging to the lapbar. Unfortunately, Astroland’s Break Dance was removed when the park closed in 2008.
Other Info
Breakdance comes in four flavors.
- Breakdance 1 is your standard four satellite model with a capacity of 32 riders.
- Breakdance 2 is a six satellite model that has a larger turntable radius. Due to the larger radius, the satellites achieve a greater speed than standard models. This can hold 48 riders per cycle. Only a handful of these exist and most, if not all, are on the Euro funfair circuit.
- Breakdance 3 is a more portable offering of the ride. This model has four satellites, contains no backdrop and has a modified turntable that is shaped sort of like a cone. The Rodeo rides at Six Flags parks are themed Breakdance 3 models.
- Breakdance 4 gets rid of the turntable and backdrop altogether as well as one of the satellites. This model holds 24 riders. ‘Wipeout’ at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is an indoor Breakdance 4.
Cortina Bob, a Fabbri Crazy Dance
Due to Break Dance’s success, many companies decided to make their own versions of the ride. The most widely seen clone is Crazy Dance manufactured by Far Fabbri (currently Fabbri Group.) Crazy Dance is more portable than its Huss counterpart but seems a bit slower than Break Dance. Crazy Dance is probably best known by a lot of people for the scene in Problem Child 2 where Junior cranks up the speed to ridiculous proportions, leading to an equally over the top puke-a-thon.
Many other companies have their own Break Dance clones including Sobema (Break Dance), Top Fun (Magic Dance), Nauta Bussink (Star Dancer), Safeco (Blade Runner), and Parkash (Break Dance).
In attempt to jazz up the ride a bit, Fabbri Crazy Dance has an upgrade that adds lifting arms to the satellites to tilt them slightly.
Multimedia
Astroland’s Breakdance On-ride
Crazy Dance Off-ride
And here’s a video of Kinzler’s Breakdance No.1, a Breakdance 2 model. As an added bonus, the beginning of the video features how the boarding process works at European funfairs. Video thanks to Youtuber fandefete.
Header Image: Break Dance [HUSS] Meyer – Wiesenmarkt 2015 Eisleben by Gérard Cox
17 Comments
I’ve ridden the Breakdance my fair share of times; there’s one running at Six Flags: Kentucky Kingom.
Sadly, it’s one where the operators don’t care. The first ride I had on it was fun, but after that I could sit and yawn. =/
a cool breakdance site from israel i hope u r gonna engoy =)
thanx
i never rode the ride but it looks pretty fn 2 ride,man i feel sad that i never rode it,well good luck 2 me it will be @my fair this year 2011 babyyy!!!!
they have this @ Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado it is called something else. It was also @ Kentucky Kingdom, but the park is shut down now.
BREAKDANCE is a new take off on the early 60’s popular ride Calypso…..the cars didn’t spin on Calypso…..Palasaides NJ had one called the HOOTNANNY….
this is a update of a older ride, similair to the Kite Flyer being a new form of Paratrooper, which was a update of the even earlier SPITFIRE…..I miss the good old days of Roll O Planes, Flying Coasters, Lifting Paratroopers, Swiss Bob’s, and even the notoriously hazardous SWINGIN’ GYM…..worst rides I ever rode? Something called SPINAROO, The Boomerang, and a rare mid 60’s ride called the Meteor….there are videos of this on UT….never got to ride the notorious Chance TURBO…it was at Seaside Heights NJ Casino Pier for about 2 years like 71-73 and out of service both times I went…..
By the way, we’ve got a similar ride from mondial (Netherlands) here on German funfair grounds, called “Shake”. It basically is Breakdancer plus loopings… Really weird looking, and damn intense!
See here:
http://ride-index.de/include.php?path=content&type=&contentid=534
Awesome ride, but like Breakdancer depends on the operator. Mostly operators here in Europe tend to be great at times the funfair ground is not crowded (with rides 5 minutes and more), but when there are lots of people waiting they will give you a short ride and try to kick you out as soon as possible… that’s why I ride mostly before noon 😀
I’ve actually seen a Shake here in the US once before and it still travels around, just not in the northeast US where I am. I beleive it’s called Magnum. I’m still kicking myself for not giving it a spin, but at the time I didn’t know if I could take the flipping and spinning.
Breakdance is definitely a ride that needs to be ‘driven’ instead of just turned on auto. Unfortunately the US has NO traveling Breakdance rides anymore and the amusement park versions are terribly slow. I need to go to Europe sometime and ride a real Breakdance!
Is the breakdance in Morey’s Pier still around? I surely miss the one in Coney Island. That was my favorite. Oh man they need to have that ride on the east coast for sure!
Where is the coney island breakdance going? I know they sold it but dont know where!
looks like sooo much fun!
Breakdance has been a favorite since I first rode it at Adelaide Show in the early 90s. Its become a staple travelling ride they have every year (like the Gravitron and Matterhorn). Looking forward to having another ride at the Adelaide Show in a couple of weeks 🙂
The best Break-Dancer is in Germany. They have +/- 40 Breakers.
There also 3 Break-Dancers 2
http://www.kinzler.de
Visit this site, is the best ride ever…
Hi there, don`t know if anyone will read this but I have an update on the Coney Breakdance-A UK showman has bought it and is going to refurbish it so it can travel
Thanks for the update, Charlie! Nice to hear that it will be on the road again.
This. Is. Dope. Very good ride so excellent my friend threw up on me one year haha but it is ok he gets dizzy easily
I leave in the United States and I go to my carnivals and fairs in town and we have the same ride has Break Dance but it’s called Crazy Dance and do I love this so much now would like too own one.
There is also a version of the Crazy Dance where the entire turntable rises up beyond its original incline. It was at the Kentucky State Fair in the mid to late 90’s, but I haven’t seen it since.
This one worked by going both clockwise and counterclockwise during each ride cycle, and during each direction the turntable would start to rise in the back next to the backdrop. Once it reached its highest incline, you would hear the air release, and it would immediately come back down to its original position. This would repeat several times in each direction. At it’s highest incline you were up to the top of the backdrop next to where the letters C R A Z Y D A N C E and flags were.
A ride cycle would start in one direction, then build up speed, then rise and fall several times, then reverse direction, then build up speed again, and then rise and fall several more times before the cycled would end. A full cycle usually lasted anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes each with half of the time going in the starting direction and the other half going in the reverse direction. Each direction usually had 4 or more rise/fall repetitions.
I don’t know if this was a specific model/version of the Crazy Dance, but I feel fairly certain it was a Fabbri make. I can’t remember if it had 4 satellites of 4 gondolas each (32 rider capacity) or if it had 6 satellites of 4 gondolas each (48 rider capacity), but the turntable was very big around. I also can’t remember if it had the tall structure of 3 dice in the middle of the turntable or if it had the stacked disco balls.
What I do know is the years it was at the fair back in the mid to late 90’s was the only time I had ever seen this unique model, and when it stopped coming I never saw it again. I’m guessing it stopped coming because Kentucky Kingdom had gotten a Break Dance 3, and that last year both were there at the same time. The Crazy Dance blew Kentucky Kingdom’s Break Dance 3 out of the water because of the rising turntable feature the Crazy Dance had, and the spin action was much more intense with many more spins per ride cycle on the Crazy Dance. The turntable rising and falling was much like the prior Tip Top ride which also did that. The next year the Super Bowl/Touchdown replaced the Crazy Dance, and that particular one has never been seen since.
The Crazy Dance, especially that particular model/version was, and still is, my all time favorite ride, and I would love to see it come back if it still exists!