Adolfo Quiñones, an Early Star of Street Dance, Dies at 65

Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiñones, who grew up dancing in a bleak public housing project in Chicago and went on to become a pioneer of street dance in the 1980s and one of its first celebrities after appearing in the hit movie “Breakin’,” died on Dec. 29 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 65.

His manager, Robert Bryant, confirmed the death but said the cause had not yet been determined.

In 1984, street dancing was an urban art form little known to many Americans, but the release of “Breakin’,” starring Mr. Quiñones as a Los Angeles break dancer named Ozone, helped change that.

Ozone, who wears red Chuck Taylor sneakers and a brim hat, spends his days busting flashy moves in Venice Beach with his partner, Turbo (Michael Chambers). A classically trained dancer named Kelly (Lucinda Dickey), captivated by their style, joins their troupe. Her stern (and handsy) teacher disapproves of street dancing, so she flees his school. The three enter a prestigious dance contest, and against the odds they (of course) win.

The movie, produced for less than $2 million (the equivalent of about $5 million today), was a surprise hit, raking in more than $35 million at the box office in 16 weeks. A sequel, “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” was released a few months later. Mr. Quiñones quickly became a star of street dancing.

“Ultimately people will realize it’s a valid art form, on the same level as jazz or ballet,” he told Newsweek in 1984. “And it’s a dance Americans should be proud of.”

Throughout the 1980s, Mr. Quiñones’s dancing appeared across the pop culture landscape. He shimmied in the video for Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You,” and he was the choreographer and lead dancer of Madonna’s “Who’s That Girl?” world tour in 1987. He also choreographed (and appeared in) the video for Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” and advised Michael Jackson on the video for “Bad.” Us Weekly called him the “Bob Fosse of the Streets.”

“Shabba-Doo was an absolute Los Angeles dance legend,” the rapper Ice-T, who appeared in “Breakin’” and its sequel, said in a statement to The New York Times. “We throw that word around. But not anybody can say they invented an entire dance style.”

Even before “Breakin’,” Mr. Quiñones had made a mark on the dance world in the 1970s.

He danced as a teenager on “Soul Train” with an influential ensemble called the Lockers. That group, which also featured Don Campbell, Toni Basil and Fred Berry, became known for its development of the “locking” technique, typified by rhythmic, freezing dance movements. Together, they appeared on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

After he left the group in 1976, Mr. Quiñones appeared on Broadway with Bette Midler in “Bette! Divine Madness” and helped advise the dancers in the 1980 movie “Xanadu.” By the 1980s, cultural interest in hip-hop dancing was developing, thanks in part to movies like “Wild Style” and “Beat Street”; when “Breakin’” was released in 1984, Mr. Quiñones rode the groundswell.

“We were real street dancers,” he told the blog Black Hollywood File in 2008, reflecting on the movie’s success. “We weren’t something that was manufactured by Hollywood.”