As a youth in the GDR, Heiko ("Hahny") Hahnewald felt drawn to breakdancing, becoming one of its first East German practitioners in the 1980s. He would subsequently emerge as one of the representatives of the movement. He did not regard his art as an act of dissent against the state or socialism and was never involved with any of the opposition movements. On the contrary, by the final years of the GDR, Hahny was able to support himself through numerous public breakdance performances.