Etymology of the Cipher

‘Cipher’ comes from the Arabic word ‘Sifr,’ the ancestor of our modern English ‘zero,’ ‘sphere,’ and the esoteric word ‘Sephira.’ The cipher was the original zero. It has stood for the circular symbol for numerical nothingness, the zero, the digital void, when it was a new concept for the Western World. Counting and arithmetic had been around for ages, but all of the numbers were positive integers. It took awhile for zero to catch on. The Romans thought sifr/zero to be such a preposterous idea that when the word spread, they came up with the expression, “speaking in ciphers,” to mean nonsense or crazy-talk. We got that ^other^ meaning for cipher – a form of code-like gematria - from that Roman expression ((symbols shifting and standing 4 another)).
In the late 1970’s a new art movement originated in the primarily black neighborhoods of the Bronx, and the cipher took on yet another meaning. It was the birth of Hip-Hop. Urban youth circled up in ciphers to speak rhymes over vocal percussion and their invocations & innovations rippled into all spheres of poetry and music. By rapping in circles they were literally “speaking in Ciphers” (in the highest sense of the word). In the days before hip-hop rose to fame, the Cipher gave birth to beat-boxing and the poetic battles of MC’s that edified “rap” as a revolutionary art form. B-boys and b-girls, known outside of hip-hop circles as breakdancers, formed their own ciphers for their dance sessions. Expanding the limits of the human body, a diversity of regional dance styles evolved within the arc of the cipher, from ‘breakdancing,’ to poppin’, lockin’ & footworkin’, to krump & turf.
As hip hop moved into mainstream consciousness, the cipher stayed underground where aspiring MC’s, DJ’s, and dancers could sharpen their talents. The cipher became a flexible breeding ground for artistic evolution, remixing turntablism, rap, urban fashion, and street-dance.
Nowadays, the Cipher has gone Celestial & expanded beyond the stylistic borders of hip-hop to encompass a wider circle of style and expression. All the dances are in it. As the music evolves to encompass the entire world, both digital and acoustic, the movement has become syncretic collages of everything that’s come before remixed with martial arts, capoeira & kung fu, firedancing, free-flow, jedi dance, circuis arts, yoga and acrobatics, ecstatic dances of all forms, monkey chanting, laughter medicine, and shaking & quaking. The cipher is America’s rediscovery of humanity’s oldest healing ritual. Circular rituals can be found in almost every culture throughout time. It’s our shared history of getting together in a circle to sing, dance & play, drum & DJ, make music & MC, heal, worship, and create a communal identity.
Through unifying our creative expression we heal ourselves, we heal our community… and by drawing the cipher of association, we can heal the larger Sphere we call Earth.

http://tribes.tribe.net/cipherconvergence