It’s not hip hop! Through sound, film, and dance, Rennie Harris’ American Street Dancer gets the audience at The Joyce live and teaches us all a little something about movement vocabulary along the way. Harris digs deep into the history and cultural resonance of street dance vocabulary as a distinctly African American movement style, in constant dialogue with its African roots. The pursuit to educate dance audiences about what lives behind the surface of what is seen has soared in relevance. Dance has become a mainstay of social media, and most often the movement spread through viral videos stems from or is inspired by African diasporic dance styles — these trends are adopted without knowledge of where they come from or why. If dance scholarship is lost, pieces of our histories are lost. Rennie Harris will not allow us to go on not knowing. Every piece of movement we see performed on The Joyce’s stage is clearly defined, and not to mention performed with stunning specificity and contagious energy by artists including Ayodele Casel, House of Jit, Creation Global, Akim Funk Buddha, and the dancers of Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater.
The sounds of American Street Dancer are just as important as the movement. Rather than a cacophony of sound, with instruments bleeding together through speakers, we hear each distinct sound made live through jaw-dropping beatboxing, incredible bucket drummers, an impressive show of old-school turntable scratching from DJ Razor Ramon, and percussion from the human body, most notably through Ayodele Casel’s tapping (a welcome surprise). Each of these sound makers gets their own moment to wow us. Spotlighted individually, we get the benefit of seeing who they are as people and the astounding heights of what they’re capable of. Then, as dance pieces flow in and out, each section of sound layers to become a sort of street orchestra, blending with recorded music so seamlessly that if you closed your eyes, you wouldn’t even notice.
The show plays out like a street dance ballet — an hour and 20 minutes without breaks or blackouts between pieces, yet the pieces stand on their own. Each one highlights a specific street dance style: Philadelphia GQ, Detroit Jitting, and Chicago Footwork. Have you seen bits and pieces of these before? Definitely. Where do they come from? What are their influences? We learn all of this, yes, from the program, but just in case you’re not a program reader, Harris makes sure you know as you watch. There is this deliberate separation between styles of movement in each piece to underscore that: this is not hip hop! These are regional styles of street dance with their own rhythms, thumping hearts, creators, and reasons for being. Still, they are connected, and when all dancers, musicians, and movement styles come together for a closing cipher, that’s undeniable.
Through all the visceral joy, the energy the company builds with each other and the audience, through all the laughter, “yips”, “woohoos”, and resonant “mmms”, there is a strong thesis. Harris is demonstrating in real time how vital the history and study of movement is. How can we chart the history of African American people and the diaspora without it? From larger movements to regional cultural references, there is a historically significant reason for every move, an ancestral connection necessary to explore and share. Making it live, in a layered, entertaining, and beautiful flow, is absolutely the way to bring it to our attention — it’s all in front of you, all you have to do is watch (and show these artists some love as they’re dancing their hearts out!).
The New York premiere of American Street Dancer by Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater is presented by The Joyce Theater Foundation (Linda Shelton, Executive Director) and is playing at The Joyce Theater from November 11-16. A special Family Matinee performance will take place on Saturday, November 15. Tickets, ranging in price from $17-$72 (including fees) can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling Joyce Charge at 212-242-0800. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.
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