Fifty years into hip-hop history, street-to-stage transitions remain elusive. Hip-hop dance is diverse and dominates the world, but when it hits the concert stage, something is often lost.
For the past two weekends, the city’s newest theater, the marble cube of the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts, has hosted “Motion/Matter”, a street dance festival. Sampling both local and international artists from Africa, Europe and Asia, it focused on theatrical productions in a variety of styles, but also hedged its bets and time-honored roots by ending with an all-styles dance battle. If the lineup was more impressive than the individual entries, the festival was still valuable, bringing news of what’s happening around the world along with reminders of bars already set by previous generations.
The first selection, “Afrikan Party”, was interesting but confusing. The four Supa Rich Kids dancers — from Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Spain, led by Oulouy — he began huddled in white dust, two inert on the ground, the third dragging the emaciated body of the fourth. Later, they all went silly, laughing and pounding each other like the Three Dogs, or doing silly duck walks, as if death (if that was what the tired bodies and powder meant) were a joke.
At times, they looked like they were fighting, their dance like bits of James Brown’s leg climaxing in twitches. Then they changed into wild clothes, shouted “African party!” and drew audience members into the dance. Was that ironic? Laxative? The tone was hard to read.
“BreAking,” from the Korean National Contemporary Dance Company, had the opposite problem. His idea was very obvious. Near the beginning, a line of eight dancers walked toward the audience and then appeared to crash (not very accurately) into an invisible fourth wall. Later, the idea of the wall was represented by sheets of clear plastic, which the dancers fought back or tried to climb or place between them as they stacked their bodies like a sandwich. Finally, they broke through the invisible wall and celebrated with—what else?—a dance party. But their diverse skills, from hip-hop to contemporary ballet, were diminished more than enhanced by the frame.
“The Barefoot Diva” fell somewhere between these poles of confusing and blatant. The piece, choreographed by French dancer Nicolas Huchard, was clearly meant to celebrate his five female dancers. A voiceover telling us they were amazing, mentioning their features as they posed, sounded a lot like a fashion ad. But the dancers had already established their powers as attitude movers in a slow introduction, closely tied to his music. And the ending was amazing, as the women dipped in and out of rainbow ribbon light projections that showed off their curves and waves more eloquently than words could.
The festival’s only work, “P is for Pop D is for Dip,” by New York fashion artist Kia LaBeija, was its weakest work. They were a duo in a series of short episodes. When LaBeija and Ehizoje Azeke, dressed identically, first linked up, LaBeija was flirtier, Azeke more brooding, striking “Woe, poor Yorick” poses. In later episodes, they broke up and alternated, the demure Azeke posing thoughtfully in front of a mirror, the soft-spoken LaBeija, disillusioned, posing with a rotary phone. The ending seemed to rewrite the beginning so the couple could embrace and tangle, but if the piece had personal meaning for LaBeija — it’s dedicated in memory of fellow House of LaBeija dancer Derrick Davis — that meaning didn’t it was recorded with great kinetic or theatrical power.
After all this intermittently effective concert work, the climactic dance battle came as a relief and release. The organizers got it right. The eight contestants were all top dancers, so the one-on-one rounds advancing to the semi-final and final were all exciting contests of high creativity and skill, ably guided by DJ Bizzy and entertainingly managed by MC Cebo.
Onjay, a twirling arm specialist with sharp musicianship and a killer instinct under women’s styles, secured third place – and the only unanimous verdict of the night – with half attack, half on the judges. The final pitting Castro, a big popper with quick ingenuity and intelligence against Javier Ninja, a lover of extreme precision and flamboyant flexibility, was a bit of an anti-climax — Castro won — since both dancers had spent their best stuff earlier. rounds.
The highlight of the evening, and the festival as a whole, came just before this final round, when each of the esteemed judges had a chance to showcase themselves. “Look at the quality of movement, not the volume of movement,” Cebo advised. And Ken Swift didn’t have to do much to prove that, perhaps the greatest B-boy of all time, he’s still a style icon in the late ’50s.
Even better was Rennie Harris, who, as a choreographer, has excelled more than anyone in street-to-stage metaphors. At 59, he doesn’t dance in public as often anymore. Here, he played DJ Bizzy “Chip Suey!” by the heavy metal band System of a Down, and for three minutes, showed just how terrifying breaking and locking can be. He isolated his joints, collapsed inside, rolled his tongue. This was pain and beauty intermingled, a reminder of the intense expressive potential of street dance. “Motion/Matter” brought the new, but it was the veterans who really won.