Lessons in longevity
Merce Cunningham at BAM, Rennie Harris at the Majestic

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RENNIE HARRIS is trying to translate hip-hop dance from a flashy street competition to a stage language with more to say. His newest and most successful venture so far, Facing Mekka, came to the Cutler Majestic last weekend in a Crash Arts presentation. What’s most original about Facing Mekka, I think, is the way Harris integrates the extraordinary talents of several specialists into a stream of hip-hop-based dancing by a company of 12 men and women. The solos can change, the way headliners do on a variety show, but the piece keeps its momentum and its expressive connections. Its basic identity isn’t as a set, repeatable piece of choreography but as an idea.

A hip-hop pilgrimage

By GUILLERMO PEREZ
Special Correspondent for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 2, 2004

In Facing Mekka, choreographer-performer Rennie Harris comes to face himself. The city of the title, of course, is a holy site for Muslims, and its name is a metaphor for finding fulfillment. Yet ask Harris what Mekka stands for, and he answers, "Me."

Rennie Harris Puremovement takes hip-hop dance to top step

by KEVI C. JOHNSON
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Dance forms such as ballet, tap and modern dance proved less of an influence on Harris. "I don't dislike them, but I don't relate to them either," he says. In fact, Harris had not seen a modern-dance performance until about a decade ago. He has since gone back and studied various dance forms. "Now I know who's who and who people are talking about. People were talking about different people (such as Katherine Dunham or Paul Taylor), so I said let me find out who that person is. Now I can have an actual conversation about it. But it's still not relative to me."

Rennie Harris Puremovement takes hip-hop dance to top step

By Kevin C. Johnson
Post-Dispatch Pop Music Critic

It wasn't until urban dance master Rennie Harris was 33 that he began to think of hip-hop dance as a career. <a href=http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/stage/story/871FC3701C700A0E86256F8D003732E9?OpenDocument&Headline=Rennie+Harris+Puremovement+takes+hip-hop+dance+to+top+step target=_blank>more</a>

His dance speaks to the streets
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Local audiences will be able to see the arc of Harris’s creativity when Puremovement performs at Cutler Majestic Theater tonight through Sunday. The repertory program ranges from 1992’s groove-filled “P-Funk” to Harris’s work-in-progress solo “Prince Scarecrow’s Road to the Emerald City,” based in part on his earlier “Endangered Species,” a searing autobiographical piece about his childhood.

This yellow brick road leads to revelations
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Philadelphia’s undisputed king of hip-hop is a complicated, fascinating man. The program his company, Puremovement, offered last night at the Cutler Majestic Theatre is an unusual one for Harris .... This show features short ensemble pieces conceived of in the early to mid-1990s juxtaposed against his in-progress, expressionist solo work.

Rewriting histories
Rennie Harris and Rebecca Rice

Family histories are inextricably political. Rennie Harris knows the only two certainties of his life are that he has to “stay black and die.” Distinct fates flow from those two stark facts, whether you’re from the mean streets of Philadelphia, as he is, or you’re caught in the New Orleans Superdome without food, water, or a government that’s paying attention.