beginning with information about a meeting of shakespeare and hip-hop:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Far from being "pure movement," "Rome and Jewels" has been<BR> termed a hip-hop opera. The performers speak, or rather, rap,<BR> texts in ebonics. The texts, however, are Shakespeare's, truly<BR> brought into a modern vernacular. Weaving through the music are<BR> snippets of Bernstein's score. The result is a collage, juxtaposing<BR> street culture and "high" culture, past and present, in ways that are<BR> sometimes striking, sometimes poignant, sometimes dissonant. <BR> "Rome and Jewels" is as bleak as any of its models. Jewels, the<BR> beloved, doesn't even have a physical presence. Like an ethereal<BR> symbol of hope, or dream or imagining, she's represented solely by<BR> a beam of light, floating through a terrain of gang warfare, beatings<BR> and death. <BR> "Rome and Jewels" premiered in Philadelphia in June<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>this long article also has some interesting descriptive information down the bottom about this genre.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> For those who aren't up on the distinctions between the various<BR> forms of hip-hop dance, the lecture-demonstrations of Harris and<BR> company come as a welcome education. "B-boys" (and "b-girls")<BR> "are more traditional breaking; there's a lot more slow movement,"<BR> Harris explains. "Hip-hop is more about machismo aggression. It's<BR> strong dancing, but not as acrobatic as b-boying." It also tends to<BR> be more verbal, more political. <BR> Harris' own specialty is popping, in which the dancer interrupts<BR> the flow of movement and "creates illusions with the<BR> body"--"internal pantomime" as he calls it--in a blend of sinuous<BR> fluidity and stop-action, strobe-like freeze-frame movement. Then<BR> there's house, which some people claim is merely a hybrid form of<BR> popping. <BR> "I think that house began as a freestyle dance and appropriated<BR> moves from hip-hop, b-boying and a Brazilian martial art,"<BR> capoeira, Harris says. "House, by way of New York, has come to<BR> evolve into its own unique style. I think it is the prettiest hip-hop<BR> dance style," although "some may argue that b-boy, when truly<BR> mastered, is prettier." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <P><B>The original link is now broken</B><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited April 10, 2002).]
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