CriticalDance Forum

From <B>Hip-hop's BAD RAP - There's been static over the airways ever since Elvis, but the indignation over hip-hop is unprecedented. Are the critics getting it wrong?</B> by Davey D in the San Francisco Chronicle:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The longer it lasts, and the more commercially successful rap music becomes, the more debates rage about the controversial genre's "message."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/05/IN203970.DTL" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A>

<BR><small>FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM<BR>A break dancing B-boy flairs on one hand, wowing spectators.</small><P><BR>The Honolulu Star Bulletin celebrates break dance in a photo-journalism piece.<P><A HREF="http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/28/features/story4.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more images</B></A><BR><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited October 29, 2001).]

A festival organized by the Queen of SF Hip-Hop.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>DANCE<BR>Fans yell and scream for hip-hop<BR>BY ANITA AMIRREZVANI<BR>Mercury News <P>If you go to the San Francisco 2001 Hip-Hop DanceFest, don't expect the audience members to sit quietly in their seats. Micaya, the festival organizer, expects the crowd to make a joyful noise.<P>``It's not like the ballet,'' she says. ``Hip-hop concertgoers will scream and tell the performers how much they love them and say, `Work it out' and `You go ahead.' We're really supportive of each other and feed off each other's energy.''<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><B>This newspaper link is broken</B><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited April 10, 2002).]

<B>Hip-hop dance classes are latest craze</B><BR>By LASHONDA STINSON in The Star Banner (Florida)<P><BR>The bass and treble blasted from the jumbo speakers like thunder, transforming the room into a musical storm.<P>The volume was at its peak. The huge window rattled. The wall-to-wall mirror shook. And, a handful of teen-age girls pounded their feet against the wooden floor.<P>Some wore chunky sneakers. A few wore white ankle socks, and one preferred bare feet.<P>Heat and humidity swallowed the room, causing the girls to perspire. Their once tight and bouncy ponytails hung slightly loose and damp.<P><A HREF="http://www.starbanner.com/articles/marion_life/308.shtml" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Michael Scott - Vancouver Sun, April 18, 2002:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>There's posse galore at UBC<BR>Vancouver's scene is distinguished for the number of 'beautiful' women among its dancing peeps</B><P>Say goodbye to the old scholarly art critic schtick. Hip hop is where it's happening and I have crossed over toward the light. Vancouver hip-hop culture is taking off, and the tough-talking, break-dancing posses of inner city New York and Los Angeles are starting to pay attention.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>[url=http://www.canada.com/vancouver/aroundtown/story.asp?id={40C70F33-7E84-41F9-91D2-104E707F86FC}]<B>more...</B>[/url]<P><BR>

State of hip-hop in NY, the wave of the future:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>In the Outer Boroughs, True Hip-Hop Dance Thrives <BR>Breakers: The Next Generation<P>Miri Park, Village Voice<P>Walk into the Skate Key, off the 149th Street stop on the 4 and 5 train in the boogie-down Bronx, on a Friday night. You could take a left and spend the evening roller-skating to bling-bling mainstream rap music with most of the kids in attendance. <BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0217/park2.php target=_blank>More</a>

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:<P><B>A dancer branches out<BR>By Merilyn Jackson</B><BR>FOR THE INQUIRER<P> <BR>BONNIE WELLER / Inquirer <BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Raphael Xavier rehearses "olive" at the Community Education Center in West Philadelphia. The dance explores the protective circle around people and the life that goes on outside it. <P> <BR>Raphael Xavier broke into Rennie Harris' hip-hop Puremovement dance company four years ago, when he came up to Philadelphia from his hometown of Wilmington. As Thibault in Harris' spoken and danced version of Romeo and Juliet, called Rome and Jewels, Xavier became a star in the currently touring, worldwide hit. Now he's breaking out on his own.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><A HREF="http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/performing_arts/3266186.htm" TARGET=_blank><B>MORE...</B></A><BR> <BR>

Not exactly dance, but....<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Even a driving rain storm couldn't dampen the spirit of "Bomb-itty of Errors" that is bringing a new energy to American Stage's annual Shakespeare in the Park.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.heraldtribune.com/theartsstory.cfm?ID=66785" TARGET=_blank>Mo'</A>

<B>Guilford man uses break dancing to bridge two cultures</B> <BR>By Pamela McLoughlin for The New Haven Register <BR> <BR> <BR>GUILFORD — "Yo, I brought music," Celestino Rivera of New Haven said as he grabbed his crotch and bounded into the Chittenden Chaffinch room at the Guilford Community Center.<P>Rivera, wearing a Phat Farm shirt, knit cap and two diamond studs, strutted up to Tom Johnson, 17, of Guilford to shake his hand. <BR>Johnson, free of body piercings and dressed in a Yale T-shirt and backwards cap that said "Noles" for the Florida State University Seminoles college football team, reached out his hand. <P>The two locked knuckles, inner-city style.<P>Johnson and his Guilford buddies, some wearing Sperry Topsiders and Birkenstocks, stood with an expression of reverence on their faces as Rivera and his buddies streamed in, with their tattoos, gold chains and boxer shorts showing at the top.<P><A HREF="http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=4180648&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7571&rfi=6" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P>

As a follow-up to the story that Basheva posted above, a positive review of Raphael Xavier's "olive" in the Philadelphia Inquirer:<BR> <A HREF="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/performing_arts/3298953.htm" TARGET=_blank>http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/performing_arts/3298953.htm</A>

A review in the Village Voice about a hip-hop show.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>From Martha to Hip-Hop—New Yorkers, It’s All Ours!<BR>Nuts in May<BR>by Deborah Jowitt<P>It was bound to happen: the art-ification of hip-hop; those headspins and kinked-leg handstands were too enthralling just to hang out on street corners. Doug Elkins incorporated break-dance moves into postmodern dance, and the style figures in the French Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu's charming circuses; Rennie Harris gives it a political cast. B-boy groups abound in France.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0221/jowitt.php" TARGET=_blank><B>more in the last review on the page...</B></A>

Rennie Harris begins his "Illadelph Legends" hip-hop dance festival this week in Philadelphia. From the Philadelphia City Paper:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> <BR>Kick Out the Jams<P>B-boys and B-girls from all over the world will come together to celebrate the evolution of hip-hop music and dance during the weeklong "Illadelph Legends: Honoring the Source" dance festival. Curated by Rennie Harris, Illadelph Legends will mesh local, national and international artists in dance performances, open jam sessions, panel discussions, master-level classes and extensive outreach. Harris started Illadelph Legends in 1998 as a chance for master teachers and students to meet, take classes and share hip-hop dance on an intimate level.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://citypaper.net/articles/current/artpicks.shtml" TARGET=_blank>more...</A>

<B>Spinning Through Hip-Hop History</B> <BR>By Lisa Traiger for The Washington Post<P><BR>Has hip-hop matured enough for its practitioners to deserve a place in the pantheon of dance legends? Philadelphia's Rennie Harris thinks so. The dreadlocked choreographer has embarked on a multifaceted project to record, perform and preserve the creativity of the first generation of hip-hop, known as the b-boys -- a term that originally meant "break boy" or "Bronx boy" -- lockers, poppers and top rockers. At Columbia's Rouse Theater Friday evening, "Legends of Hip-Hop" reunited old-school dancers of both coasts with a young pickup crew Harris brought from New York.<P>Video clips and taped interviews featuring hip-hop's founding fathers complemented onstage performances by the once-young legends -- some now in their forties and fifties -- and the fresh new crew, ready to push the popular art form far beyond its already edgy, hyper-athletic and decidedly masculine reality. <P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5768-2002Jun30.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

<B>Hip-Hop Enters A New Stage</B> <BR>D.C. Fest to Spotlight Next-Generation Plays <BR>By Natalie Hopkinson for The Washington Post <P><BR>It doesn't take long to see that "Rhyme Deferred" is not your boilerplate musical.<P>In the Cain-and-Abel redux written by Kamilah Forbes, the orchestra has been kicked to the curb. Instead, two men take their place center-stage behind two turntables and a mixer.<P>Brick-wall sets are plastered with graffiti. Break-dancers morph into human props, and actors spit their lines in a rapid-fire succession of punchy rhymes.<P>We can't say we didn't see this coming. Hip-hop has invaded every facet of contemporary culture, from music to dance to visual art. It was only a matter of time before it showed up at your local playhouse.<P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28805-2002Jul18.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

<a href=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/bv/20020913/co_bv/artist_adds_elegance_to_hip_hop target=_blank>More</a>, on Yahoo!