Rennie Harris' Facing Mekka

LMCtech · **Posted:** Wed Oct 15, 2003 4:44 pm

From the SF Bay Guardian.

Quote:

On fire
Rennie Harris travels with hip-hip in Facing Mekka.

By Rita Felciano

DANCE DISAPPEARS THE minute the curtain descends: there is no canvas to return to, no manuscript to consult, no annotated score to study. Unless the performance has been recorded, a viewer has to rely on memory when forming an interpretation. Opportunities to talk with a dance maker before and after a piece's debut are rare. That is exactly why I seized the chance to discuss Facing Mekka with Rennie Harris.

Harris is a Philadelphia-based dancer-choreographer who started dancing in the streets of North Philly during the late '70s, going on to tour the country with the Scanner Boys. Over the past 11 years – after founding PureMovement Dance in 1992 – he has steadily extended hip-hop's language from the club to the concert hall. As Harris puts it, he's been walking a tightrope between "the truth of hip-hop" and "the formality of the theater stage."

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Diana · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2005 8:14 am

From the CC Times,

Quote:

'Mekka' a pilgrimage for dance Harris' latest a melding of methods of performance

By Mary Ellen Hunt

To see one of the freshest and most satisfying views of the future of dance, run -- don't walk -- to see Rennie Harris Puremovement's "Facing Mekka," which the troupe performs tonight at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:25 am

Thanks for the review Mary Ellen and I hope we see this show in the UK before too long. Rennie Harris has a real following in the UK and although "Rome and Jewels" was a little long and lost focus from time to time, it was clear that he was finding ways to present this dance style as a serious theatre form.

UK ballerina, Deborah Bull, tried hip-hop along with various other dance forms and judged it the most comparable to ballet in terms of its physical and technical demands.

mehunt · **Posted:** Sun Feb 06, 2005 5:11 pm

I certainly wouldn't discount the amount of trained effort hip hop requires. Harris really impressed me on several levels, although I spoke with another critic last night who thought "Facing Mekka" was not as energetic as when he had seen it in Davis a year ago. It certainly didn't look like it was lacking any energy to me!

Last night, Housin Authority, one of the local hip hop crews in the Bay Area, made an appearance at the Black Choreographers Festival, and though all the shouting and cheers from the audience might have made it seem like plain old crowd-pleasing as opposed to high art, I couldn't help but admire both the skill and the obvious performing savvy of the dancers.

<small>[ 06 February 2005, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: mehunt ]</small>


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Rennie Harris' Facing Mekka

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