Jessica Koslow

Cali Swag District/"Teach Me How to Dougie"

I have a new blog for LA Weekly called Know Your L.A. Hip-Hop Dances. The first one was about the Dougie and the second one was on krumping.

Come Fly Away/Joan Marucs

Last week, I saw “Come Fly Away” at the Pantages Theatre, and I loved it. I wrote a preview for LA Stage Times based on an interview I did with John Selya, dancer and resident director of Twyla Tharp Dance. Turns out he was a breaker in his youth and break dances during the show. I also wrote a gushing review of the show for CultureSpotLA. I struggled to write a rave review without sounding gushing. Looking back, I could have criticized a few things, articulated a stronger point of view and made connections to larger issues. Maybe I could have gone further than describing the scene and explained why this type of show with this type of movement without too much story is different, exciting or valuable.

Photo by Steven Schreiber

Kyle Abraham’s skill at picking dancers is as great as his talent for choreography. During the 75 minutes that The Radio Show tickled our senses at REDCAT on Oct. 21, the audience was treated to bodily perfection. It was a combination, of course, of gracefully rhythmic movements, subtly seductive outfits and bodies that boasted sculpted lines and alluring curves.

From first sight, the costumes piqued our interest and set the sensual tone. Like Academy Award winners for Best Costume Design Chariots of Fire (1981) and Gandhi (1983), The Radio Show wasn’t showy in its designs, but it still scored big. The pants and tops in shades of brown and gold appear rather plain-looking. Yet it’s the way they hug the dancers’ torsos and limbs, and their backs peek out of the gaping holes intentionally cut to showcase the soft, sinewy lines. In modern times when it seems as if we need so much to stimulate us, Abraham reminds us how surprisingly erotic an oft-overlooked body part can be.

What’s even more attractive than the coyly exhibitionist style of the clothes is the egalitarian nature of the audience’s desire. Men and women admire both male and female. It’s a dual sexuality that transmits back and forth between the standing and the seated. The female dancers are as imposing as the male, the men as elegant as the women. The seductive ambivalence throws everybody in the same boat, leveling the playing field and making each solo, duet and group performance an exhilarating, power-shifting balancing act.

Using the dancers’ bodies as his Etch A Sketch, Abraham weaves his feelings, surrounding the closing of a popular black radio station in his hometown of Pittsburgh and Alzheimer’s in his own family, into the movements that power the performance. From the beginning, as Abraham himself walks through the crowd, his arm twitching uncontrollably, it appears as if some form of expression is being repressed. Later in the piece, when he tries to scream but no voice comes out, the disconnect and loss are even more obvious.

Playing on the theme of a black radio station, the soundtrack to the show sings with old and new popular tunes from Betty Wright to Mary J. Blige, Bill Withers to Beyoncé. It’s an interesting move when choreographers choose to use familiar tunes. They run the risk of the nostalgia factor. The audience has its own memories attached to the tunes, and the songs are usually associated with a certain time. But Abraham also accepts the challenge of taking the audience somewhere they’ve never been before. His work does just that, existing within the terms of the music but also pushing beyond, fusing hip-hop, ballet, street jazz and modern into something fresh.

Complementing the choreography are the seven dancers (including Abrahams) who truly inhabit each step. They are longtime friends of the beat, and their relationship blossoms over the course of the show. The second act overflows with funk, as each member of the motley crew adds its own flavor to the joyous mix. These dancers are having fun, which can be felt throughout and continues even after the performers take their bow, at which point they break out into playful party moves as they exit the stage.

Abraham doesn’t completely rely on the familiar. One of his more surprising moves is toward the end, when Antony Hegarty’s operatic version of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” lulls the crowd, turning a smash pop ditty into a tender, albeit grating, aria. It’s only fitting that Abraham once again turns convention on its head.

Article on CultureSpotLA

Hallelujah Junction/Paul Kolnik

To be completely honest, I’m a hip-hop dancer who considers herself pretty narrow-minded when it comes to other styles.

Sure, my parents took me to The Nutcracker when I was a kid, and I have seen several performances by American Ballet Theatre. But overall, my assessment of ballet was pretty bleak.

I am, however, on a quest to broaden my horizons and appreciate all that the world has to offer. To this end, I took a drive to CSUN this past Sunday to attend New York City Ballet Moves at Valley Performing Arts Center. To say that I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

For somebody who is usually lulled to sleep by strings and shutters when she thinks of the strict practice and eating regime the dancers have to abide by, I left this performance gleefully leaping through the air.

Never before I have I seen ballet dancers having such fun, or eliciting in me any feeling close to fun. Like a first date, the duets sparkled with young, playful love. It was not that refined romance I’m used to seeing on stage, but one of kids chasing each other, thrilled when they are caught. The group performances resembled party-like atmospheres. In “Hallelujah Junction,” Daniel Ulbricht was the stud at the center of everyone’s attention. When he circled the stage in twirling leaps, it was a no-brainer that he was leaving the scene with a pocketful of numbers.

In “Polyphonia,” the show’s opener, four couples gracefully yet speedily formed shapes with their limbs, striking a distant resemblance to the Village People’s “YMCA.” Without a narrative, the piece made me think harder about where to look. With four couples to follow, it wasn’t as easy as focusing on Sleeping Beauty. Another fresh factor in many of the pieces, this one included, was the emphasis on the piano. As mentioned above, strings seemed to be my downfall; piano was now my caffeine.

Being new to ballet reviews, I understand there is discussion over the meaning of “contemporary ballet”. On Flavorwire, Michelle Vellucci asks, “Is it a blend of modern and ballet? Could it be hip-hop performed in pointe shoes? Does cross-breeding ballet with other genres necessarily dilute the form, or read as a critique of it?”

I am now of the opinion that laying on the floor and performing movements that border on chunky blips and hand rolls up the side of the body enhance the form. The youthful energy of the Moves stars may have been the ticket to my newfound appreciation of ballet, but I also believe it was the feisty, festive attitude that shot through the movements.

With pep in their steps and smiles across their faces, this traveling cast of New York City Ballet made me think those New Yorkers are on to something.

Article on USC’s Neon Tommy

Photo by: Andrew Lang

Watching Hofesh Shechter perform their U.S. premiere of Political Mother this past Thursday night strangely brought to mind two related scenes in the recent release of the remake of Footloose.

Ren, the main character of Footloose, is starting a petition to repeal the ban on public dancing in the small town where he has relocated to after his mother’s death. The high school senior is not only good at getting down, but he obviously identifies dancing as something that’s good for the mind, body and soul. For Ren, dancing in public also represents an act of youthful rebellion and freedom that should be a right for the town’s teenagers, who are instead monitored, controlled and treated as untrustworthy delinquents. One afternoon when frustrated by all of the slack he feels like he’s getting for being the new, big city, bad boy in the repressive town, he drives to an empty warehouse and dances wildly, “pouring his heart out” visually.

This type of emotional outburst marks the powerfully charged atmosphere of Political Mother. Artistic Director Hofesh Shechter’s first full-length piece opens with a samurai performing hara-kiri, and follows a stream of handsome, plainly dressed dancers twisting, throwing, lunging, shaking, jumping, and skipping as they careen on and off stage. The music alternates between big rock and hard metal, and the conductor switches between a lead singer and a dictator. The music and dancers are fast then slow, loud then soft. A disconcerting sense of mania pervades Royce Hall, as dizzying music and shadowy lighting traps the audience and places them in the center of confusion, tragedy, militaristic angst and angry desperation. It is a chore to remain focused, and not tune out.

Keeping in time with the world we live in, and taking into consideration the choreographer’s Israeli roots, the message in the movements’ madness is whirling around the stage, screaming into the silent crowd. In the final scene, it physically appears as the backdrop: “Where there is pressure there is folk dance.”

What Political Mother expresses best of all is the immediacy, the need to take particular action, whether to kill, to control, to oppose, to release, to move. Dance becomes the weapon, the tool, the outlet, the expression of political desire. Politics is messy. Music is messy. Dance is messy. Political Mother is a chaotic mix of dance styles – Israeli folk, modern, breaking, krumping – an explosive burst delivering the emotional impact of an inspiring peace speech.

Which brings me back to my point about Footloose, and why I take such exception to the following scene. Ren’s aunt comes into his room as he’s writing his speech for the town meeting, and she asks, “Why is dance so important to you?” The teen takes amoment and replies, “Because I want to stand out,” adding, “I don’t want to disappear like everyone else,” as he looks over at a photo of his mother.

His answer misses the mark completely, and as a result, Footloose fails to express in words what Political Mother so successfully achieves on stage. The drive to dance derives from a place deep within an individual, and the tapping of that creative wellspring is liberatory. The urgency to express or release what is repressed or pent-up is essential.

Whether it is a town’s ban or a regime’s repression, the atrocities of war or the hardships of economic oppression, creative outlet through dance marches on. Movement as a survival technique becomes both beautiful and poignant, and the freeing of the body through dance is as significant to the spectator as it is to the performer.

Article on USC’s Neon Tommy

Positive Dose/Sthanlee B. Mirador

In the words of KRS-One, Versa Style’s six-run engagement of “Positive Dose” over the past two weekends was “edutainment.”

It was a true mind and body experience: The audience felt the kinetic energy of the hype dancers while meditating on the history of hip-hop dance within the larger context of the dance world, and of the power and meaning of dance within hip-hop culture.

The multimedia components of the performance were as captivating as the physical movements. Not to downplay the skill sets of the individual body movers, who each bring their own funk factor to the stage, but what really impacted the crowd was the video segments’ creation of historical narrative.

Opening the show was video footage of Rennie Harris, a hip-hop dance legend, teacher, and artistic director and choreographer of Rennie Harris Puremovement, who traced elements of hip-hop dance back to singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers and all-around entertainment phenomenon Sammy Davis, Jr. Viewing footage of Sammy bouncing gracefully on the floor, kicking his feet to the beat, it is hard not to spot the beginnings of breaking.

Next, came a visually stimulating lesson on the huge influence of “Soul Train” on hip-hop dance styles and their increasing popularity.

Dancers became celebrities and the newly invented dance styles circulated the globe. Interviews with historical icons like Damita Jo Freeman, the first lady of “Soul Train,” put the past in the present’s lap, not only to celebrate the funk styles of that time but to acknowledge that today’s funk links to yesterday and inspires tomorrow.

The most vibrant elements of hip-hop culture—the spirit of inclusion, innovation, reverence and authenticity —were on display at the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts in Downtown L.A.

The first half of the performance was billed as “travelling into the roots of dances that have contributed to the rich hip-hop experience.”

Versa Style made each of us feel wealthy beyond words.

“Positive Dose” was more real than dance reality shows like “So You Think You Can Dance.” The multimedia presentations revealed the historical heart of hip-hop dance, and the cast on stage showed it to us, in the form of popping, locking, breaking, house and other popular funk and dance moves.

Dance styles will continue to change based on time, place and space, but they remain in conversation with the culture. Versastyle did an excellent job of recapping this conversation for people who knew and best of all, for those that didn’t.

Article on USC’s Neon Tommy

In the two posts I recently wrote for the Getty’s PST blog, which are up today, I found a common theme that has left me feeling awkward. In one I discuss black art and in the other black cinema, and in both I feel like the underlying thrust is, “Look at how surprising it was that these types of people, whether black or women, created this art at this time.” I think in both cases these sentiments were expressed in quotes from sources, and it is noteworthy to point these things out in a society that often overlooks the achievements of minorities and women most of the time. And maybe that should be my overarching concern, that we have to point out the achievements of women and minorities because it is not the norm.