Photo Credit: Paul Ruffolo
Forty years ago, I “freestyled” with joyful abandon to glam rock music in gay bars, feeling empowered and authenticated. I thought of that a few times during this year’s iteration of Ignite: A Hip-Hop Dance Experience presented by Danceworks DanceLAB for the seventh consecutive summer. Hip-hop comes from and speaks predominately of the African American experience. Most of the artists in the show were people of color. Women far outnumbered men among the dancers and almost tied them as choreographers. Empowerment and authentication are real issues for women, too.
Choreographer Richard Brasfield addressed these ideas directly in “Embrace,” the show’s penultimate dance. A black male dancer and a white female dancer stood perfectly still facing the audience as recorded voices spoke at length about the rules and requirements these two groups face and the consequential need to work like super-people to stand with the privileged in society. The dancers then met foreheads in a kind of brain embrace. The next image was of a tribal circle, a mix of races and genders bathed in Colin Gawronski’s dusky red light, gradually unleashed into a sensuous, non-binary explosion of dancing that blocked mentation like a blessed drug.
Such ideas were already present in choreographer Chancie Cole’s opening pieces. In “K.I.S.S,” she and three other skilled women dancers displayed perfect glamour and confidence. In “Stars Aligned,” Cole added men and a child, dancing as if in a paradise of equality despite the police siren that sounded. When the audience cheered the performers, as they did all night, it wasn’t only for their skill. It was also in approval of the vision of individual and societal achievement represented; or so I think.
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The show’s stars were soloists Antonio “AJ Poppins” Johnson, Josie Thompson and Caleb Goebel aka “Dyce,” along with surprise guest Trey who did a short improvisation. These are masterful dance artists capable of constant surprises, instant radical shifts of direction and tempo, impossible moves, balances and articulations, each in a distinct style, all charismatic, all eloquent. And choreographer Gabi Sustache’s “Discompose” for herself and four women had each dancer demonstrating just such mastery. There were also large group pieces by choreographer-teachers Paul Webb II, Jasper Sanchez and the team of Rhea Riley and Joshua Yang, all well performed by their respective students, and a traditional freestyle finale in which everyone could be a star.
