In the middle of the opening set at BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! On Thursday, rapper and performance poet Decora dedicated a song to a man he called a mentor: folk singer Pete Seeger. The song, played by a full band of horns and electric guitar, was a riff on Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
In his surprise, this was a fitting introduction to the main act, Rennie Harris Puremovement dance troupe. For decades, Harris has deviated from stereotypes and expectations of hip-hop dance while staying true to his roots. As he explains in one of the video clips scattered throughout “Nuttin’ but a Word,” the touring show he brought to this free gig in Prospect Park, he considers the three laws of hip-hop: individuality, creativity, and innovation. Which means hip-hop is fundamentally progressive and ever-changing. “It’s progressive to change the way you look at it,” he says.
“Nuttin’ but a Word” is not that innovative in terms of form. It’s a series of songs, a mixtape dance. But much of the music isn’t what you’d expect from a hip-hop dance show: ambient tracks; ‘Man With the Movie Camera’ by the Cinematic Orchestra, which is a bit like the theme of ‘Mission: Impossible’ with a great drum beat. It’s great fun to watch these dancers tackle Al Jarreau’s vocal version of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” a manic jazz standard in 9/8 meters.
The vocabulary isn’t strikingly new either: a mix of moves from house, b-boying and Campbell locking – the springy articulation of arms, elbows and fingers pointing in all directions. There are occasional flashes of pyrotechnics – somersaults, head spins – and some of the fantastic footwork is on display almost too quickly. But the emphasis is on subtlety and groove. These are exceptionally musical dancers who never lose connection with an underlying rhythm, even as they register every subdivision and stutter physically.
For a master like Harris, the choreography falls a little short in expressive groupings and stage patterns. Once or twice he gets some opposition forces going, one row of dancers standing still while another row eats up space. But much of the evening is just unison or solo. It’s still superior hip-hop dance.
The most poignant song is called “A Day in the Life”. On a hauntingly quiet Dhafer Youssef song that builds to muezzin-esque bickering, it’s a story. Joshua Culbreath and Phillip Cuttino Jr. are two guys on the corner, sliding sideways, stopping to look around or smoke a joint. They are attacked by unseen forces, presumably the police, and Cuttino is shot and killed. Culbreath’s dance of grief, while a little maudlin in its mimicry, uses the expressive potential of b-boy steps, the way he spirals and winds on his back, to intensely moving effect.
“Rappers tell stories all the time, so why can’t a hip-hop choreographer do that?” asks Harris in the next video segment. It’s a question he answered long ago by showing how narrative and expressive hip-hop’s dance vocabulary can be. But in these video segments, Harris is still explaining himself, still fighting battles he seems to have won earlier in his career.
True to the laws of hip-hop as Harris describes them, ‘Nuttin’ but a Word’ relies heavily on the individuality of the dancers. Compared to the superhuman performers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for whom Harris often choreographs, these dancers appear more ordinary: less polished and more precise in position, though always rhythmically accurate. But each one catches the eye with small-scale wonder and charm: Culbreath busting out some air guitar and the Moonwalk, Emily Pietruszka blasting like a ferocious robot.
The show begins with the dancers circling to a house track and spinning solo. It ends, satisfactorily, with a Mandrill funk song, the kind of music these moves are made for. In this way, “Nuttin’ but a Word” can be seen as both progressive and conservative. It follows what Harris says his mantra is, “Always Keep Moving.”
Nuttin’ just a word
Performed in Prospect Park on Thursday.
