<< BACK

Hip-Hop Festival at Dance Place
Pamela Squires; The Washington Post
February 5, 2008

This year's annual hip-hop festival at Dance Place was a whole lot better than some of the previous ones. With a single exception, the hip-hop numbers were well choreographed, and the high-energy dancing was marvelously taut and chiseled. The artists and groups were diverse, but there were two common themes: hip-hop can be a positive social force (such as helping kids by involving them in dance), and commercial hip-hop too often glorifies money, violence and "bling."

Local artist Aysha Upchurch's smart poem criticized hip-hop rhymes devoid of substance. She chastised rapper 50 Cent because "your two quarters are an embarrassment to the dollar. . . . I always expect more bang for my buck, but I always end up shortchanged." Local dancer Reggie Glass also delivered an entertaining, albeit didactic, rant against "minds trapped in mental cages," and Jennifer Archibald successfully melded hip-hop with modern dance.

But the two large dance collectives, Live in Color Dance Collective and D.C.-based Culture Shock, were what electrified the evening. Both were punchy and hot. Hats off to LICDC's Zedric Bembry for his machine-gun-like choreography; it featured the rapid-fire delivery of many short routines. The dancers never ran out of choreographic ammunition.

When a program is this engaging, mediocrity really stands out. That was the unfortunate case with Urban Impact, the Joy of Motion Dance Center's teen hip-hop performance company, a student-level group that clearly didn't belong on this outstanding program.