The Identity Projekt presentation of street dance to stage is immediately charged with hyperactive energy. Several set pieces culminating in a tag team four-way battle with the music mixed live.
The Identity Dance Company and Projekt Team street dance collectives combine to present closing performance of Tempo Dance Festival Te Rerenga O Tere 2024
Street dance takes its origins from Rap and Hip-Hop in the mid Seventies in New York City.
The deep roots are from the Dozens, the oral tradition of trading insults on the street involving profanity and wicked black humour. Signalled by the epithet Yo’ Mama.
Tribal displacement activity to avoid real violence. The cutting contest can be judged by the bystanders.
Dance should be as lyrical and flowing as the verbal combat.
There was the breakout from the streets and urban mall spaces to the two landmark movies.
Breakin’ / Breakdance was a huge cinema hit in the early MTV era, in America and Europe. I remember early dance stars Boogaloo Shrimp and Shabba Doo. Ice-T appears as a DJ.
Beat Street followed a year later.
In the early nineties came a more aggressive and shock style of Krumping and Clowning. Documented by a great doco, Rize by David LaChapelle.
There was unwanted notoriety from this years Olympics and the Aussie break dancer Raygun. There will be no more mention of that.
Identity Dance Company started as a loose collective of boys from Western Springs College and Mt Albert Grammar. Established in 2014 by Joshua Cesan, who is one of the main choreographers tonight.
A few years prior to this was the original Out of The Box project. A platform to bring street dance into the world of dance theatre.
The music mixer and DJ for the whole performance tonight is Manfred Okan.
There is a bit of freestyle rapping to warm up the audience before the dancers start.
Big ensemble pieces, and smaller theatrical pieces of narrative-based dances.
The Last Run is an exhibition of familiar stylised moves, and a demonstration of how routines are built up within the layering of the rhythm and tempo.
This becomes a fully realised theatrical piece in the sequence called M & M/ Music and Movement. Wonderful kinetic and fluid grace of the dancers matches any of the performances that I have watched this season.
It links back to those early ground-breaking movies where the best movers channelled Gene Kelly singing in the rain.
It carries the thrill and suspense of the best street battles you can find in abundance on YouTube.
A highlight are the solo pieces performed by Sheldon Rua, Mele Tapueluelu and John Vaifale.
They improvise a dance to a musical theme, which the audience is given a choice of two for each performer.
They build dance riffs like a Bass’n’Drums duo might build a drone pattern. Three style parts one to three.
A Haka is built around the fusion of street dance and Māori tradition. Touches some of the incredible energy conjured up at the recent world record haka as performed at Eden Park a few weeks ago.
Waka taps ancient days gone by again and a voyage across an ocean.
There is a significant presence of family and young supporters of individua dancers. Each gets a loud shout-out, akin to when you applaud a particularly ripping guitar shred or drum solo.
It is the Carnivale atmosphere just out the door and in the Aotea Square. Diwali is in full swing. There is Bollywood mixed with street dance on the big stage, prior to walking into Q Theatre this evening.
M & M Live. The big finale is a battle of four teams where the music is mixed live, where each style is divided into drums, bass, synths and gadget effects.
Each team needs to win rock paper scissors get the chance to dance a segment over the other.
Put it all together in one complete sequence and we get to stomp and cheer who wins each heat. Up to the final match.
It is as good as I have experienced forty years ago in the original flush.
Tonight, it recreates some of the thrill of, let’s say, James Brown and the Famous Flames, and the legendary T.A.M.I show 1964.
Look it up on YouTube. Its historical importance is where Michael Jackson was born as the King of Pop.
Identity Projekt could be my pick of the performances for Tempo Dance Festival 2024, purely on its wild exuberant energy and precision.
Rev. Orange Peel
