Keep Keepin' On.

Hip-Hop Legends Festival Sigmund Stern Grove San Francisco, California June 30, 2002

"Old school," Newcleus declared at the Hip-Hop Legends Festival, "is back in session!" The Brooklyn-based rap group, best known for its 1984 hit "Jam on It," joined the Electric Boogaloos, the Untouchables, and Don Campbell in this touring celebration of mostly vintage hip-hop dance and music, organized by dancer-choreographer Rennie Harris. Harris emceed this exciting afternoon of inventive, athletic dance, minus his company PureMovement, which had been billed but did not perform.

Hip-hop has a relatively short history as theatrical dance, but Harris has played a key role in its shift from street to stage. He created the Illadelph Legends Festival in the summer of 2000 after the considerable success of Rome and Jules, his company's evening-length hip-hop reading of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The event began in his native Philadelphia as a weeklong series of performances, classes, lectures, and jam sessions to explore the cultural origins of the form and pay tribute to its pioneers. In this stop on the Hip-Hop Legends Festival, Harris paired the touring dancers with local groups: The Oakland-based duo Jerald Lee and Traci Bartlow gave a nod to hip-hop's roots with a jazzy, lindy-hop-influenced series of lifts and shimmies, while fellow Oaklanders New Style Motherlode, dressed in black jumpsuits, offered up a high-stepping, fist-pumping style.

While the local performers--young, versatile, and well rehearsed--underscored hip-hop's increasingly widespread popularity, the tour's veterans provided historical context as well as memorable performances. Whether viewers realized it or not, they'd seen these dancers or their choreography somewhere. The Untouchables, a Philly company founded in 1988, have done music videos, Soul Train, and opening gigs for Wu-Tang Clan and L.L. Cool J; they juxtaposed acrobatic popping and locking to a tinkly music-box version of "You Are My Sunshine" with cane-twirling echoes of Charlie Chaplin. Bootsy Collins and Rakim videos once featured the agile Forrest Webb, aka Getemgump, who started dancing in the early '80s, although his dizzying set of back-flips, head-spins, shoulder-spins, back-spins, and one-handed spins, ending in precisely frozen poses, suggested a much younger dancer at work.

DJ Evil Tracy's selection of hip-hop classics, like Public Enemy and the Tom Tom Club, took audiences back; Don Campbell, founder of the 1970s Lockers crew, a one-time tour-mate of Frank Sinatra, and the inventor of the Campbell lock (now known simply as locking), took them waaay back. "Show 'em how to break it down, Don," Harris exclaimed, as Campbell, dressed in candy-cane striped socks and matching T-shirt, juggled his blue derby and broke into a centipede-like undulation to the floor.

Equally sharp were the Electric Boogaloos, a crew with individual and collective star power (for reference, see Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo). Dressed in powder-blue pinstriped suits with white shirts and black ties, the Boogaloos bridged the gap between Campbell's and Harris's companies; Campbell inspired them, and they inspired Harris (as well as Michael Jackson, whom they taught). Eventually, to the delight of the crowd, the Boogaloos doffed their jackets and got down to business. They gave us box steps and synchronized mimed guitar playing, full-body waves and moonwalks, Egyptian hieroglyphic poses and robotic perambulations, with slow-motion transitions between songs. As the other dancers watching from the sidelines bobbed their heads enthusiastically to the music, the Boogaloos--Poppin' Pete, Skeeter Rabbit, Suga' Pop, and Mr. Wiggles, with founder Boogaloo Sam--gave swing-dance partnering new twists, locking ankles and then attempting to exit in opposite directions.

The afternoon ended with a traditional circle jam, as dancers took turns showing off their best breaking and b-boy skills in the center while the others, and the audience, cheered them on. Clearly, this is a tour that dancers and fans have hungered for.