Why it’s called American Street Dancer

Books are banned, DEI scuttled, and Africanist studies scaled back. Yet, the irrepressible spirit of African American artists is not extinguished. The much celebrated American choreographer, Lorenzo “Rennie” Harris, is known worldwide for his (2000) “Rome & Jewels” and his practice of bringing hip hop and street dance to the stage under his company name Rennie Harris PureMovement or RHPM. This month, as part of Harris’s three-year choreographic residency at the University of Pennsylvania’s 936 seat performance venue, Penn Live Arts, he premiered “American Street Dancer.” As a kind of lesson, this show expands on the multivalanced styles that largely derive from Africanist traditions to historically assimilated Black dance, revealing the cross pollination of white and Latino urban and regional styles with African American idioms. Note, Harris does not call his new show African American, but American street dance, which underscores the origins of the forms and a principled geopolitics.

Performance

Rennie Harris PureMovement: “American Street Dance”

Place

Penn Live Arts, Pennsylvania, PA, March 2025

Words

Merilyn Jackson

Zakhele “Swazi” Grabowski in “American Street Dancer” by Rennie Harris. Photograph by Mark Garvin

Harris rooted “American Street Dancer” in ancient and current Black styles that came from Black social clubs and house dance. Even though I grew up in North Philly not far from where Harris lived and learned to dance socially with Black and Latino dancers in high school, I was not privy to those insider scenes. Nor did I catch all of what Harris was up to at first. After attending the Saturday matinee I was lucky to get into the evening performance too, as almost all those seats were filled. After experiencing the matinee viscerally, and my blood pressure went down, I felt I needed to put my intellect forward to see the evening performance.

The choreographies (danced by three different companies) show how easily, and often slyly, the modes mix and a strong arc through many eras creates a sense of community and belonging. Akim Funk Buddha begins the program lying on his back and, once upright, tentatively tapping a toe on the miked soundboard. Is he heralding that there will be tap? Or is he searching for the ground under his feet after the long sea voyage? To his side, Guyana-born Tyreis Hunte, as a Griot straddling a long drum in native dress, calls in the ancestors.

And then, dressed sharply in gray modified Buddha slacks, Ayodel Casel shuffles onto the soundboard and gives us the ultimate lesson on tap. And Harris’s voice-over narration about tap mentions La Vaughn Robinson, one of the great Philly dancers who I first reviewed 30 years ago. No matter, Casel took everyone’s breath away. Such command of the board, a delicate ear for the rhythms, depth and pitches her taps created. And then, her lissome anatomy tripping out a barrage of sound here, a sprinkle of a faraway fountain there.

She blazed through all the most familiar tap steps while putting her own stamp on them. With arms akimbo, she even gave a wee wink to Irish Step dance. I particularly liked when she slowed down and scuffed—sliding the side of her shoe along the board.

Akim Funk Buddha, Kenny Muhammad, and Alexander Sanchez in “American Street Dancer” by Rennie Harris. Photograph by Mark Garvin/Penn Live Arts

As Casel exited, the spot moved to the opposite side of the stage and Rennie Harris’s Hip-Hop Orchestra Beatbox vocalists topped her tour-de-force with another tour-de-force. Kenny “the Human Orchestra“ Muhammad and Alexander “Bizkit” Sanchez joined Buddha, and the three traded different styles and pitches of beat-boxing. What is that? A practice of virtuosic vocal percussion performed with a hand-held mic that is as astonishing in range as some of the hip-hop moves seen in this show. The spot shifted over to Harris’s Hip-Hop Orchestra bucket drummers, led by Brytiece Wallace, and their accelerated rhythms pounded throughout the theater. The audience responding with applause, cheers and whistles.

Darrin M. Ross has been working RHPM’s music since 1984, long before Rome & Jewels became a global hit. The Bessie Award-winning composer, music editor, and live sound designer, is capable of orchestrating all these sound makers even as they approach sound barrier speed. And if there weren’t enough aural fireworks onstage, he inserted the nonpareil DJ Razor Ramon who all but lacerated his vinyl records and incited a call and response chorus from the audience.

But then the dance lessons really began with Chicago-based Creation Global, dancers Eddie Martin Jr., Donetta Jackson, Charles L. Parks IV, Christopher Thomas gave us a zingy set of Chicago footwork and in-line dancing acted as a prelude for the following pieces from Motor City and Philly.

The Detroit-based troupe, House of Jit, gave a class in jitting that goes back to the ’80s. It began with what seemed like Roma, Middle Eastern or Eastern European Klezmer riffs, that flowed into house music. As with most street dance, its improvisational and individualistic character created moves that seemed invented on the spot. But when I returned in the evening, I saw it was highly choreographed by Michael Manson who also danced with the seven member company.

Rennie Harris Puremovement in '“American Street Dancer” by Rennie Harris. Photograph by Mark Garvin

Following on their heels, RHPM‘s GQ‘s cool slides look trés Bob Fosse, and also imply the flow between Black and white cultures. Which came first? Fosse or GQ? In Fosse’s signature bowler hats and black and white wing-tip brogues, they were the dressiest ensemble in the show. Despite their buttoned up suit jackets, their open collar white shirts lent a sense of informality.

Program notes and Harris’s on again-off again narration tell us GQ originated from 1960’s cha-cha—a dance I was adept at when it was all the rage in Philly. But I’d never seen the cha-cha translated to this level of sophistication and wit. Dancers made their legs tremble, their bodies jerking in off beat rhythms, and then slid back into the cool. Apprentices Miyeko Harris (Rennie’s daughter) and Zakhele “Swazi” Grabowski, originally from Eswatini, the former Swaziland, were standouts. But the crew of principal dancers, Margeurite Waller, Angel Anderson, Rachel Snider, and Joshua Archibald drove the work beyond its origins. Hunte’s brief appearance at the end, now in white from head to toe, seemed to summarize the evening and say that class was over, and the rowdy showcase of competitive breaking that typically ends hip-hop performances could commence.

Julie Ballard’s videography and lighting kept the whole ball rolling along, with a fast moving El train running across the dais beneath DJ Razor Ramon. And along with RHPM Executive Director, Rodney Hill, one of Philly’s beloved breakers, all made this a professional and meaningful entertainment that I’d nominate for the next Super Bowl Halftime show with street dancers from all over America.

Merilyn Jackson

Merilyn Jackson has written on dance for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1996 and writes on dance, theater, food, travel and Eastern European culture and Latin American fiction for publications including the New York Times, the Warsaw Voice, the Arizona Republic, Phoenix New Times, MIT’s Technology Review, Arizona Highways, Dance Magazine, Pointe and Dance Teacher, and Broad Street Review. She also writes for tanz magazin and Ballet Review. She was awarded an NEA Critics Fellowship in 2005 to Duke University and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship for her novel-in-progress, Solitary Host.

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