Consider me a big fan, officially, as of right now.
Rennie Harris is a living master and the performance today by his pre-professional dance company was beyond words; okay - throw at it "beautiful, exhilarating, amazing." "Awe-inspiring" is correct. Dr. Harris (with an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Bates College) has a professional pedigree that includes the Alvin Ailey Award for Choreography, three Bessie Awards and a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship. His professional company is called "Rennie Harris Puremovement" - but today's RHAW dancers at the New Victory Theater (NYC, 5/19/13) already made the grade. I had to take a big breath at intermission to keep from crying. It was that good.
Here's the review in the New York Times.
It was especially interesting to see this hip-hop performance after recently seeing "The Spectators" by Pam Tanowitz (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/arts/dance/the-spectators-at-new-york-live-arts.html?_r=0). If you had an itemized list of features to compare the two dance programs, the RHAW hip hoppers would still be top dog for: inventiveness, energy, formal choreographic structures, emotional connection, profound physical training and sheer joy. In addition, even though the RHAW music choices tended to be obvious, it at least helps to develop in dancers that extra bit of magic: musicality. No matter how diligently Ms. Tamowitz chips away at the ballet vocabulary, the only emotional response I heard in the audience around me was a chuckle of recognition when one dancer, with curved modern-dance spine, beat her balletic legs together. Compare this to Mr. Harris' work where the audience gasps unexpectedly again and again - and for the subtler reasons as well as the smashing big ones.
http://www.rennieharrisrhaw.org
