Exploring Street Dance with Rennie Harris

Dance World Premieres

“When I say ‘street dance,’ it’s a euphemism – it means community, not that we were literally in the streets,” choreographer Rennie Harris told a crowd one Friday afternoon this February. Framing community and collaboration as pillars of the many American varieties of street dance is at the center of American Street Dancer, Rennie Harris Puremovement’s new work that had its world premiere on March 14 as part of the company’s three-year residency. In events across the city this winter, audiences got a window into the creative process that drives Harris and his company as well as an off-the-cuff education in the history and techniques of these urban American dance forms.

The first open rehearsal, held in the Zellerbach Theatre, revealed a stripped-down rehearsal process as three dancers rehearsed new steps and practiced the company’s mainstay, Nuttin’ but a Word, for a residency at the New Victory Theater. Between counts, dancers shared nuggets of insight about Harris’s process, how the dancers had become familiar with a range of footwork styles and how the dances of the 70s and 80s had further influenced dance and hip-hop culture. At the end of the rehearsal, the audience augmented the history lesson: several had been dancers in their own Philadelphia crews decades ago, and others recalled local TV programs where street dance styles were showcased.

At the Danse4Nia studio in Germantown, participants experienced the second open rehearsal with the company. As Harris introduced four company dancers and led them through new choreography for American Street Dancer, the thirty-person audience was close enough to be “sweat and spit on,” as one dancer put it. They enjoyed Harris’ meditations on the evolution of GQ — the Philadelphia street dance style he grew up with — and its relationship to other styles in Detroit, Chicago and New York, as well as to salsa and cha-cha practiced by Philadelphia’s Latino communities.

In partner schools George Washington Carver High School for Engineering and Science and West Philadelphia High School, company dancers Rachel Snider and Justine Diggs-Cunningham joined PLA teaching artist Donnell Powell to share themes in Rennie Harris Puremovement’s work. They offered creative prompts with students ahead of their field trip to see the company perform at our Student Discovery matinee, which excerpted American Street Dancer with guests House of Jit, Creation Global, and Ayodele Casel. Powell led the students through theatre games that asked them to make eye contact, attend to one another and use space and their bodies creatively. That primed them for company dancers’ introduction to locking technique, street dance footwork, and sketching the choreography of their own dances.

In a sold-out performance, students throughout the Philadelphia region had the first opportunity to see American street dance history on stage, introduced and framed as only Rennie Harris can do. 

related events

• Open Rehearsal with Rennie Harris Puremovement
• Rennie Harris Puremovement