Ian Abbott reviews 3 Rounds of Amp by Artists 4 Artists

3 Rounds of Amp by Artists 4 Artists at The Place, April 13

We’re in the eye of the storm of the third wave of UK Hip Hop theatre makers, artists who have access to two generations of successes and failures alongside their respective knowledge and egos. Over the past 18 months Artists 4 Artists has been instrumental in supporting London-based makers in presenting new 20- to 30-minute works across London venues; they are nudging the community forward, evolving the forms and ensuring people sit up and take notice of London Hip Hop theatre. 3 Rounds of Amp is their third production of krump work in eight months featuring the choreography of Amanda Pefkou, Jordan ‘JFunk’ Franklin aka AIM, and Joshua Nash.

Pefkou’s opening of her Stranger at Home is exquisite; a single bare bulb upstage left, a tight focus of light inviting us to study her face, neck and torso in a simmering krump reduction. We’re here for six or seven minutes and it’s theatrically brave, taking our eyes, keeping them there and drawing us into her emotional states. Pefkou has delivered a number of leading krump performances in the past 18 months with roles in Becky Namgaud’s Like Honey and Theo ‘Godson’ Oloyade’s K.R.U.M.P Macbeth – here she is only able to take us so far with her own choreography as a loose and flabby middle section undoes all the opening work. There’s some diagonal crawl towards a downstage right light that is located firmly in the forest of obvious. Towards the end she expels an I Belong Here – a cry-scream harnessing the power that has been building, erupting and passing through her (here as a woman? here as a woman in Hip Hop? here as a woman in Hip Hop at The Place?). This pared down, stripped, minimalist krump, whilst retaining the emotional heft, intensifies the feelings and is a marker of interesting things to come.

A number of Hip Hop dance forms when performed in battle or on stage have a narrow physical radius; in drawing attention to a single spot and bringing verticality, intricacy and detail to the fore popping, krump and breaking sacrifice any ability to travel, to move across a stage, to shift our attention and keep within the choreographic or conceptual worlds that have been created. All three works this evening suffer from this; as we see them move, exit or enter the stage between sections, tracks and scenes the dancers erase any concentration or magic. This also creates the trap of raw emotional fireworks into which krump theatre sometimes falls. Franklin’s AIMagination was the prime culprit in creating isolated visual bursts of energy that exist purely in silos. Displays of bravura technique only satisfy a certain portion of the head and heart; Franklin has used the theatrical context as mere ornamental decoration to amp up solo activity without the responsibility and dramaturgical consideration that is needed to craft, glue and take an audience with him. Although his 30-minute work garnered the most vocal reaction it was theatrically the weakest. AIMagination is a choreographic treatment for an EP dressed in Antony Hateley’s succulent lighting design. 

Blacklist by Joshua Nash is the most theatrically complete (and there’s an acknowledgement in the programme notes for Kwesi Johnson ‘for the mentoring and artistry in the studio’) and the middle 15 minutes brought krump into a conceptually and choreographically interesting sci-fi plane. Complimented by Torben Lars Sylvest’s emotionally rich score (which feels fresh out of the video game series Mass Effect) and Giacomo Bevanati’s wearable wire head piece, the collaborators succeed in changing the physicality, the emotional spectrum and the choreographic possibilities. If this section was built, exploded and dived into further there is real theatrical promise here. Nash offers a mission statement in his programme notes that he ‘aims to change perceptions of krump being nothing more than an aggressive dance style.’ With Blacklist he achieves this and much, much more.

Artists 4 Artists should be congratulated for presenting work to different communities and venues like Richmix, Redbridge Drama Centre, Laban and The Place; that the houses are sold out is a testament to their success. However, from August 2018 to July 2019 the ratio of male to female performers they are presenting (Duwane Taylor, Theo Godson Oloyade, Joshua Nash, Jordan Franklin and Amanda Pefkou) is 4 to 1 and their upcoming double bill of Chris Reyes and Kloé Dean will bring the ratio to 5 to 2. People who programme and produce work always have a choice of who they work with.

Krump audiences have an almost audio descriptive quality to them, with the live reactions of ‘naughty’, ‘mad’ and ‘let’s go’ peppering the air when they see things they appreciate or recognise. A night at the krump theatre is a rich, rewarding experience unlike any other and in 3 Rounds of Amp all the constituent parts of the krump vocabulary are present in abundance – we could play krump bingo with the chest pops, illusions and fake outs – but Stranger at Home and Blacklist have moved the form forward. Pefkou and Nash have pared it down, reached into sci-fi planes and almost Beckettian territory which, although not immediately obvious krump bedfellows, offer a future theatrical promise.

Ian Abbott on Theo ‘Godson’ Oloyade’s K.R.U.M.P Macbeth at Trinity Laban

Theo ‘Godson’ Oloyade: K.R.U.M.P Macbeth at Trinity Laban, July 17

The cast in Theo ‘Godson’ Oloyade’s K.R.U.M.P. Macbeth (photo: Stefano Ottaviano)

“A man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than the ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions… if one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is consolation — indeed, deep satisfaction — to be gained from his observation when looking back over one’s life.” – Kazuo Ishiguro

Riding, reworking and interpreting classic works of western literature is the default setting for a lot of UK male-led dance companies of late; Lost Dog’s Paradise Lost/Juliet & Romeo, Mark Bruce Company’s The Odyssey and Dracula, Avant Garde Dance’s Fagin’s Twist, James Wilton Dance’s Leviathan and James Cousins Company’s Rosalind are just some of the examples. Often framed as an opportunity to attract new or theatre audiences to dance, it could be seen as a smart marketing device or a poverty of original ideas. Macbeth has a particularly strong hold on current choreographic minds with Company Chordelia’s Lady Macbeth Unsex Me Here, Mark Bruce Company’s Macbeth and now K.R.U.M.P Macbeth by Theo ‘Godson’ Oloyade all undertaking the Shakespearean Scottish play in the last 12 months.

At 55 minutes long with a cast of four (Amanda Pefkou, Jordan Franklin, Dean Stewart and Vincent Maduabueke) this is Oloyade’s first full-length theatrical work after spending a number of years performing with Boy Blue Entertainment, making shorter works at Breakin’ Convention as well as being an excellent exponent and teacher of krump. Whereas others may ply their trade at Resolution, building up experience in other platforms, or refining the work back in the studio Oloyade has chosen to premiere K.R.U.M.P Macbeth at Laban after an earlier showing of a few sections at Redbridge Drama Centre in May. Macbeth is a text full of hooks and angles of approach: power, murder, psychological warfare and familial tyranny. Mix this with the depth of emotion, delicate and explosive qualities and body shuddering invigoration that krump has in the cypher or battle and K.R.U.M.P Macbeth has a suite of possibilities; unfortunately it fails at nearly everything it attempts.

With no director, dramaturg or outside eye present according to the programme notes, Oloyade as choreographer is left holding responsibility for the blocking, movement and stagecraft, but his theatrical inexperience is brutally exposed with a raft of saggy scenes, continual slow movement of limbs that do not result in tension or emotional engagement, a number of moments inexplicably playing upstage left, and a stick-stabbing shadow death scene that would fit better in a 1970s schlocky horror film. The staccato nature of K.R.U.M.P Macbeth feels like a diluted version of a York Notes guide to a Chinese whisper broadcast of the original Shakespearian play. It is unrecognisable as Macbeth and Oloyade offers no alternative artistic interpretation, little depth of research/inquiry and no emotional narrative to help us feel anything towards any character.

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” – Zora Neale Hurston

Choreographically Oloyade has constricted the form and at the same time constricted the work; it is full of unnecessary blockages with the dancers waiting for the obvious musical changes from Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante’s dominant soundtrack stretching out the movement without developing the narrative, and attempts at synchronised krump are inadequate with the stomps out at least 50% of the time. There is an uneven quality in their jabs, isolation/physical punctuation and our eyes are consistently drawn to those dancers who are unable to keep time. Mixing and/or blending krump with contemporary knee slides and fake rifle holding neither satisfies the krump purist nor brings a new choreographic vocabulary to those unfamiliar with the form; we’re left with a sticky choreographic mess that is only exacerbated when in the final scene ‘KRUMP’ is blurted out over the soundtrack offering all the subtlety of a hip hop anvil. Can you imagine a Scottish Dance Theatre soundtrack blaring ‘CONTEMPORARY DANCE’ in a climactic scene or Ballet Cymru using a ‘BALLET’ audio sting in the final moments? When the stage is bathed in red the Goddess of Blunt Instruments is making it obvious: we know what is going on.

Within the company there are dancers with individual talent and virtuosity; Maduabueke offers charged flickers of intensity whilst Stewart delivers some moments of choreographic power and complexity, but there is so little glue, context or relationship forged between them that it erases any of the possibilities.

When Oloyade presented his eight-minute work Hell’s Gate 7 at Breakin’ Convention last year there were interesting relational dynamics, power and theatrical possibilities demonstrating that he has choreographic talent, but the leap from an eight to a 55-minute work is too big. The stagecraft, direction and dramaturgy need consideration and attention if he wants to make a full-length theatrical work. Within the individual scenes of K.R.U.M.P Macbeth there are interesting shorter sections that either could be harvested and sit alone in their own right as smaller pieces or re-worked and expanded.

This is a wider issue that a lot of hip hop dance artists are facing: how to make the shift from making micro works to a full evening. There is a gap that needs filling around the 25-30 minute work that could be presented in a double bill that would enable that growth, choreographic expansion and depth of idea to be tested. Often the ego and the ambition says Yes, I can make a full-length work, but would an architect make the step from designing a conservatory to building an entire town? But perhaps Oloyade can take comfort in what Kurt Vonnegutonce wrote: “And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”