Memphis jookin - Black History Month in Dance, 13

Black History in DanceDance HistoryEssays on DancePerformers

Feb 15

69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74. For Black History Month, I’d like to say that, if I had again my years at the “New York Times” (2007-2018), I’d have spent more time travelling to report on the various forms of hip hop around the United States. Hip hop is not exclusive to African Americans; there is no better or more international festival celebrating it than the annual one at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London: “Breakin’ Convention”. (After thirteen years of annual London seasons, it presented one of its editions at the Harlem Apollo in 2015. The big stars were a French duo, “Les Twins”, already then a sensation on YouTube.)

The history of hip hop is nonetheless intimately and proudly connected with the history of African Americans. And the history of dance across America in the last thirty-plus years is vividly characterised by the individual genres of hip hop that have evolved separately in different parts of the American nation. I managed to make three visits to Memphis, Tennessee, to see examples of Memphis jookin, including two group “battles”, in which dance teams competed for glory; and one to Detroit to see a competition of Detroit jit. Jookin and jit are two of the more spectacular subgenres of African American hip hop, but I’d like to have travelled to investigate Chicago footwork and San Francisco turfin, to name but two others.

Jookin - which has become internationally celebrated in the last ten years, though still less renowned and charted than it deserves to be - is probably the most culturally phenomenal form of hip hop today, indeed among the most thrillingly subversive forms of dance to be found anywhere near the world. Above all, most of its exemplars are men dancing on point: fast and brilliantly, in sneakers, with balances and turns and tacqueté runs, frequently with hair-raising twists of the ankle of the supporting leg. It also makes the most acutely musical response to rapping music: to those of us who instinctively resist rap, the result is disturbingly seductive.

These photographs show two of today’s most renowned exponents of jookin: Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles (69, 70) and his cousin Charles “Lil Buck” Riley(71, 72, 73, 74). They, especially the super-virtuoso Lil Buck, are global stars, embodiments of the dance whose presence (notably at the Vail International Dance Festival in successive years) apparently inspires and fertilises others.

It’s when you observe Memphis jookin at source in Tennessee, however, that you start to sense the true vitality of jookin as a fount of new possibility in dance: transforming masculinity, pointwork, and dance musicality. I’ve watched examples on YouTube, but I’ve seen enough live in Memphis to know that better filming is needed: ideally a top-class television documentary - or, better, a television series on hip hop around the States.

Sunday 14 February