Rennie Harris Puremovement

Saturday, October 24, 2015 | 8:00 pm

Reynolds Industries Theater

Rennie Harris is one of the great veterans of hip-hop dance, having broken down barriers between the vocabulary of the street and the vocabulary of the concert hall for nearly forty years. At the age of twelve he formed his first crew, and by the age of twenty-five he had shared the stage with many of hip-hop’s founders, including Run DMC, Sugarhill Gang, Salt ’n’ Pepa, and Kurtis Blow. He comes to Reynolds Theater with his company Rennie Harris Puremovement, repeat Bessie Award-winners whom The New York Times call “phenomenal” and “seemingly without a semblance of gravity.”

As hip-hop rose to the mainstream and splintered into factions, Harris evolved, breathing new life into popping, locking, breaking, and voguing. The New Yorker calls Harris “the most respected — and the most brilliant — hip-hop choreographer in America.” Puremovement’s program begins with the new four-movement work Nuttin’ but a Word, which, as Harris says, aims to “challenge the hip-hop puritans at every turn.” After intermission the company perform two Rennie Harris classics: Continuum and Students of the Asphalt Jungle.
Made possible, in part, by support from the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources; a Visiting Artist Grant from the Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost, Duke University; and support from the Dance Program at Duke University.