Choreographer Kenrick “H2O” Sandy and composer-producer Michael “Mikey J” Asante met in school in East London once they had been 12, bonding over hip hop. After performing in native street-dance battles, they based the hip-hop dance theater firm Boy Blue in 2001, wowing audiences with precision choreography and explosive power. Their present Pied Piper received an Olivier Award in 2007, and was adopted by acclaimed works together with Blak Whyte Grey and Free Your Thoughts, and choreography for the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Boy Blue’s newest present, Cycles, involves New York Metropolis’s Lincoln Middle March 27–29.
You’ve been collaborating for greater than 25 years. What makes this partnership work?
Sandy: I really feel like the most important factor is the extent of respect we’ve for one another. That degree of fellowship. We’re each Libras, we’re each from the identical space, we’re each older brothers. We each have the tenacity and the eagerness. And we promote one another, we push one another. There’s loads of actual, concord.
Asante: To search out that is uncommon: two buddies who managed to show one thing right into a enterprise, after which right into a motion, however nonetheless have the identical core values of friendship. There’s a true need to see the opposite succeed. With Cycles, I introduced the idea and put that within the ring for the opposite particular person to bounce off.
Sandy: We feed one another inspiration. Once we come collectively we’re jamming. This isn’t a job, it is a pleasure for us.
Inform us about Cycles.
Asante: I needed to make one thing that was in perpetual movement, the place it continuously moved ahead. On the similar time, I used to be impressed by hip-hop mixtapes, a J Dilla or a Madlib mixtape, how the music can be on this fixed loop. Then there’s the totally different cycles that exist in life: life, demise, seasons, the moon and tides. We additionally needed to deal with hip hop, return to the roots of the motion.
Sandy: It was going again into the grooves, the hip-hop social grooves, then flipping it and taking a look at all of the totally different choreographic frameworks. It was in regards to the endless course of.
Asante: Making a present that by no means regarded the identical means every time you watched it. The notion of freestyle was a giant a part of deciding on the dancers. It’s eternally rising and altering.
What has modified within the hip-hop dance scene because you began?
Sandy: My beard is grey now!
Asante: It was a mode that nobody thought-about to be of worth once we began. We had been simply noisy, rambunctious youngsters who individuals needed out of their area. Now I take a look at different dance types and I can see the affect of hip hop on all of them. Once we began, simply seeing boys dancing, not to mention Black boys the place we’re from, they referred to as us “humorous.” And now each youngster I do know is dancing.
Sandy: There are college students we used to show once we had been in our early 20s, they’re now sending their children to our courses.
What’s it like performing in New York, the house of hip hop?
Sandy: It’s very nice simply to point out what we’re about. We respect hip hop a lot, however our hip hop positively has a UK slang to it. There’s an affect from UK grime, UK storage, and likewise simply the power may be very London.
What’s London power like?
Sandy It’s fearless, it’s unrestricted.
Asante: There’s a bop, there’s a bounce, y’know? It’s assured about itself. However we’re eternally eager to commune and join. We journey. There’s all the time going to be individuals in one other land that share a part of your language. Perhaps they’ve bought a distinct accent, however to us the present that hip hop has given us is that it’s made us so many alternative buddies all throughout the planet which can be all related by means of the groove.
