From the Street to the Stratosphere, Rennie Harris Puremovement Explores New Sounds

Celebrated choreographer Rennie Harris — known as the “ambassador of hip-hop” — brings his company, Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater,  to the Adrienne Arsht Center Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 with “Nuttin’ But a Word. (Photo courtesy of Artist Management)

The high priest of hip hop, street dance ambassador, a living legend—all these epithets, often bestowed upon Rennie Harris, ring true in announcing what he represents in American culture and beyond our borders. Yet also call this mission-driven leader maestro. He’s both a master of his art form and—inseparably from his resonance and continuity—a dedicated educator.

When maestro Harris brings his “Nuttin’ But a Word” to Miami, this recent work for Puremovement—the company he founded in 1992—will offer an array of highly-charged dance that comes in the context of the history, philosophy, and technique of a street-born genre that can dominate the stage.

“Nuttin’ But a Word”—the phrase, common to hip hop, puts proof above chatter—will be performed at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater, at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Nov. 1

Over the last 20 years, Rennie Harris and his company have built deep ties in Miami through partnerships with Miami Light Project and Miami Dade College. (Photo courtesy of artist management)

Ticket purchase on the first day includes an on-site dance workshop at 6:30 p.m. which is open to all ages and abilities and led by a Puremovement company member along with a deejay. A residency for dance students at Miami-Dade County schools is set for Friday, Oct. 31.

The educational component arms audiences with a deeper understanding of a great tradition rooted in the African diaspora and, through community activities, encourages practitioners to strike forward on their own paths.

“Nuttin’ But a Word” is a suite that puts the counted-on electrifying dance on an unexpected soundscape.  As Puremovement company manager and director Rodney Hill puts it, “A lot of the music in the show challenges the dancers because it’s not typical to hip-hop.”

As examples, he points to Al Jarreau’s “Round, Round, Round, Blue Rondo a la Turk,” with its classical echoes in jazz quarters, and an insistent drum patter from Raphael Xavier, a long-standing Harris associate, which turns dancers into comets. Add other waves of ambient music and what could be the soundtrack for a superheroes flick, The Cinematic Orchestra’s “Man with the Movie Camera,” and you’ve got a reverberating mixtape that reels everyone off into the stratosphere.

And who better than Harris to pilot dancers boldly into new spaces? Ever since Hill was a young practitioner, dancing by the glow of his elder’s ascent in their shared North Philadelphia neighborhood, he has tracked how Harris has advanced the art form.

Angel Anderson of Renee Harris Puremovement Amercian Street Dance Theater. (Photo courtesy of artist management)

Early on, featured with his crew on the lineup of Illadelph Legends, the festival Harris founded in 1997 to encompass performance and pedagogy, and later as a member of Puremovement touring the world, Hill was rewarded by a transformation, not just artistic but personal—one he’s been grateful to see in others as well as himself.

“Through this, I got to learn so much more about hip-hop dance. I hadn’t known who created it, where the moves came from, that we were standing on the shoulders of others,” admits Hill. “I got stronger in the style, and yes even my body changed. The work Rennie was doing was much more athletic. But, more importantly, I found it had a different approach because he was aiming this at concerts. Well, I’d been developing my own pop moves, but they were mostly stationary, even when I worked with rappers. But to perform on an actual theater, that different use of space, that’s what I had to master.”

Skills for the craft—breaking tasks down, digging deeper into one’s talent, adaptability and growth—all became assets to enhance other aspects of Hill’s life. He can’t imagine having succeeded in getting his MFA or having been elected as councilman for his Philadelphia suburb without his relationship to this dance and the man who uplifted it.

Hill is thereby invested in Rennie Harris Puremovement’s support of new generations, in the need for them to be encouraged—as he once was—to make their own contributions. And that’s just what Jamaican-born, Miami-raised company member Joshua Archibald—who still calls our area home—is raring to do, especially since local friends and relatives, including his great-grandmother, will now be seeing him in a show like “Nuttin’ But a Word” for the first time.

“I’m blessed to work with Puremovement.  Having this chance to perform in front of my community is like the perfect beginning of my next chapter,” says the TERRA magnet high school-graduate who—drawn into jazz and theater there, with hip hop as extracurricular—left engineering behind for his dance courses at Miami-Dade College, where Professor Michelle Grant-Murray introduced him to Harris’ work ten years ago.

Joshua Culbreath of Renee Harris Puremoement American Street Dance Theater does a solo flip. (Photo courtesy of artist management)

“I strive to create in accordance with my own vision and ideals,” says Archibald, “but being exposed to Rennie’s process opened my eyes to so many possibilities creatively. He’s such a wise man—like a walking amalgam of street smarts and esoteric knowledge dressed up like your favorite uncle—that even in casual conversations I’ll catch myself taking mental notes. How I approach spaces and people, how I understand the world in general, has been elevated.”

Having thundered through a lot of competitive dancing,  Archibald will forever cherish his first Puremovement role playing Tybalt in “Rome & Jewels.” Now the contrast between that dialog-driven dance drama and the sonics-spurred adventure of “Nuttin’ But a Word” excites him.

“The impetus of this show lies in the powerful dynamic of action versus words, with moments that highlight police brutality and loss and grief. But the genius of Rennie’s work allows dancers and audiences to inject their own experiences. We take our individual journeys, overlap and interact, and somehow might end up at the same destination.”

WHAT: Rennie Harris Puremovement American Street Dance Theater in “Nuttin’ But a Word”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Nov 1

WHERE: Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Carnival Studio Theater, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

COST: $70.20 including fees

INFORMATION: 305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org.

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