Dance duo joins creative forces

Helly Minarti, Contributor/Jakarta

Modern/contemporary dance is an art without boundaries, dance critic Jack Anderson once said, rightly pointing to its vast and rich array of forms of expressions.

It's an eclectic sphere, where artists often master different styles and techniques of dancing, then mix, fuse and synthesize them. It can encompass traditions -- from classical ballet to Indian Kathak or the Minang dance of West Sumatra that is strongly influenced by martial arts -- particular bodily esthetics or a more recent, underground culture such as street dance.

The latter, including body popping -- a specific technique in hip hop dance -- and breaking came on stage in the performance of Urban Classicism of Britain during Art Summit Indonesia.

It was the meeting of two dance cultures, with each successfully crossing the other's boundaries.

The key members of this unique company are dancer- choreographer Robert Hylton, the director of Urban Classicism, and DJ/producer Billy Biznizz. How they came together, and their ability to feed off each other's creative juices, make for exciting results.

Both men started out as street dancers; Hylton later study contemporary dance at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, England, while Biznizz established himself as one of the granddaddies of the British hip hop scene, venturing into rap music in the 1980s.

In 1999, Hylton founded Urban Classicism, a company where the members explore the layers of both dance cultures -- his career has included a video for George Michael and three dance movies for director Oliver Ashton. The following is an excerpt of an interview with the artists during a break in the workshop they gave in Jakarta. They also performed in the Central Java town of Surakarta and Makassar.

Question: So, what comes first? The dance or the music?

Billy Biznizz (BB): It's a back-and-forth-situation. First me and Rob usually sit down and discuss the type of the things we wanna do, which will give me ideas of what type of music might suit us, the type of dances Rob will create, and then I may put down some skeletons. And Rob'll come back later to the skeletons and say, "ah, I think we can put this there, change this there, move this there". So we collaborate.

How does the collaboration usually work?

Robert Hylton (RH): It's experimental. If it's not from the contemporary (and) so on, mine comes from the hip hop student environment, which is about creativity, and about defining and looking for different styles, which is what Billy is. He is most definitely for the hip hop mentality, so we go for this (direction). It becomes very natural.

What do you mean by the term "urban classicism"? Does it mean that street dance is the classical form of urban culture?

RH: It changes; they're a mix of street dance and classical dance. But also they underline hip hop, breaking, b-boy moves. They also now have a classical foundation of moves, which is like the basic baby freezes, which we don't do onstage, (the) footwork.

When you see some moves, they are the classical foundation of moves. (I mean), backstreet classicism? So, you might disagree or not, (but) if you see this first generation of these movements, and you see they're doing incredible work, it's the same, as it's the perfect arabesque.

That's for me, for myself and for the people: there's a foundation, and it's still moving forward. It's not reggaedee dance, not (only) party dance anymore, it's sophisticated movement structures ... I don't put them onstage, but part of me is still in there.

But how do you transform this street dance into a theatrical onstage setting?

RH: There is the distance, but it's a different visual experience. Hopefully it's a different thought for them (audience). Again, if you look away, DJs in parks, in apartments, playing party music, because the way it bridges, it manifests itself everywhere. Theater actually isn't that different to what it was. It's about gathering. Some people do it differently. Theater people are more in shock than we are.

BB: We don't see as much as of a separation as you might see with the audience participation, as the audience sits as far (away) as in a formal stage.

Because for us, coming from a street dance background, it's a similar thing where you have a big circle and you dance in the middle of that circle.

The audience are participating; they are also participants at the same time even though they're only watching you dance. Without that audience, you're dancing to yourselves.

So, you improvise a lot onstage?

BB: Yeah, this is the reason why Robert has me onstage, doing a live performance, so it's not just music that we've created in the studio. All the scratches and everything you hear are live, so I'm also creating live music on top of pre-recorded music.

So, I'm also contributing toward what goes on, within the movement. Cos' there are many sections in the dance where each individual has their own part and they may freestyle it differently each show, you see. And each time I perform my musical section, I may put them in the same place, but I always change what I'm doing. It's never the same each time.

At the third art summit, we had Akhram Khan, inspired by a kathak dance background and synthesizing it with contemporary technique. It seems that multiculturalism has become such a big thing in UK society, and dance is a reflection of it. Is that your case too (street dance)?

RH: I went to a contemporary dance college in my teens, but I'm not from a social background where you would be aware of that until later. So when I learned, I still had my other things. And after I've learned, I still have my street dance background.

So, what I'm supposed to learn is "refined artistic form", and forget about this (street dance), and now I've learned this, it makes no sense, because then I was a completely different person and (so was) my style.

When I'm bringing them together, I'd just go on, (hands moving, street dance-wise) and make my own mark onstage. I know Akhram knew it as well, he had kathak dance and he went on to study contemporary. So he studied the form and utilized that knowledge and had to create experience.

Akhram's teachers in college at first did not like his way of dancing contemporary style, because of his strong kathak influence. Did you have a similar problem with your street dance during your college years?

RH: My teachers in college didn't like the street dance because in between classes we'd be doing our street dance stuff, and on Wednesday nights in particular, we'd go out and dance all night. On Thursday mornings, our bodies would be wrecked, and that was just a regular thing and it'd disappoint (them).

For me, because my body was able to adapt to conceptual dance, to this level, they wanted me to go "here", to contemporary dance. I know there's some teachers who were still disappointed but I never followed that route. But for me, right now, (I just want) to be myself.

But breaking, the popping and that contemporary, (is the same). I met the guys who invented "popping", from Electric Boogie. I acknowledge it and like it but it's still "popping is popping" and you can't mix it. It comes from both. I just put myself as being dictated to. You can't (mix it) but it actually makes me study even more.

At the moment, I'm really studying body popping as a form, a technique history. I will not break it down onstage without having an understanding of it. Even if I understand it, I'm not going to plagiarize it, misuse it in any form. That's a personal artistic choice, what can you do?