Boy Blue
The Rose Theater at Lincoln Center
New York, New York
March 28, 2025
Cycles
Jerry Hochman
Let’s get one thing on the table first. I know as much about hip-hop as I do about nuclear physics: very little beyond the fact that it exists. Accordingly, I wasn’t happy when I was invited to review a hip-hop dance by Boy Blue, reportedly the UK’s most celebrated hip-hop dance theater company. I had too much to do, but more importantly, I didn’t feel fully competent to review a hip-hop performance that purports to be an exploration of hip-hop in the UK. But since I began attending dance performances, and particularly since I began reviewing them, I’ve felt obligated to attend a variety of performances that I never would have thought of seeing were I not pushed to do so – and subsequently had to adjust my way of thinking and acceptance. This proved to be one of those times.
In what I understand was its first U.S. appearance, Boy Blue brought its latest dance, titled Cycles. I attended the second night of the three-performance series. For all my trepidation, as it turns out I thoroughly enjoyed it; and at least as important, I was impressed by the artistry on display – these Boy Blue dancers are highly skilled at what they do. An added bonus was again having the opportunity to see a performance at Lincoln Center’s somewhat hidden jewel, the Rose Theater (located at 60th Street and Broadway, a hip-hop, skip. and jump from the main Lincoln Center campus). In addition to presenting music (it’s home to the Lincoln Center Jazz Festival), it’s a perfect venue, at least from an audience viewpoint, for dance and theater performances.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Termine
Which is exactly what Boy Blue presents: dance and theater, but the dance is hip-hop, not ballet or contemporary dance as it is understood here. [It wouldn’t surprise me if some contemporary dance companies located in the U.S. feature hip-hop dance. Indeed, to the best of my recollection hip-hop was incorporated into parts of certain Dorrance Dance performances (including but not limited to dances featuring Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, who subsequently presented her own programs), and/or was a component of certain dances in City Center’s Fall for Dance series and probably also in dances by countless other contemporary dance companies where the hip-hop component was not emphasized or recognized.]
There isn’t a moment in this 90 minute program (including intermission) that is not in motion. Beyond that, the performance, and the piece itself, is somewhat difficult to explain, especially when it’s not my native language. So bear with me if it all begins to sound elementary.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
There’s no takeaway program. The creative team – led by Michael “MikeyJ” Asante, who conceived it and composed its score, and its choreographer, Kenrick “H2O”Sandy (both co-founded the company in 2001), as well as Associate Choreographer Jade Hackett, lighting designer Lee Curran, and costume design Matthew Josephs in collaboration with Seeing Red – is mentioned in little more than a passing manner in the program (accessible only by QR-Code), and although the members of the nine-dancer cast are identified by name, nothing is provided about them beyond that. What we do know, via Lincoln Center’s publicity and the Boy Blue web site, is that the piece outlines the “cycles” that hip-hop has gone through, and continues to go through, in GB. Said another way (less accurate, I think, but perhaps easier to comprehend) is that Cycles relates the evolution – the cycles – of hip-hop in the UK, without any accompanying narrative.
(l-r) Jimmy Allan, Kyron ‘Nykro’ Jake, Gabija Čepelytė,
and Corey Owen in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Termine
To me, far more significant than that is that Cycles is first and foremost a show, and a highly entertaining one (even though somewhat repetitious, but that’s the genre). There’s no sense of any “competition,” real or feigned, nor of a demonstration or exercise, and frequently the group, or parts of it, move in sync – a fluid chorus on their own, and an accompanying chorus to any featured dancer(s) – which I’d thought was inapplicable to hip-hop’s emphasis on individual expression. And at least to some extent even I could see the subtle (and in some cases not so subtle) evolution of the style, at least as Boy Blue presents it. [Equally enlightening, at least to me, was the program’s audience, which I’ll address at the conclusion of this review.]
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
I didn’t know there were hip-hop dance theater companies until this program, in part because I’m not aware of any in the New York area (or for that matter, elsewhere in the U.S.). Being a hip-hop dance theater company explains, in part, why they’re so good at what they do. The company is an Artistic Associate of London’s Barbican Center (Cycles was co-commissioned by the Barbican Center and Lincoln Center), which self-describes as “an arts, learning, and conference centre in the heart of the City of London… passionate about showcasing the most exciting art from around the world, pushing traditional artistic boundaries and helping us understand our lives in new and unexpected ways.” Since its creation, Boy Blue has spawned many subgroups, including seven regular companies comprised of dancers ranging in age from 5 to 40+ (according to its web site) and offers off-premises educational programs. The company has won numerous accolades, including a Laurence Olivier Award – and both Asante and Kenrick are MBEs. [An MBE is a Member of the Order of the British Empire, awarded by the King or Queen for a particular achievement.]
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
And there’s a school: its affiliated East London Dance School, where former company performers teach, and that’s a talent pipeline for the company. Sound familiar?
Hip-hop isn’t a one-size-fits-all style – even I knew that. There are variations within the variations, and geographic differences that may or may not be incorporated into a given program, among a host of other inductive ingredients. [The Wikipedia entry for “hip-hop” goes on for 50 “screen shot” pages (15.6” laptop screen), with ten sub-categories additionally available, and with 318 footnoted sources, 13 additional sources, and 9 “external links.”]
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Termine
Hip-hop itself (not only the dance component), according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “refers to a complex culture comprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as “MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,” which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language …described [by one commentator] as “postural semantics.” I’d describe it as aggressive and male oriented, which is another way of saying the same thing, even though women are no less skilled at it, as this Boy Blue program demonstrates.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Termine
If I tried to define the components of hip-hop dance (as opposed to hip-hop music or culture), I’m sure I’d get it wrong – assuming there’s a “right” and “wrong” definition. Definitions I’ve found on line are either so general as to be meaningless, or so specific as to be inaccurate. Generally, hip-hop dance is considered a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. But that doesn’t say anything. Slightly better, but equally general, is that hip-hop is a style of movement characterized by bounces and rocks. And then there’s the definition that my unsolicited Google AI Assistant came up with: in hip-hop dance, the focus is “on rhythm, musicality, body isolation, attitude, footwork, and improvisation, while also maintaining a bent knee, wide stance, and hunched posture.” Actually, that’s not bad. It’s not only what I’ve heard referred to as “street dance” or “break dance” – it’s far more comprehensive (and break-dance is a limited ingredient in Cycles – if you blinked you might miss it).
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
Beyond that, hip-hop’s “essential” components are variable, some sites say there are five, some seven, and some ten (and some in-between each). There are hip-hop dance “styles”, as well as hip-hop dance “steps.” Sometimes they overlap. According to the site ipassio.com, there are ten hip-hop dance “moves” (which seem to be a combination of style and steps), some of which have been around since I was…well, younger (e.g., Boogaloo, Mashed Potato, and Funky Chicken), so I’m not sure that it’s an accurate assessment, or that hip-hop dance can be so limited. And there are “hip-hop for beginners” videos that illustrate ultra-basic elements of hip-hop, but don’t resemble anything one might see in an accomplished hip-hop dance theater performance. To put it in a ballet context, they’re something like the first minute of Etudes.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
I’m sure that not every variation from one hip-hop style to another is incorporated into the final Cycles product (or that there is a final Cycles product); what I am sure about is that a lot of it – at least as it exists in GB – is.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
Without going into the nuts and bolts of Cycles, to my uneducated eye even the aggressive, at-times explosive movement is presented in a manner that yields a visual experience that’s smooth as silk. And for all the improvisation that’s supposed to be a component of hip-hop dance (and to some extent I’m sure was here), the Boy Blue performance appears thoroughly honed and polished. And although repetition is, to me, a genre problem, it was staged such that any such repetition appeared relatively inconsequential.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
Essentially, four chairs are set vertically downstage at each side of the stage, on which, at the beginning, eight dancers sit, and at varying times thereafter are used as rest stops by one or more of them during the performance. The presentation itself, although most often focused on a mass gathered center stage from which one or more emerge at various times through the dance, includes many occasions in which the stage is limited to a solo, or a pair, with or without other dancers accompanying them, or simply watching them.
Evion Hackett in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
As for the purported display of hip-hop dance’s “cycles” in Britain, I suspect it was a continuing theme throughout that I didn’t recognize, but I did spy occasional examples scattered through the dance that demonstrated something resembling an evolution. First, I saw an adoption of more sophisticated, flowing movement quality, when one female dancer cajoles a sole male who is sitting on a chair back to the group. The dance they do thereafter includes an appearance of “melting,” a somewhat sophisticated ingredient that’s integrated into the dance as we’d seen it to that point (it might also be described as disco-like movement). [I know that hip-hop originally, to one extent or another, was considered a reaction to disco, but I’ve also read that after a period of time certain aspects of disco were incorporated into hip-hop.]
Boy Blue in “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
The second example I noticed occurred soon after intermission (after which the dancers changed their costumes from nondescript “street clothes” to coordinated loose-fitting white pants and hoodies, which perhaps was intended to visualize the transition from street to something more than that) when I saw one of the male dancers incorporate what I saw as “boxing” movement with his hands, maybe preliminary to martial-arts related imagery. During the performance prior to intermission, I saw indications of one dancer seemingly hitting himself in the head, but to me that wasn’t the same thing.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Terrine
One visual theme that recurs throughout the dance is one dancer periodically moving around the perimeter (the circumference) of the spot-illuminated stage. There’s no better indication of a cyclical evolution, and of Cycles, than that.
I can’t describe the contributions of each individual dancer, but I can commend, and note, them all (as listed in the online program): Jimmy Allan, Nicey Belgrave, Tanaka Bingwa, Gabija Čepelytė, Paris Crossley, Evion Hackett, Kyron “Nykro” Jake, Kelsey “Hydro” Miller, and Corey Owens. Every dancer on stage delivered excellent individual and collective performances, but I must highlight the female dancers, who were every bit as focused and skilled, and determined, as the male dancers. They didn’t diminish the overall testosterone level of the genre, but their presence made that somewhat irrelevant.
Boy Blue in Kenrick Sandy’s “Cycles”
Photo by Richard Termine
At the outset I said that I’d discuss the audience at the conclusion of this review. Again, it wasn’t what I’d thought it would be. The audience at the performance I attended (and I have no reason to believe it was otherwise for the other two performances) was about as thoroughly integrated as one can get: not only racially, but in age as well. I saw parent(s) bringing child(ren), teens, and kids who looked, maybe, 6 or 7 years old, and seniors – and age ranges in between. Its popularity appears to be universal.
Rock & Roll wasn’t a niche, and Hip-Hop isn’t a niche. It’s a force that has grown far beyond street dance, and needs to be recognized as such. And judged by Boy Blue’s accomplishments as evidenced by Cycles, hip-hop dance theater in the U.S., if it’s not already here, should be soon.
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