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Street life

Giannandrea Poesio

Wednesday, 12th March 2008

Insane in the Brain
Bounce, Peacock Theatre

Like most ‘codified’ dance idioms, street dance has its own syntax, its own vocabulary and its own limits. Hence Bounce’s decision to enhance the narrative with a fluid integration of other dance vocabularies. In addition to the unsettling reference to ballet in the dance class conducted by Nurse Mildred, Insane in the Brain encompasses a myriad other dance citations, including jazz/stage dancing of the type seen in both Fame and Flashdance, humorously sent up at the end of an intentionally cheesy and theatrically effective sequence.

The occasional foray into other styles of dance, however, never distracts or detracts too much from the primary essence of Bounce’s show. A collective work, Insane in the Brain remains a celebration of street dance and, more significantly, of the unquestionable theatrical potential of this popular dance genre. Indeed, the very moment its principles and tenets are moved on to the stage, it loses part of its original essence, as a group of young street dancers were happily remarking on the Tube after the show. Yet they also noticed that to adapt the purposes, the aims and, as one young kid said, ‘the original message’ of street dancing for the stage allowed this dance genre to free itself from the social and cultural constraints it has hitherto acquired. I listened to them with bemused interest, feeling as though I were 100 years old but happy that we all agreed on the fact that what we had just seen was really good stuff. I only hope Bounce will soon be back with more.

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