Bodies break and come together in street dance in Vernon

An award-winning street dance company is bringing a powerful performance to town on how dancers persevere against the inescapable effects of age and injury.

In My Body, by Bboyizm, takes the Vernon & District Performing Arts Centre stage Thursday, Sept. 21 at 7:30 p.m. as the first performance of the 2023-24 Spotlight Dance Series.

It’s said that the bravest thing a dancer can do is grow old.

For a b-boy/b-girl, the experience is approaching heroic. In keeping with hip-hop culture, street dancers present a façade of confidence and invincibility as they engage in battles to prove their value and establish their dominance. The resulting vocabulary is one of the most physically demanding and visually impressive of the dance genres.

Renowned Canadian hip-hop dancer and choreographer Crazy Smooth brings together an intergenerational group of dancers for an intensely athletic exploration of the evolution of self and the effects of aging on street dancers. Young dancers wow with audacious hip-hop tricks, woven seamlessly with a corps of older dancers who tell their stories of glory and pain through movement and spoken word. Together, they deliver jaw-dropping choreography with a message of community and resilience.

In My Body combines dance with the spoken word poetry of Alejandro Rodriguez, recited to the beats of Montreal’s DJ Shash’U.

Even if you have never been a dancer, the message is clear and powerful.

“In this show, we form a micro-society,” said Crazy Smooth, Bboyizm founder and director. “No one will escape aging. I would like each person to recognize themselves, even if only in one aspect of the show, and see where they fit on the timeline and then come away with the notion that we are nothing without each other.”

Dancing since 1997, Crazy Smooth is one of Canada’s top street dancers, performers, choreographers, instructors, judges, and community leaders. The 2020 recipient of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s 2020 Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award, he is the founder and creative director of Bboyizm, a street-dance company that has been instrumental in the preservation and growth of street dance in Canada and internationally.

In My Body is dedicated to the memory of Frosty Freeze, Marjory Smarth, Flash, Don Campbellock and others gone before – their legacy lives within us.

For tickets, call 250-549-SHOW (7469) or visit vdpac.ca.

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