Texas Performing Arts presents hip-hop dance pioneer Rennie Harris’ new work, Rennie Harris Funkedified, on October 29 at Bass Concert Hall! Hailed by the New Yorker as “America’s most brilliant hip-hop choreographer”, Harris’ latest work is a multimedia collaboration that celebrates 1970s funk music and street dance, set in a montage video of african american scenes. communities of the time.
Narrated by Rennie Harris, Rennie Harris Funkedfied is a visual motif of the 1970s and features members of Harris’ Puremovement dance company with famed Lock dance group The Hood Lockers and New York funk band Invincible, who will paint a eclectic soundscape and texture. . The performance guides the audience through a decade-long snippet of Rennie Harris’ journey through funk music and culture, which eventually evolves into hip-hop culture.
A pop culture icon and recognized by the United States Department of Education as one of the foremost ambassadors for the art of hip-hop dance, Lorenzo “Rennie” Harris was a member of several dance groups that have opened and performed with Salt-n-Pepa, Madonna, Sister Sledge, and more. He has worked on two dance television shoes, Dancin’ on Air and Dance Party USA, as well as his own television show, One House Street. Harris has received a number of artistic and academic honors, among them Guggenheim and US Artist International Fellowships and honorary doctorates from Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois and Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Cited as “the” first to bring hip-hop dance to concert stages around the world, Rennie Harris continues to find new ways to expose the next generation to the power of the arts. Harris is known for bringing “social” dances to the “concert” stage and creating a cohesive dance style that finds a compelling voice in the theater. He has often been recognized as a powerful spokesperson for the importance of street roots in any dance style. Harris has been voted one of the most influential people in the last hundred years of Philadelphia history and has been compared to 20th century dance legends Alvin Ailey and Bob Fosse. He received 3 Bessie Awards, was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award and received the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts.
Rennie Harris is currently an instructor in the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.
For more information on this performance, please visit: https://texasperformingarts.org/season/rennie-harris-funkedified-bass-concert-hall-2019
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