Rennie Harris Puremovement

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Brian Megnini

Rennie Harris Puremovement

“Concert dance basically has appropriated everything under the sun,” Rennie Harris told Dance Magazine when asked how hip-hop has influenced the form. “So I think you have to ask, ‘How has hip-hop not affected concert dance?’” Harris, a pioneer in bringing street dance to the stage, would know; if it’s no longer surprising to see Memphis jookin virtuoso Lil Buck on academic seasons alongside all the string quartets, Harris is a big part of why. Since founding the mold-setting hip-hop dance company Rennie Harris Puremovement in 1992, he has mastered redrawing the lines of street and modern dance however he sees fit, placing his vision on prominent ballets, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and of course, his own ensemble. At The Carolina Theatre as a part of the American Dance Festival, the company performs Funkedified, a multimedia celebration of 1970s funk music and dance against a backdrop of political and economic strife, with Harris’s group rounded out by period experts The Hood Lockers and live band Invincible. —Brian Howe