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‘Cool Heat’ an
energetic dance
and music treat"Cool Heat Urban Beat": At Hawaii Theatre, 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets $15 to $45, with $5 discount for seniors and students. Call 528-0506.
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinWhat you see is pretty much all you get from Cool Heat Urban Beat, the jazz/tap and hip hop urban dance celebration that opened last night at the Hawaii Theatre. What you get is 84 minutes of nonstop dance and hip hop music presented with no narration, no explanation, and no individual acknowledgement of the extremely talented dancers and percussionists. That's a shame because they deserve individual recognition throughout.
The one easily identified cast member, scratch-mixer DJ Miz, distinguishes himself on the "wheels of steel" and in his sonic interaction with the percussionist and the dancers.
Every segment is impressive one way or another.
Most Americans will be familiar with the contemporary street dancing that forms the bulk of the show. There are other segments that suggest the origins of modern hip hop culture in sub-Saharan Africa and the subsequent importation of African rhythms to the Americas amid the holocaust of the slave trade. This is where the lack of information -- within the show or in the contents of the playbill -- leaves Cool Heat Urban Beat most accessible to ethnomusicologists, fans and students of modern urban dance, choreographers, and people who enjoy watching agile and extremely well-conditioned men performing topless. There is much more to the show than that but how many people will appreciate the finer points? Oh well.
Individual personalities gradually emerge. One dancer stands out as an effortlessly magical tap master. Another has a big smile and does tricks with his hat. Two others perpetuate the "old skool" skill of spinning on their heads. Another is a show-stopping acrobat. Others excel at the dance form generally known as break dancing. One such segment allows the cast to display some of the many variations of the genre -- each performer in turn seems more amazing than the others.
And then there's the guy who does a back flip off the stage into the aisle.
Although the theme is "street" and the staging is kept simple there are several segments that go beyond street corner performance format to tell stories as performance art. Some involve the visual contrasts created by different styles of dance. Others portray competition through dance and seems simultaneously comic and deadly serious.
Whatever the style the show flows smoothly. Nothing drags and nothing seems self-indulgent. Every young local choreographer and every local dancer with an interest in tap, jazz or street dancing should see these guys.
The finale is a lengthy but crowd pleasing reprise that lets each dancer do their specialty one more time. One guy lead the crowd in the ancient "Put your hands in the air/And wave 'em like you just don't care" call-and-response routine. The crowd got into it last night.
One of the most important messages of the show is conveyed silently by the by the multi-racial cast. Yes, people of all races can be part of the hip hop nation.
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