✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Dance

Boy Blue, REDD Review ★★★★★

27 Sep 19 – 05 Oct 19, 19:45 Sat 14:30 No performance 29, 30 Sept Dur.: 75 mins no interval

Boy Blue REDD, their brand-new work, is an uncharacteristically dark and disquieting dance piece performed with verve and commitment but with a sometimes blurred narrative

By Teresa Guerreiro on 28/9/2019

2 CW readers are interested
Boy Blue, REDD, photo Carl Fox
Boy Blue, REDD, photo Carl Fox
Boy Blue, REDD Review 3 Boy Blue, REDD Review Teresa Guerreiro
Commissioned by the Barbican, where it’s just had its world premiere, REDD is the latest work from Boy Blue, the company that has done more than any other to make hip-hop a medium with mass appeal.


Boy Blue founders and directors Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante believe that hip-hop, originally the street dance of disaffected urban youths, has the ability – mission even – to tell a powerful, engaging story.


In REDD, though, they go beyond storytelling to create a dark, introspective work. Inspired by the Gaelic word ‘redd,’ which means to clear or tidy up, they look at the human mind’s urge to put things in order.


Their overall theme, denoted by the poem 143 Words on Grief, printed in the programme, seems to be the profoundly affecting impact of grief on an individual, and the slow, uneven process of overcoming grief, lest you are, in the words of the poem ‘outlived by it.’


On a gloomy, smoky stage, only occasionally relieved by the briefest flash of light (lighting design by Charlie Morgan Jones), a single man, performed by Kenrick 'H20' Sandy (himself still a mean hip-hop dancer), stands desolate, sudden bursts of jerky arm movements translating seemingly unquenchable emotional pain.


His mouth opens in a silent cry. His anguished body contracts. He seems to mimic the shooting of a machine gun, as the score reproduces a rat-tat-tat sound. This is a lo-fi hip-hop score, composed by Michael 'Mikey J' Asante: scratchy, repetitive, unnerving, relying on low notes that vibrate inside our bodies.


Gradually, Boy Blue’s eight dancers take to the stage, first two by two in fast diagonal runs, later returning more cautiously to approach the grieving man.



All are dressed in stone-coloured trousers and tops (costume designer Ryan Dawson Laight), the effect on the hazy stage being an unrelenting monochrome. Only as we progress towards the final catharsis do coloured spotlights momentarily brighten up the costumes.


Until the final sequence there is little sustained coordinated dancing. Rather, the structure of the piece is episodic, dance breaking up just as it seems on the verge of developing. This is clearly deliberate, but it's a little frustrating for the viewer.


Throughout, the man seems an outsider, his grief impervious to other people’s attempts at solace. In a particularly affecting sequence, he comes face to face with another man and they engage in a duel of loud exhalations of breath in a crescendo that ends with a deep cry.


Although its dark mood is unmistakable, not all elements of REDD are easily identifiable; but the piece’s narrative arc is clear enough. It ends with the most sustained sequence of dancing in the evening, the costumes brightened up by red sashes; and as these superb hip-hop dancers leave the stage, one gives the man a red sash.


It’s as if a powerful storm has been tamed; and the man’s grief is finally giving way to peace and hope.


Age Guidance: 12+
Post show talk: 1 October. Free to same-day ticket holders


NOTE: Boy Blue’s REDD will be showing as part of Dance Umbrella’s Fairfield Takeover on Sat 19 October at Fairfield Halls, Croydon.

by Teresa Guerreiro

What Boy Blue, REDD Review
Where Barbican Theatre, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, E2CY 8DS | MAP
Nearest tube Barbican (underground)
When 27 Sep 19 – 05 Oct 19, 19:45 Sat 14:30 No performance 29, 30 Sept Dur.: 75 mins no interval
Price £16.30 (+ booking fee; concessions available)
Website Click here to book



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 16 - 18 April. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2021 Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Courtesy Gagosian
Things to do in London this weekend: 16 - 18 April
Kelly Macdonald in Line of Duty season 6, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
Line of Duty, season 6 episode 4, BBC One review
Kelly Macdonald in Line of Duty season 6, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
Line of Duty season 6 episode 5, BBC One review

Editor's Picks

DU19, Gregory Maqoma, Cion photo Siphosihe Mkhawanazi
Gregory Maqoma, Cion, DU19 review
Thomas Lebrun, Another Look at Memory, photo Frédéric Iovino
Lebrun, Another Look at Memory review
DU19 Oona Doherty, Hard to Be Soft, photo Luca Truffarelli
DU19 Oona Doherty, Hard to Be Soft Review
Scottish Dance Theatre, Emanuel Gat, The Circle, photo Brian Hartley
Scottish Dance Theatre, The Place
Gary Clarke Company, Wasteland, photo Joe Armitage
Gary Clarke Company, Wasteland review
DD Myelination, Dancer Warren Craft, photo Matthew Murphy
Dorrance Dance, Myelination and other works Review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
2

Boy Blue

REDD

Barbican Theatre

Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante

Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy

Charlie Morgan Jones

Ryan Dawson Laight



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×