BAC adds another chapter to its ‘Urban Legend’

BAC: Dance, Princeton’s premier hip-hop dance company, will be presenting its spring showcase, “Urban Legend,” starting this Thursday. BAC is already known for its clear-cut and powerful choreography, but this show brings even more to the table.

The company steps up its game with hilarious self-made fillers featured between the dances. These clips effectively set the storyline for upcoming dances. The clips and the dances come together under the umbrella of “Urban Legend,” a theme embodied in stories of the urban youth culture as well as the urban myths of monsters, zombies, secret agents and gangsters. These different aspects of legends are expressed in the pieces through diverse dance styles from reggae to old school, breaking to seductive. This time, BAC breaks away from its hardcore image to reveal its different faces.

In “The Heist,” choreographed by Tevia Pollard ’12, eight female dancers dominate the stage with fast and powerful moves, while keeping the audience engaged with songs by popular artists such as Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. This piece stands out because of how well the choreography, the music, the storyline and the costumes come together to amplify the overall impact. The audience is introduced to the piece through video clips depicting BAC members as secret agents whose mission is to steal diamonds hidden in the art museum. The actual dance is a continuation of this storyline, as dancers dressed in all-black, Catwoman-like bodysuits start dancing around the stolen diamonds. At one point, the dance becomes almost ritualistic, with red and green lighting adding a mystical effect. The moves are difficult and yet extremely well-synchronized.

“Kanaval La Rive!,” choreographed by Marvah Hill Pierre-Louis ’13, is another piece that highlights BAC’s effort to present a broader range of hip-hop styles. The piece is set to the uplifting beats of “End of Time” by Beyonce, “Go Dung” by Lil Rick ft. Machel Montano and “Dekole” by J. Perry ft. Shabba & Izolan. The choreography is nothing like what the audience would expect — the dancers wear brightly feathered masks and sparkling costumes. The dance is festive and gets the audience rocking to the beat. It’s a good break from the more rigid pieces.

For fans of BAC’s trademark powerful, sharp dances, the spring showcase also has much to offer. Many of the pieces, including the opener “The Legend of Stoop Kid,” choreographed by Ethan Leeman ’13, are of this style. Slower pieces like the all-male “American Gangster” by Jordan Best ’13 retain power despite their slower beat: The male dancers, dressed in clean-cut suits, move in full control.

However, “American Gangster” seems under-practiced. Some of the dancers have not fully mastered the moves, and the result is a piece in which the choreography does not fully sync with the music. The piece has so much potential that it comes across as a big disappointment when it turns out to be subpar.

Nevertheless, BAC makes up for this slight downturn with its ending piece, “The Legend of 5 Prospect,” choreographed by Leeman and Chidalu Onyenso ’14. Everything about this last piece — the choreography, the costumes, the theme and the sound effects — is original and revolutionary. What makes the piece especially thrilling is that it actually has a solid underlying storyline, as a group of Princeton students venture into an eerie, unknown building on Prospect Avenue. The entire company comes on stage for this piece, and yet there is no sense of overcrowding: They come in different groups, each representing an urban myth or horror creature. Expect to see zombies, monsters and vampires just as horrifying as they appear in the movies — except they dance, and they do it with swag. The choreography alternates between different styles of hip-hop as well. The sheer variety of the dances, costumes and music should be enough to capture the audience.

Overall, the BAC spring showcase is thrilling and unique in its theme and choreography. Just the fact that the good old “boy-meets-girl” theme no longer dominates the pieces should come as a relief. It is more than powerful, energizing or galvanizing — it’s a show with an actual solid storyline brought up to a whole new level of fun with a healthy balance between wit and tension.