“First,” says Victor Quijada, artistic director of Rubberbanddance Group, “it’s not hip-hop on stage. But the circle is the circle is the cipher—it comes from that energy we know as hip-hop … and the dancers do use their bodies like B-boys and B-girls, using the arms to support the body, rather than decoratively, as in ballet.”
Quijada, who began his career breakdancing on the streets of L.A. (that’s where he earned the nickname “Rubberband”) is also classically trained in ballet; he’s danced with Twyla Tharp and Les Ballets Canadiens, and draws as heavily street dancing as he does his formal training. But the resulting movement style is anything but a collage, he says. “What I didn’t want to do was cut and paste,” he says. “It’s not like you’re going to see an arabesque and then a john rock.” Rather, it’s a natural result of assembling a company that includes breakers and ballerinas, then re-training their bodies to dance in a style that’s a hybrid of the two, yet not identifiably either one.
“It’s a new and interesting vocabulary,” he says of Rubberbandance, “and we’re only beginning to explore it.”
RUBBERBANDANCE GROUP (November 17–19). $14 & $17. Times: 7 p.m. Fri, 1:30 & 3:30 p.m. Sat & Sun. COCA Family Theatre, 524 Trinity, 314-725-6555, www.cocastl.org.
