FRINGE REVIEW: Cultural Renegades bring 90’s era cypher circles to Perth
From the moment you walk into the Lotterywest De Parel Spiegeltent, you know you’re in for something special. DJ Aslan is on the decks (a guarantee of excellent tunes) and the dancers are moving throughout the audience – discernible only by the aura of cool that surrounds each of them. The legendary Strictly DT opens the show with some spoken word and introduces the theme that runs through the night – that of togetherness and joy. These are evident in every single second of this tightly choreographed show.
The love they have for their craft is evident on the face of every performer. Even when some emergency mid-show floor repairs were required by an overzealous stage manager they just brought the show outside to the pleasure gardens. Maintaining the energy of a crowd through an unplanned intermission must have been incredibly difficult, particularly not knowing if the show would, in fact, continue inside at all. In the midst of the confusion, the entire crew stayed true to the mission of togetherness. They remained enthusiastic and generated crowd participation as a make-do rhythm section while some improvised and deeply impressive breakdancing carried on.
When we were allowed inside again the party continued with dancehall vibes, and some massive moves from Alex Mubanga – Perth's king of dancehall. If you've not caught his Instagram, you are definitely missing out on some sweet dance move inspiration. He takes over crew leadership from the truly remarkable Chido Mombeshoro. Along with the move to dancehall came some serious twerking worthy of a Cardi B music video. In short, Cultural Renegades is a show which dares you to try and stay still – and the crew take this to its natural conclusion for the final number, where the audience became the show.
Cultural Renegades is the dearly loved creation of Lisa Crowe, acclaimed dancer and dance teacher at Perth’s Dance Workshop, as well as Kieran Crowe (Assistant Creative Director and choreographer). They’ve pulled together a crew of brilliant hip hop and dancehall dancers to recreate a 90s B-boy and B-girl extravaganza that you do not want to miss out on!
