Rennie Harris had the audacity to take hip-hop dancing out of the club and put it on the concert stage.
Two decades later, the Philadelphia choreographer's masterful mash-up of styles arrived at the Wyly Theatre as Dallas Black Dance Theatre premiered Thinking of You, a commissioned piece built around intricate footwork and house music.
Company members have never looked more joyful than they did Friday night. Donning typical club-wear designed by dancer Michelle Zada — snug jeans, casual shirts and ties for the guys, belly-exposing halters for the gals — the 13 performers channeled Harris’ interpretation of the dance-floor interactions that marked the Chicago and New York house scenes from the mid-1970s to the late ’80s.
The “Winter Series” show, which also includes works by Alvin Ailey, David Parsons, Ben Stevenson and former company member Zach Law Ingram, repeats Sunday afternoon.
As the men emerged first, Sean J. Smith faced an audience that was already cheering the attitude-laden antics and checked himself out as if looking approvingly in a mirror. The dancers moved in sensual pairs, small groups or all together, hopping heel-to-toe and lightly scraping their feet on the floor in a kind of hip-hop petit allegro.
The movement grew more liquid as composer Josh Milan’s house soundtrack became funkier and Latin and African beats crept into the mix. Near the end of the 10-minute piece, curtains cordoning off the wings and the back of the theater flew away to reveal the lights and the scaffolding holding them, perhaps symbolizing the way that hip-hop dancing has come to permeate our culture.
Earlier in the night, Parsons' light-as-air Nascimento (1990), named after Brazilian singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento, anticipated Thinking of You with its own vocabulary of hops, skips and whirls.
In the first and liveliest section, eight dancers clad in electric shades of festive tropical wear kicked their heels and traversed the stage — wing to wing — with leaping turns, their outstretched arms parallel to the ground. Later, during a ballad, the performers hugged and held hands before falling together into a stylized pile of sleeping bodies.
Phoenix, choreographed by Ingram in 2008, set slinky balletics to the pulsing minimalism of Philip Glass; Ailey's solo Reflections in D (1962), with music by Duke Ellington, allowed the compact, coolly leaning Smith to show off his elongating skills; and Stevenson's 1984 duet End of Time found Richard A. Freeman Jr. cradling Diana Herrera to the Romantic strains of Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata in G minor.
Manuel Mendoza is a Dallas freelance writer. He blogs at dfwdance.wordpress.com.
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2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora St. $15-$55. 214-880-0202. www.attpac.org. www.dbdt.com.