BUCKWORLD tackles the age-old question of our existence and purpose. From the universal to the individual to the relationship between fathers and sons to our search for God, this production attempts to tell this expansive story through dance, spoken word, and historical video footage in a multi-media presentation.
This electrifying Hip Hop Theatre performance fuses Krump dancing with spoken word and interactive video projections in telling the story of our existence in and connection to the universe as well as to each other. Krumping is a type of street dance characterized by free, expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movement involving the arms, head, legs, chest, and feet. According to some “Krump” is a backronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise.
The youths who started krumping saw the dance as a way for them to escape gang life and “to release anger, aggression, and frustration positively, in a non-violent way.”
BUCKWORLD was developed through the CaliFest Theatre Workshop under the guidance of playwright and the University of California, Riverside theatre Professor Rickerby Hinds, one of the most influential individuals to come into the theatre world in a generation and a pioneer in the Hip Hop Theatre movement. He possesses the unique ability to challenge conventional notions of the stage through the use of popular culture infused with elements of hip hop culture while remaining respectful of theatre’s long history and honoring its traditions.
Each week throughout Southern California young people set aside their differences to participate in “Krump battles” in which they use dance moves instead of bullets. What may appear from a distance to be a fight in progress is actually the manifestation of amazingly creative and complex dancing conceived and executed by young people with no formal dance training and no motivation to dance other than their own need to express themselves artistically. With no youth theatre company and few performance spaces available, these weekly gatherings are, in many cases, the only opportunity for these young people to express themselves creatively. BUCKWORLD has taken Krump dancing and Hip Hop Theatre to the next level in a production unrivaled by anything previously seen on the American Theatre stage.
