The 818 Session

Miss Prissy and Lil’ C spoke at USC Annenberg on Sept. 11.

In addition to coverage from LA Weekly, KCRW, and Studio Patch, The Underground received the following press for the September 5, 2012 USC Visions and Voices show: Huffington Post, USC Graduate School, USC Annenberg, Daily Trojan and a VLADO Footwear Spotlight video.

Neon Tommy also posted 10 articles — Program Notes, Alter Egos, Newbie Fan, Flash Mob, Worm’s Krump Fu, Female Krumper Krucial, Krump Reaches Primetime, Show Review, Krump Workshop — about The Underground, thanks to Sasha Anawalt’s USC Specialized Journalism (The Arts) class.

Mijo, King Charles, Miss Prissy. Photo by Dan Carino.

It was a long, long line that snaked away from USC’s Bovard Auditorium as the sun was setting Wednesday night, a diverse crowd and potential full house of 1,200 waiting to get in for the premiere of The Underground: From the Streets to the Stage.

So while we waited, we talked about what we were going to see: krumping, done live and in a theater.

Krump is street dance, L.A.-born street dance, 10 years old. In the 2005 documentary movie Rize, photographer and director David LaChapelle revealed its edgy wildness to a much larger audience. Here was an angry-looking dance; its participants were proud competitors with one another. The dance was shaped by equal parts frustration and joy, the effort to overcome the hardships of South Central and the creative spirit. A few of the movie’s leading dancers have since made it into the big-time of music videos and concert tours, including Underground performer Christopher “Lil’ C” Toler, who is also a guest judge and choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance.

The Underground was choreographed and directed by another krumping celebrity, Marquisa “Miss Prissy” Gardner, who has formal training in ballet, tap and jazz, but ditched it for street dance. Arts journalist and USC graduate Jessica Koslow (who writes about street dance for the Weekly) fell in love with krump and pushed to produce this first fully staged, theatrical show. …

Read full article at LAWeekly.com

KCRW’s Matt Holzman previews “The Underground” at USC on Sept. 5 for Which Way, LA?

In 2005, fashion photographer David LaChappelle made a documentary called “Rize” about a dance style that was born on the streets of LA. Now, two of the dancers featured in the film are taking this raw form of expression and bringing it to a more polite environment. KCRW’s Matt Holzman has more.

The Radio Shack and the bank in this mini-mall in North Hollywood have been closed for hours.  But if you drive-through the Carl’s Jr. on a Wednesday after midnight, you’ll see a group of guys – mostly African-American – standing around in the parking lot.  Most people hurry off with their burgers.   But that’s too bad, because they’re missing something.

A skinny kid in a baseball cap enters the circle, and everyone goes nuts as he punches and jerks… “raw” is the word that comes to mind. …

Read full transcript and hear audio at KCRW’s page