There is a scene in Downtown 81 that our current situation (the early days of Trump's second term) can learn from. The year is 1981. Reaganomics is bringing to an end the pre- and post-war policies and programs that vastly expanded the US's middle-class. Interest rates are rising to 20%. Labor is under attack. Cities are rotting. And in an East Village basement (or at least what looks like a basement), we find people dancing to hip-hop: a "DJ from the Bronx" is furiously cutting Blondie's "Rapture" as Melle Mel raps about having "81 rhymes... 81 scholarships from 81 schools... 81 rings.... 81 shows." One of the dancers is Jean-Michel Basquiat. He is not yet famous. He is broke. He is in a zone, as he bops to the left and to the right.

Some might say that the dance scene is about escaping reality. But this is the wrong formulation of the situation. It's closer to the truth to describe poverty in the richest capitalist society as unreal, and joy, which is very human, as real. You were not born to just experience continuous economic misery. This is far from the meaning of life, which doesn't have to be "poor, nasty, brutish, and short." We were not born to be wild, but to enjoy, together, the world as much as possible. And one way to express this fact is to get your back up off the wall and dance.

This is the inspiration for Bust A Move, a show that explores the history of dance styles in hip-hop. What DJ Vitamin D, Professor Daudi Abe, and myself want to demonstrate and celebrate during the Royal Room performance is the politics of joy—it is a form of resistance in a time when "darkness is all around," when cruelty is the order of the day. Indeed, it's not an accident that Trump likes to dance during his rallies; he is dancing to and for himself. He can't dance with others because that would actually be joyful. 

Hip-hop dancing is democratic, which is why there are so many moves, so many innovations. The Pee-wee Herman, the Humpty Dance, the Crip Walk, the Booty Drop, the Running Man, the ATL Stomp, the East Coast Stomp, the Cat Daddy, Upstairs Downstairs, the Mary J. Blige, the Biz Markie, and on and on to the break of dawn.   

Bust a Move: The History of Dance Styles in Hip-hop at the Royal Room, May 11