Celebrating An Oft-Overlooked Genre: Reviewing 'Crazy Smooth: In My Body' at the Southbank Centre

★★★★ | When it comes to Crazy Smooth: In My Body, the name speaks for itself: "crazy smooth" perfectly encapsulates the nine dancers who graced Southbank Centre’s stage for a night of street dance. Hailing from Canada, this multi-generational troupe offered a night of fragility, energy, and exemplary dance moves.

An exploration of the highs and lows of the street dance genre, the production alternates between fast-paced, energetic sequences and vignettes of fragility. Moments of vulnerability emerge from the bold choreography, offering personal accounts of the problems that come with a career in dance: ageing, motherhood, and injury. The journey we are taken on does not hold back from displaying this art form in all its ugly and beautiful glories – the reality of being a street dancer is merciless, but the accomplishments and abilities that one reaches are so worth celebrating.

Photography Credit: Jerick Collantes

While most of the show maintained a high-octane intensity, the slower moments felt drawn-out at times. Notably, one slow dance sequence lasted around 15 minutes, featuring a female dancer ambiguously moving as strip lights flooded the stage, largely obscuring the audience's view of her. Later joined by a male dancer, the two gradually moved around the stage as a pair, intertwining their movements. Despite being emotionally charged, it felt unnecessarily long.

Equally, the use of light projections appeared superfluous on occasion, detracting from the performance instead of enhancing it. Visual effects mimicked the dancers as they moved across the stage, projected onto the back wall as specks of colour. A blood-like red light represented injury, but this could easily have been otherwise portrayed through movement. It felt as though the show would have functioned just as well without these additions - which in itself is a credit to the impressive talent of the dancers on stage, whose performances effectively captured all of these emotions on their own.

Photography Credit: Rita Taylor

Unlike the lighting projections, an aspect of the show which was paramount was its unwavering sense of community. The dancers invited everyone in the space to become part of the show itself: from encouraging the audience to cheer the dancers along, to sparking healthy competition by hyping each other up as they performed. This built a close rapport between the audience and the cast, breaking down the walls between those on- and off-stage. For an hour, we were all members of the street dance scene.

Ultimately, the sheer talent and skill of the dancers provided a vibrant evening of entertainment, and one worth watching. Although it had a few shortcomings, it was a fantastic evening, well-spent celebrating a genre of dance which often goes overlooked.

★★★★

Crazy Smooth: In My Body plays at the Southbank Centre from 18 July to 20 July.