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Way in 2011 – that’s the oldest on the Internet – Memphis street dancer Charles Riley, also known as Lil Buck, became engaged to singer Yo-Yo Ma, dancing at Saint-Saëns’. Swan. Buck’s dance, a type of footwork called jookin, sees him traversing the floor with bare-bones grace, moving through the air. Unlike many hip-hop and street dances (as well as contemporary dance), which are deeply rooted in the world, jookin goes the way of ballet, abandoning gravity.
Buck’s career has since seen him dance with Madonna, Alicia Keys and Mikhail Baryshnikov; he has worked with Versace, Spike Lee and Cirque du Soleil. Now his latest collaboration is with Oxford University, where he has been invited to be a visiting fellow at the new Schwarzman Center for the Humanities, built with £185m from US Private Equity billionaire and Trump financier Stephen Schwarzman, whose portrait hangs on the entrance to the bright and airy space with a concert, two theaters, a gallery and a cinema. It also has several groups of humanities studies at the university and the new Institute for Ethics in AI, the idea that these courses can work together and close the gaps between students and professionals.
In terms of ethics, there have been questions about accepting Schwarzman’s moneyand the issue of further opportunities at Britain’s richest university. Of course it is good for those who are lucky enough to benefit from it, and dance, sometimes confined to its silo, being part of discussions and other studies is necessary to remain relevant in the outside world.
Lil Buck’s position gives an idea of what that conversation might look like. He has worked on the history of jookin as a form of Memphis dance, and as a historian at St Hilda’s College, gathering ideas about 21st Century dance and 18th century dance history. Fred Astaire (you can 100% see where they are coming from). The most visible result is the performance, 1776, a collaboration with two of the best youth dance companies, ZooNation and Oxford Body Politicslooking back to the founding of the United States 250 years ago, the legal concept that “all men are created equal” is what independence and freedom really meant to its citizens then and, perhaps, now.
In Buck’s words, equality was a “broken promise”. Freedom for some means oppression and equality for others (hard to argue with when slavery still exists; still important under the current regime). Figures of authority wearing outerwear rule over tightly closed heads – most hip-hop dances are built on vivid sounds, the isolation of some body parts, in pops and freezes, while others are closed, explains the story well.
But you can’t lower the spirit and tone, the sound always comes out, each individual wins, and a relaxed, fluid sound is heard through the dancers, exorcism and closed steps, closing, krump and more (ZooNation’s Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe is co-choreographer). Buck generously gives a role to his talented young people – Andrew Jackson’s leading dance moves can be on fire – but when he appears on his own with talent, he sweeps the room, he is stopped in awe, doing what all great dancers do, which makes you feel that you are in completely safe hands.
Debates about the ethics of art work continue, but the value of a project like this is well known. The most uplifting part of 1776 comes at the fencing game, where all the young players form a circle and each one takes his turn, Buck cheering them on. Joy and fellowship are filled to bursting; it is true freedom of movement.
