My sweaty, inspiring night with dancers still rocking in their fifties

What’s it like to be an ageing street dancer? That is the question at the lively, beating heart of this production from Yvon Soglo, the Canadian street dancer and choreographer known as Crazy Smooth.
His company Bboyizm (motto: “Dance to express! Not to impress”) has been in London before as part of the annual festival Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells. The short run of this new show at the Southbank Centre is its UK and European premiere. It is a beauty: lively, thoughtful, hugely entertaining, and with a great understanding and appreciation for the heroic strength, passionate dedication and physical vulnerability of street dancers of any age.
Crazy Smooth sets the show’s tone in the opening image. He is a lone, still figure downstage centre, his nearly naked body a projection screen for a swirling spread of blood-red digital graphics by the multimedia designer Thomas Payette. Accompanying this is a voiceover in which the middle-aged, self-described B-boy for life talks about a series of knee operations that could, but have not yet cut short his dance career.
The stage is soon invaded by eight dancers who absorb him into their bouncy, bounding rhythms. The intergenerational cast is highly skilled and wonderfully engaging. DKC Freeze (nearing 60) and Tash (in her early fifties) are the elders, with slightly younger Nubian Néné and Crazy Smooth providing a bridge to the dancers JC Fresh, Montuu, Vibz, JK-47 and Ange.
Loaded with whirlwind spins, fast steps, flips, tumbles and twists, the choreography is virtuosic, sweaty and — something we are rarely allowed to see — exhausting, even for the more youthful ensemble members. Each of the older dancers has a chance to claim the spotlight, their stories and wisdom conveyed in voiceover (including a gorgeous piece of poetic text by Alejandro Rodriguez) or through their bodies. The cumulative effect is by turns exhilarating, moving and inspiring.
The assistant choreographer Saxon Fraser introduced the opening-night performance with an invitation to the audience to “laugh, cry and cheer”. Her suggestions were spot-on. For anyone hankering after dance that is artful and authentic, this is one to see. ★★★★☆65minTo July 20, southbankcentre.co.ukFollow @timesculture to read the latest reviews