To Hip Hop With Love

Composed of three separate pieces, “Broadway to Hip-Hop,” “Sounds of Movement,” and “L.O.V.E.,” and supported by an eclectic soundtrack of music ranging from legendary rapper Busta Rhymes to the classic voice of Sammy Davis Jr. to poetry by Maya Angelou, To Hip-Hop With Love offers a kaleidoscopic view of African-American entertainment traditions.

With the technical facility of hip hop, the sophistication of the glory days of the Cotton Club, the flash of Rat Pack era Las Vegas, and elements of vaudeville, robot, tap, and mime, The Wondertwins create a distinctive style all their own. Identical twins Billy and Bobby McClain are six-time winners of Showtime at the Apollo, have been presented at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Yard, and the Music Hall Loft. They have appeared with Maurice Hines’ Club Harlem and toured internationally with Bobby Brown’s Don’t Be Cruel and Purple Rain/Apollonia’s Since I Fell For You.

The performance is preceded by a talk given by Rosemarie Roberts, Associate Professor of Dance at Connecticut College, whose artistic and scholarly work blend history, dance, and theater in order to conduct social psychological and anthropological investigations of Afro-diasporic dance as embodiments of difference, knowledge and resistive power.

Professor Roberts has taught workshops for people of all ages, directed programs and performed to diverse audiences at a variety of venues in the Caribbean and the United States including Yale University, Mount Holyoke College and Howard University. At the School at Jacob’s Pillow, Professor Roberts has taught Afro-Cuban dance. In 2006 she co-directed the Cultural Traditions Program and in 2009 was the Hip Hop Continuum Cultural Traditions Program research fellow. There, she launched her most recent project, "Locating Action, Power, and Knowledge Through the Body in Hip Hop Dance."

Co-sponsored by The Department of Theater and Dance and The Pugh Center.