'What we're gonna to do right here is go back, way back, back into time'¹¹ and look at the foundations that have been laid for us.  The traditions of Western theatre have been around since 6th Century BC, ancient Greece.  That's a lot of R&D so there is no need to try to reinvent the wheel, scan or scroll back for point 2).  Jam on the Groove was the first Hip Hop musical which opened in 1996, sponsored by Calvin Klein, and devised and executed by GhettOriginal - a dance company with the most incredible cast including Ken Swift, Honey Rockwell and Popmaster Fabel.  Being able to represent the culture in its true form by people who have helped to create and shape it was crucial to the company.  Ken Swift explained, 'far too often you have kids who've just come along and gotten into the music and culture after watching a video and they inadvertently and oftentimes intentionally distort and exploit Hip Hop to fit their own means.'  Jam on the Groove responded to the disintegration of the culture as witnessed by the company during the 1990s by reuniting dance, a live DJ and graffiti style creative on stage with themes of possibility and power.  Mr Wiggles set the scene by addressing the audience with GhettOriginal's 'want to destroy all the negative myths about Hip Hop culture today.'  Imagine if, twenty five years on and after, we internalise the essence of Jam on the Groove to establish the Midas touch¹².  Not gold though, everything we create for theatre becomes Hip Hop.  

Hip Hop as a narrative form is problematic as a terminology and is currently undergoing further development but is able to give a Funnybones¹³ skeleton to this inquiry. 
    • Hip Hop uses intertextuality inherently.  Music production is sample heavy, rappers quote other rappers and reference pop culture, specific bboy techniques are a pastiche of Kung Fu and other forms, beatboxing reinterprets every available sound creating a grandiloquent interrelationship between audios... to simplify, one key feature of Hip Hop is sampling, preferably with the help of an E-mu SP-1200.  
    • Traditionally, as Hip Hop artists we gain our stripes through battling, whether that's being called out on the dance floor, having your piece painted over or lined out, a scratch battle, or a vociferous rap battle.  These are all call and response scenarios.
    • Remember the proscenium arch under whose enormity we sat throughout the show?  This is also where the fourth wall is built, an invisible convention which allows the performers to hold space in a state of public solitude.  Hip Hop eschews the fourth wall each and every time.  Hip Hop is not a spectator sport, feedback and active engagement is expected.  Consider the role of the original MC, to host and toast, to hype the crowd.  Hip Hop carves out space for people to become crew – the families you choose, crews generate activity which swells to community, all on an exchange of energy.  Believe the hype, Hip Hop is not a passive dip the tip.
    • The last key feature to consider is Style.  Style is more than fashion.  This isn't about Lees and shells, this is the attention to detail, coming clean correk, boxed fresh and fully dipped.  Style can't be learnt, taught or bought.  It's innate,

you already know me.  Mighty
I'm the one girl, criss in the crew
naturally Bionic, majestic, touch my breast did
you clock my stance,         word choice and 
sentence structure as I 
rupture the standard, un-conform to the norm.
this is my manners, by my design.
wicked and wild my name is Style

Sampling        Call and Response        Violation of the Fourth Wall and Audience Participation        Style                 become our four main features of the Hip Hop narrative form.  It is an expository approach from a specific point of view which compels our audience to a valuable conclusion.  How we respond to this structure is up to us but already it provides a starting point for an authentic Hip Hop experience which has not been re-imagined for theatre, or is a theatre version of, but instead a holistic cultural expression specifically for theatre.  As makers it is our responsibility to continually re-evaluate process and content from our cultural position with a spatial-appropriate awareness.  Step into the Quantum Leap accelerator and 'driven by an unknown force to change history for the better... striving to put right what once went wrong,'   we can re choreograph this article's opening show.  The first lighting state revealed a full stage.  If there are twenty dancers on tour, it is unlikely they are all getting p's.  A massive part of elevating our art is to stop devaluing it by committing to opportunities with little or no fee.  Ken Swift impressed back along with Jam on the Groove, that that was why it was essential for Calvin Klein to step up their financial backing.  Casts may need to be refined to quality over quantity, opening a separate discussion for another day, Crew into Company: boundaries for art and professionalism.  

It's the end of September.  I am late with my deadline but will not ever be entertaining the shameful excuse of 'Hip Hop time,' another stereotype that we ourselves have perpetuated.  Outside the leaves are retiring from their branches and we are blowing through the Autumn equinox, when the sun shines equally on the northern and southern hemispheres.  A time for harvesting and sharing, for shedding what we have outgrown, and remembering the deceased.  And every passing of the seasons brings change.  I hope fam, we have grown up from gunshots and unison accentuated with a tokenistic bboy move.  And bboys, which I am using respectfully to refer to all genders, when you are choreographed to perform a move, honour your craft and rehearse it.  Each and every.  No marking.  Just like any other dancer would expect to.  Directors, don't acquiesce to the notion that its a hardcore technique that can only be realised in the moment.  If it can't be done in rehearsals how is the dancer ever going to build the strength and stamina to safely perform it on repeat on tour?  

During the 1990's and into the 2000's, Battle of the Year provided a unique platform for bboy crews to consider choreography in a developed form.  Prior to this the general extent of a crew's group choreography would consist of an 8 bar tops routine, a couple of short commandos and maybe a link, all with the strategic aim to a) lengthen a battle round, b) prevent other dancers from entering the circle or c) bolster the rounds of your weaker dancers.  To qualify for Battle of the Year which was for many years, the most important international battle and held in Germany, your crew would be judged on a choreographed showcase designed to flaunt crew unity and also demonstrate individual members' strengths and idiosyncrasies.  This is an interesting template to harvest and after more than 30 years of ripening, it is crucial to acknowledge its limitations as the base for theatre work and to sift the wheat from the chaff in order to develop high cailbre long form work.  An artist who has been choreographing in long form for many years, is Robert Hylton.  I caught his Verse and Verses show in 2006 when one of my crew members, Ladybug, was dancing on the tour.  The work was deftly removed from the stereotypes, presenting an abstracted vision for Hip Hop theatre.  The challenge here was about negotiating the physical demands of the company – how to extend the type of energy and muscle use required for a full power 30 second throwdown into an evening's work.  Not dissimilar to the contrast between a 400 metre sprinter drawing on phosphocreatine and a marathon runner's oxidative system.  We simplify, we deconstruct, we take yoga and meditation to learn how to breathe fully and maximise our capacity, and manage our stamina.  Then we get to produce a piece of theatre such as The Ruggeds, Between Us which was received with a standing ovation on opening night at London's Peacock Theatre earlier this month.  I'm there, I'm in the audience, thankyou Karine @BreakinConvention.  I have enjoyed the show but I am wondering how many of the assembly whom I have shared this experience with, are bboys.  For crystal, I appreciated and savoured the evening but I have seen The Ruggeds in circles.  I have seen them battle so I know that the choreography in Between Us is a fraction of what they are capable of.

The darkness folded me again into the well worn velvet seat, designed with an innovative tip-up mechanism that provides numerous advantages including maximising seating capacity.  Taking space on the stage doesn't directly equate to reaching house capacity with our community.  But if we stand strong with integrity to our own heart and strive to portray the essence of our culture through our work, whilst recognising all that theatre can provide, we have a remarkable platform to tell our stories with our voices.  When I was pregnant with my youngest Chaya, I took a school trip to The Place to watch Jonzi D's Aeroplane Man.  The students were emerging bboys I was mentoring.  Not interested in theatre – or Shakespeare, ballet or opera, to paraphrase.  I had told them to look out for the dance techniques they'd been working on and to write down what inspired them.  The piece has little dance in it.  It's a monologue.  Chaya is now 22.  Aeroplane Man is still my favourite piece of Hip Hop Theatre, and it opened the door for those students to have a sustained interest in theatre.  As with the nature of Hip Hop, success is about collaboration, teamwork, Strength In Numbers.  An ingenious marketing lead who understands and respects the balance between cultural markers and accessibility, alongside education activity will go a long way to demonstrate relevance to a broader sector.  A driven contact at the theatre who has the authority to implement change and a genuine interest in developing Hip Hop Theatre, rather than just box ticking, will foster new audiences to feel welcome.  And then, in part, back to us to decide how comfortable we want our audiences to be.  

'If you say it with your eyes I might just believe you.'