Merrily laughing, dancing and jumping is pretty tough, in 2025. Boomers will say it was never easy, but no one can say of today's generation of young men and women that they are wimps who freak out at every breath of wind. What it does lead to: krumping. This week at Theatre Festival Boulevard, I saw three performances, two of them in Tent Purple and one in the Pleinzaal of the Theater aan de Parade. Performances in which staccato movements from martial arts and rhythmic cramping express inner struggle and contained anger.
Most relaxed was the dance at Arjuna Vermeulen's performance. There, the three break dancers, tough men with tattoos, tackled the arena of Tent Purple mainly on aesthetics and strength. A few days later, I saw the work 'Time' by a young choreographer about four women whose mutual struggle and attraction took them firmly towards krumping.
On the beat
The breaking and krumping in Tent Purple is still sometimes a bit very precise to the beat, making the dancing a bit predictable. To the doom-filled soundtrack referring to wagnerkitsch, they did bring something that could be described as a support act for what got a spectacular climax that night in The Body Black Festival: Joy Isn't Always Joy, that night at the Theater aan de Parade.
This project marks Joseph Toonga's return to Den Bosch, having previously made a deep impression with the diptych Born to Protest and Born to Manifest. In those performances, the British choreographer made palpable the struggle Black youths face to survive in a predominantly white society that does not take kindly to them. Listen to the interview with Toonga from 2021 here: Joseph Toonga at Theatre Festival Boulevard: 'My daughters help me bring empathy to Hiphop' (English)Festival.
Black Joy
In The Body Black Festival, Toonga collaborates with three Brazilian dancers who deploy 'krumping' to maintain a happy look while under the skin a rock-hard battle rages to maintain their mental health. The frozen grin, which becomes increasingly convulsive, seems a reflection on the Black Joy movement, which brought cheer and dance into the fray during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
You can read about that in Vogue: "We can actively trace the spatial and temporal control of Black expression from slavery and colonialism through to today. This is why the act of joy is resistance and as we use our physical bodies to protest, march and demand change, we must also use them to experience the pleasure of joy. The London protesters underscored this point perfectly in June with their moment of spontaneously joyful movement.” What Black Joy Means - And Why It's More Important Than Ever
Torn
Joy as an act of resistance: it speaks to the imagination, but for Black men who have to present themselves daily in a harsh society while showing their soft side, it is tearful. Toonga is able to shape and make insightful that tornness like no other. A grandmaster of hip-hop and krumping, he has also joined the palaces of elite art, with an appointment at the British Royal Ballet. How nice it would be if, between him and the club around Arjuna Vermeulen in Tent Purple, something beautiful blossomed.
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