“When everybody strips off and we’re all in our boxers, you can’t tell who’s 50,” says Canadian B-boy Crazy Smooth. “We’re all dancers, we’re all ripped,” he laughs. “Tash is a five-times grandmother, she’s got four kids, and she’s got a six-pack.”
Smooth, AKA Yvon Soglo, is talking about his latest show, In My Body, and its cast of hip-hop dancers who range from their 20s to late 50s. It’s a piece that tackles the reality of being an ageing B-boy in a culture that’s often associated with youth – witness the ultra-athletic, acrobatic moves from the breakers (the proper term for breakdancers) debuting at this year’s Olympics.
Natasha “Tash” Jean-Bart is 53 – although on screen on our video call she could pass for a couple of decades younger. “But in my brain I’m still 20,” she says. What moves can she still do? “My body can still do everything!” she insists. “The knee drops, the dives …” But she has to make a judgment on when she’s going to do them these days. “If you injure yourself, the repercussions are huge. It doesn’t take a week to heal, it might take a year.” Smooth, who is 44, and calls himself the “bridge” between the young generation and the “OGs”, has had four knee surgeries. When he was young he bounced back, but now “every time you’re questioning, have I made the right choice? What happens if I can’t dance?”
After his last injury, Smooth asked his doctor if he could go back to running the 10ks he used to do. “And he’s like, put it this way: let’s say you have 100 kilometres left on your knees. You decide what you want to spend it on, you know? And then you’re faced with your mortality, and that’s what the show is about, essentially.” It’s a tough conundrum when the thing that brings you pain, dancing, is the same thing that gives you the most pleasure. “It’s what’s giving us life, what’s making you smile, what’s making me feel good. It’s extending my life, and at the same time it’s killing me faster?” says Smooth.
The oldest member of In My Body’s cast is 59-year-old DKC Freeze, a Canadian B-boy legend (born David Dundas) who has been dancing since the late 1970s – his crew opened for James Brown in Montreal in 1984. He pops, locks and breaks, but “forget about flying moves, forget about spinning”, he says. “I still battle, I can challenge some kid once in a while,” he adds with a twinkle in his eye. The passionate urge to move hasn’t changed. “DKC is the oldest, but I have to monitor him the most,” says Smooth. “When we’re on tour we have a lot of shows and I tell him, hey, watch your ankle, and then I’ll come around the corner and he’s on his back dancing.” DKC laughs like a kid caught out being naughty. “I don’t feel nothing when I’m doing it,” he says. But after …” DKC might not have the stamina he once had, but he can still bring it. “I don’t dance for three hours,” he says. “But for one hour, I’ll be hype.”
Smooth calls the older dancers “living libraries” and thinks it’s essential the generations learn from each other. “If you take the elders out, then it’s a circus because we don’t know where we’re going. If the youth is not there, then there’s no energy.” As well as their embodied knowledge, there is plenty that older dancers can bring to the stage. Despite the nod from the Olympics, “this is not a sport”, says Smooth. Artistry, creativity and spirit are what make a dancer. “The person that can give you a little fire in your belly.”
When they started out, none of these three performers expected dance to turn into their career. “Back in the day, if you were 17 that was considered old,” says Smooth, who came to Canada in 1984 from Benin and first got into dancing watching Michael Jackson videos and the movies Beat Street and Breakin’ (known as Breakdance in the UK). Jean-Bart was born in 1971 in Montreal and grew up alongside the birth of hip-hop, dancing in her neighbourhood, in the streets, at parties and clubs and on trips to visit family in New York. She never formally learned what to do, just absorbed it from those around her. Smooth says the younger members of the cast can’t outdance her. “For Tash it is like breathing, it’s effortless, like she’s not even trying.” She agrees with him. “I’m not trying,” she laughs. “I’m enjoying myself.” It’s the same for DKC. As soon as he hears the music, he can’t help but keep moving: “Movement is medicine, is what we say.”
Crazy Smooth: In My Body is at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, 18-20 July
