Rize

I just saw David LaChapelle's Rize, a documentary about a dance sub-culture in South Central Los Angeles. Watching the clowning and krumping must be something like the feeling back in the 1970s or early 80s when people got their first glimpse of breakdancing. Like most non-Black people not from L.A., I'd never heard about this stuff before.

My first reaction, which was sustained throughout the entire crappily edited and stupidly directed movie, was inspiration. The dancing is awesome to look at -- fast and furious, skillful, inventive, a new and different blend of breaking, Hip Hop dance-moves and, apparently, the birthday party moves of "Tommy the Clown" -- but more inspiring even was the community and social good that it seemed to create. It was kids of all ages -- 15, 20, 12, 4, both boys and girls -- and they came together to boast and battle on the dancefloor as an alternative to being gangsters or just plain busters.

It feels so very positive that a large number of kids have been able to put dancing over the lure of the street, and they seem to get tons of strength and love from each other in the process.

And, excuse my bluntness, but Black people are just way better and more innovative dancers than others. I'm not going to get into the argument about whether it's some genetic thing they carried from Africa (a point that LaChapelle makes very unsubtly, by interspersing images of krumpers in face-paint with black and white footage of African tribesmen painting themselves and ritually dancing in a way that may or may not be similar) or a cultural thing learned in the community, but they've got it. And, again, everyone else is left to imitate, romanticize, co-opt.

I guess it's also just the simple matter of when you've got very little, you appreciate more and make better use of what you do have. Also, the combination of a highly attuned style-consciousness and an active sense of competition in Black neighborhoods seems to thrust good ideas quickly into the local spotlight (long before they get picked up by outsiders).

As for the movie itself, David LaChapelle should be chastised for taking such a wealth of nice footage (he's got a real aesthetic eye and is a champ behind the camera) and many good interviews and throwing them into such a mess of a documentary: too-long takes on nothing, contrived shots of silhouetted dancers on the beach, soft-piano strewn tear-jerking shmaltz. Just show the fucking dancing and let the kids talk, David!!