HOWZAT

“I love graffiti culture,” Jonzi says. “These are the unsung heroes of hip-hop culture because they are not performers. What they do has a sort of guerrilla tactic: they present their art in secret at night.

“I wanted to explore that within a theatrical context and discover the psychology behind it. Why risk your life late at night just to put your name up somewhere? The artist in Tag wants to challenge authority consistently; where does that come from? His childhood? We are exploring the struggle of a young kid who wants to say something and isn’t allowed to; he’s forced into his bedroom to scribble out his angst-ridden desires. His dad doesn’t want to know; he doesn’t connect with his child. At school it’s the same kind of thing, so then he wants to challenge the entire system.”

Jonzi also wants to challenge our preconceptions of how far hip-hop can go in a dance context, to show that what started as 90-second bursts of intense energy in the streets of the ghetto could expand into long sequences of theatrical movement.

“We wanted to spray the theatre with a can,” he says. “But we quickly realised that everybody would leave the theatre high because of the fumes. So we came up with the idea of physical calligraphy.

“The graffiti artist Prime has collaborated with a sculptor to create five three-dimensional letters made from metal, wood and upholstery. The dancers climb in, on and around these five structures. We use waving and popping techniques to have these dancers gradually drip from the set so that they represent paint themselves. Instead of using aerosol we are miming aerosol.”

With a tour that encompasses Nottingham Playhouse (which is co-producing Tag with Sadler’s Wells) and theatres in Malvern, Manchester, Ipswich, London and Leicester, it’s clear that Tag is targeting a mainstream theatregoing audience.

“Of course I would like the existing theatre audience to check out what I do,” Jonzi says. “But I would actually like to get a lot more people into the theatre. And if you saw Breakin’ Convention last year at Sadler’s Wells, that’s what we did.

“I’m not interested in changing what I do for the existing audience; I would rather take the exciting, vibrant and kinetic culture that is hip-hop and bring that to the theatre.”

Tag has its premiere at Nottingham Playhouse (0115-941 9419) on Jan 31 and runs until Feb 4, then tours to Malvern Theatres (Feb 11); Contact, Manchester (Feb 17-18); New Wolsey, Ipswich (Feb 24-25); Peacock Theatre, London WC2 (March 2-4); and Peepul Centre, Leicester (March 18)

Get on down — dancefloor moves for the supple

BREAKDANCING

Also known as b-boying, breakdancing originated in New York in the 1970s with influences as diverse as ballroom dancing and Shaolin kung fu and became famous in the film Flashdance in 1983. Breakdancers spin on the axis of a part of their body as well as doing combinations of hops, flips and kicks, among others.

BODYPOPPING

Impress your friends with snake-like contortions: bodypoppers move their joints in sequence along the arms, torso and legs so that a wave appears to travel across the body.

LOCKING

This funk dance was a product of Don Campbell’s inability to dance the funky chicken in the early 1970s; he became known for “locking” his arms with every move, inspiring people to urge him to “do the lock, Campbell”. He created some more moves and patterns, and hence Campbellocking, or locking, was born.

UPROCKING

Got someone you’d really like to smack? Dance with them: uprocking is a dance fight in which the dancers move as though in a kung-fu battle but with more rhythm and continuous movement.

WINDMILLS

Rolling from shoulder to shoulder, the dancer waves his legs in the air continuously to form circles, much like a windmill might, if it had legs.
LOUISE COHEN