Netflix’s Move Shows Dance Expanding

You don’t ordinarily think of dancers as inspiring but Netflix’s new five- part series Move will make you reconsider.  The show travels the world and introduces you to people who are not only masters at what they do but also qualify as visionaries in the way they approach dance.

Charles “Lil Buck” Riley and Jon Boogz, profiled in the first episode, could be thought of as elite dancers who probably shouldn’t have been dancers at all.  At least by conventional thinking.  But neither of their lives were conventional in the sense that they weren’t introduced to dance in the usual ways; by parents or teachers when they were kids.  Each just happened to have been born with an innate joy of movement.  A craving or passion that made them dance to achieve personal fulfillment even when they were very young. 

Listening to their stories, you realize children shouldn’t be growing up like these two charismatic, bright and engaging young men had to.  In settings with depleted education and opportunity resources with far too easy access to crime and failure.  The exceptional and strong can sometimes persevere and escape.  Riley and Boogz did. 

Jookin became Lil Buck’s magic carpet to a future.  A street dance style that blossomed in Memphis, Riley’s home town, the dance style is noted for its emphasis on elaborate footwork.  Riley was mesmerized by it in his youth and by the time he gained his renown through it and became its ambassador, he saw an equivalent to the dance form in ballet.  He’s not the only one.  Check out his performance with Yo-Yo Ma where he dances to the gauzy beauty of classical music and you’ll see why his acclaim is so broad.  Extending his skills well beyond footwork, his entire body becomes a fluid expression of delicately suggestive and poignant movement. Attributes you don’t usually associate with street dance.

Jon Boogz story carries a lot of similarities with Mr. Riley’s.  Just push the backdrop to Philly but keep the compromised infrastructures, police overreach and limited horizons.  Like Riley, Boogz was a dynamo just-can’t-help-myself dancer at 5.  According to his Mom, he got her dance genes.  Then, just as he was entering his teens, he saw Steffan Clemente, aka Mr. Wiggles, perform and was dumbstruck.   Never had he seen someone move as if their limbs were made of water.  Clemente was a pioneer of the locking or popping style of dance and gained worldwide notoriety for the audacity of his skills.  Boogz was smitten and vowed he would master the same craft. 

From different points on the map, both Riley and Boogz headed to Los Angeles to make their dance dreams come true.  With just $20 in his pocket and only 19 years old, Riley was undeterred by the height of his mountain and started dancing for dollars on the street immediately.  Following the same script, Boogz did the same thing making it inevitable they’d meet.  What couldn’t have been foreseen is that they’d end up working together to pursue the same goal; practicing their art and building its mainstream validity. 

Directed by French documentary film makers Thierry Demaiziére and Alban Teurlai, viewers get a strong sense of the people central to these tales of triumph over often monumental challenge. You also get to hear directly from the artists’ mouths what dance means to them.  Their sincerity and eloquence are as impressive as their dancing.  For those who relish the arts, the series reveals dance forms that may not be completely familiar; but are indisputable in their beauty, power and importance.    

Move

Netflix