The Archive · Legacy
Rennie Harris
The Man Who Put Hip-Hop Dance on the Concert Stage
1964 – Present
Dance Mogul Magazine · Legacy Series
Introduction
Before Rennie Harris, hip-hop dance existed in two worlds that did not communicate with each other. There was the street — the ciphers, the battles, the clubs, the block parties. And there was the concert stage — the proscenium theaters, the season subscriptions, the grant-funded modern dance companies. Hip-hop had no seat at the concert table. It was considered too raw, too informal, too Black, too young to merit serious institutional attention. Harris changed that. In 1992, he founded Rennie Harris Puremovement in Philadelphia, creating hip-hop’s first concert touring dance company. In doing so, he proved that street dance could hold a stage, sustain a full evening of work, and speak to the full range of human experience without losing the essence of what made it powerful in the first place.
Historical Context
Harris grew up in North Philadelphia in the 1960s and 1970s, surrounded by the first generation of hip-hop culture. He was not a latecomer. He was there for the foundational era — locking, popping, breaking, social dance, house, and the party culture that tied them all together. He trained in these forms on the street, not in a studio, and that grounding in the community-based, improvisational tradition of hip-hop would define his artistic philosophy for the rest of his career.
By the late 1980s, the mainstream media had declared breakdancing “dead.” The commercial fad had passed. But in Philadelphia and other cities, hip-hop dance was thriving underground — evolving, getting more sophisticated, developing new styles. Harris saw an opportunity and a necessity: hip-hop dance deserved the same institutional support, the same performance infrastructure, and the same critical attention that modern and contemporary dance received. He founded Puremovement to make that case.
The company’s breakthrough work, Rome & Jewels (2000), was a hip-hop reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet set in the context of Philadelphia street life. It premiered at the American Dance Festival and toured internationally. The work demonstrated that hip-hop movement could carry narrative, convey emotional complexity, and function within the structural demands of a full-length concert piece. Critics who had dismissed hip-hop as entertainment were forced to reckon with it as art.
Harris proved that street dance could hold a stage and speak to the full range of human experience without losing the essence of what made it powerful.
Cultural Impact Across Generations
Harris’s impact is both artistic and institutional. Artistically, he expanded what hip-hop dance could say. His works addressed violence, grief, community, love, and spiritual transformation — subjects that the concert dance world associated with modern and contemporary forms but rarely attributed to hip-hop. By bringing these themes to hip-hop choreography, Harris demonstrated that the form had the same expressive range as any other concert tradition.
Institutionally, Puremovement opened the door for every hip-hop concert company that followed. Before Harris, presenting organizations did not program hip-hop. After Puremovement proved that audiences would come, that critics would engage, and that the work could sustain a touring schedule, the landscape shifted. Today, hip-hop choreographers regularly receive commissions from major presenting venues, festivals, and dance organizations. That infrastructure exists in part because Harris built the proof of concept.
Harris has also been a major force in hip-hop dance education. He has served as a professor at multiple universities, including Colorado College, and has been instrumental in establishing hip-hop as a legitimate area of academic study within university dance departments. His work bridges the gap between the oral, embodied tradition of the street and the written, theorized tradition of the academy — a bridge that benefits both sides.
Key Legacy
Rennie Harris founded hip-hop’s first concert touring company, proved that street dance could function as serious concert art, and opened institutional doors for every hip-hop choreographer who came after him. His work from Philadelphia fundamentally changed how the dance world categorizes, funds, and presents hip-hop.
Value to Society
Harris’s work addresses a fundamental question of cultural equity: who gets to be called an artist? For decades, the concert dance establishment treated hip-hop as a street novelty while extending institutional support to forms that were no more technically or emotionally complex. Harris did not petition for inclusion. He built his own institution and forced the establishment to respond. That model of self-determination — creating the infrastructure rather than waiting for permission — resonates far beyond dance.
For Philadelphia specifically, Harris’s work has been transformative. Puremovement is a Philadelphia institution. Its existence has put the city on the map of concert hip-hop in a way that parallels Alvin Ailey’s impact on New York’s modern dance identity. Harris demonstrated that artistic innovation does not require a New York or Los Angeles address. It requires vision, persistence, and the unwillingness to accept that your art form is less than anyone else’s.
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