INTERVIEW | EPHRAT ASHERIE ON THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD: WHERE THE CYPHER MEETS THE STAGE

Pho­to­graphy by Mohamed Sadek

As Hip Hop approaches its sixth dec­ade as a glob­al cul­ture, the theatre stage is increas­ingly becom­ing a space where its his­tor­ies, lin­eages and com­munit­ies are recon­sidered in new ways. In The Cen­ter Will Not Hold, cho­reo­graph­er and b‑girl Eph­rat “Bounce” Ash­er­ie joins forces with acclaimed tap dan­cer and cho­reo­graph­er Michelle Dor­rance to bring togeth­er a con­stel­la­tion of street, club and ver­nacu­lar dance forms that share roots in the Afric­an dia­spora. Expand­ing their intim­ate 2022 duet a little room into a full ensemble work, the pro­duc­tion gath­ers per­formers deeply embed­ded in styles includ­ing break­ing, house, Chica­go foot­work, Detroit jit, lite­feet, Mem­ph­is jook­in, tap and body percussion.

Premier­ing in the UK at Sadler’s Wells, the work unfolds as both a cel­eb­ra­tion and a reck­on­ing. Its title, drawn from W.B. Yeats’ The Second Com­ing, evokes a world shaped by instabil­ity and upheaval—conditions that echo the social and polit­ic­al envir­on­ments in which many of these dance forms were born. Against that back­drop, The Cen­ter Will Not Hold fore­grounds impro­visa­tion, live rhythm and col­lect­ive energy, draw­ing on the eth­os of cyphers, battle spaces and under­ground club scenes where indi­vidu­al­ity and com­munity exist side by side.

For Ash­er­ie, whose work con­sist­ently hon­ours the spir­it of New York City’s under­ground dance cul­ture, the pro­ject is also an explor­a­tion of lin­eage and respons­ib­il­ity. Bring­ing togeth­er dan­cers who are spe­cial­ists in dis­tinct region­al forms, the piece cre­ates space for each artist’s cul­tur­al iden­tity and impro­visa­tion­al voice while reveal­ing the deep con­nec­tions that link these prac­tices across time, geo­graphy and diaspora.

Ahead of the production’s Lon­don première, Ash­er­ie reflects on col­lab­or­a­tion, cul­tur­al lin­eage, impro­visa­tion and what it means to carry hip hop’s liv­ing tra­di­tions onto one of the world’s major theatre stages.

The Cen­ter Will Not Hold brings togeth­er break­ing, house, hip hop, club and social dances along­side tap, all of which are rooted in Black and Lat­ine ver­nacu­lar tra­di­tions. From your per­spect­ive, why does it feel import­ant to place these forms in dir­ect dia­logue with one anoth­er on a major theatre stage right now?

Black and Lat­ine ver­nacu­lar dances have his­tor­ic­ally been under­rep­res­en­ted, mis­rep­res­en­ted and/or diluted on major theat­er stages. Every oppor­tun­ity we have to cre­ate — as artists liv­ing, breath­ing and work­ing with­in these forms — is an essen­tial one.  Every per­former you’ll see on stage is a co-cho­reo­graph­er in The Cen­ter Will Not Hold.  The depth of each performer’s craft is undeni­able; through this pro­found level of artistry we see how these dances are at once intrins­ic­ally con­nec­ted inside of the vast con­tinuüm of dances from the Afric­an dia­spora and also incred­ibly spe­cif­ic in terms of styl­ist­ic, rhythmic and qual­it­at­ive nuance.  This dif­fer­en­ti­ation of each style has everything to do with which part of the coun­try each dance is from and the spe­cif­ic his­tory and socio-polit­ic­al con­text that birthed each form.  We hope that see­ing so many of these dances togeth­er in one work will leave audi­ences inspired to ask more ques­tions about each of these dances and their spe­cif­ic histories.

You and Michelle Dor­rance first col­lab­or­ated on a little room as a duet. When expand­ing that intim­ate exchange into a full ensemble work, how did your think­ing shift around com­munity, col­lect­ive rhythm and the polit­ics of who gets seen and heard on stage?

Both Michelle and I exist because of our respect­ive dance com­munit­ies. We were very lucky to learn from eld­ers in each of our forms who nev­er sep­ar­ated the dance from the cul­tures that birthed them, eld­ers who cre­ated, innov­ated and laid the ground­work for us to do what we do.

As white women work­ing in Afro-dia­spor­ic forms we are respons­ible for amp­li­fy­ing each of our dance lin­eages. Com­munity is impli­cit in what we do as humans and artists, but we are of course always in con­ver­sa­tion with ques­tions of race and iden­tity, con­sist­ently scru­tin­iz­ing our own pos­i­tion­al­ity in our work and the field at large.

For me, the val­ues and eth­os of the NYC under­ground scene — where the col­lect­ive con­scious­ness cel­eb­rates each indi­vidu­al in the full­ness of who they are — shaped me deeply as an artist and as human.  The duet Michelle and I cre­ated was reflect­ive of a moment when we felt con­fined by intern­al and extern­al chal­lenges — the pan­dem­ic, injur­ies, the aging body — when we had the oppor­tun­ity to expand the work, we were react­ing to the polit­ic­al chaos explod­ing in the U.S. — and it made all the sense in the world to cre­ate some­thing with our extended/interconnected dance com­munit­ies — com­munit­ies embody­ing gen­er­a­tions of dances from the Afric­an dia­spora that were birthed and innov­ated in reac­tion to oppress­ive envir­on­ments, through resi­li­ence in response to adversity and in and with com­munity, reflect­ing cul­ture, place and stor­ies his­tor­ic­ally hid­den, obscured and/or whitewashed.

Your work con­sist­ently hon­ours the eth­os of New York City’s under­ground club and battle spaces. How did you trans­late the val­ues of cyphers, social dance floors and free­style exchange into a the­at­ric­al con­text without los­ing their raw­ness or cul­tur­al integrity?

I am a b‑girl and a club­head.  This is with me in whatever I do, in every col­lab­or­a­tion and in every cre­at­ive space. The chal­lenge lies in how to craft a work for the stage that allows the audi­ence to see the full­ness and inher­ent com­plex­ity of street and club dances.   No longer are we in a packed cypher where the energy is palp­able and every per­son in the mix is ready to jump in and get down.  Now we’re in a large space, maybe even in a very form­al pro­scen­i­um, far away from our audi­ence.  The stage will nev­er be the club and will nev­er be the battle, but the stage has its own magic. I’m con­stantly think­ing about how to craft space to bring out the full­ness and three dimen­sion­al­ity of the dances we do.  In this par­tic­u­lar work, our beloved light­ing design­er, Kathy Kaufmann plays a big role in help­ing us shape the space, cre­at­ing a world where all these dances can live and breathe fully.   Both Michelle and I believe deeply in cre­at­ing work that is thought­fully and metic­u­lously struc­tured, but also leaves room for each dan­cer to freestyle/improvise. This is the core essence of all the dances you’ll see on stage.  All of the solos in this work are impro­vised, unique cre­ations by each per­former who shares so gen­er­ously of them­selves on stage, night after night bring­ing The Cen­ter Will Not Hold to life.

The cast is made up of dan­cers who are deeply spe­cial­ised in spe­cif­ic forms such as Chica­go foot­work, Detroit jit, Mem­ph­is jook­in, lite­feet, break­ing, house and body per­cus­sion. How did you nav­ig­ate the chal­lenge of cre­at­ing cohe­sion while allow­ing each dancer’s cul­tur­al and styl­ist­ic iden­tity to remain fully intact?

All the dan­cers in this work are unique and incred­ible artists. The way to hon­or each per­former and their dance is to make sure the work is craf­ted in a way that cre­ates the space for each per­son to be fully who they are.  This can abso­lutely exist along­side moments of full cohe­sion.  We are each our own spe­cial cre­ation, but we are also a squad with a com­mon goal.  When the work calls for it, we can move into and through a giv­en sec­tion with a deep uni­son approach — wheth­er rhyth­mic­ally or qual­it­at­ively — we are in it togeth­er. This doesn’t erase any one indi­vidu­al, but rather unites all our dis­tinct ener­gies into some­thing big­ger than any one of us could have ima­gined on our own.

The title ref­er­ences W.B. Yeats’ The Second Com­ing, a poem often asso­ci­ated with col­lapse and instabil­ity. How did that idea res­on­ate with your own exper­i­ence of the cur­rent social and polit­ic­al cli­mate, par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to hip hop’s role as a voice of res­ist­ance and survival?

Chaos is every­where. We are grate­ful to be able to share our art with audi­ences and hope it’s a call to action, to both ourselves and our audi­ences, that we can­not be divided, that even when the world is in the most unfathom­able levels of tur­moil, we can always choose care and kind­ness towards one anoth­er.  When we think about the begin­ning of break­ing and hip hop cul­ture —  we often think of the black and white pho­tos of the Bronx burn­ing down — icon­ic pho­tos of young Black and Lat­inx youth lit­er­ally cre­at­ing what would become the most all encom­passing glob­al cul­ture the world has ever known — out of rubble, broken down pieces of card­board, dis­carded lino­leum floors, beat-up mat­tresses.   This story will humble any­one with a beat­ing heart.  We remem­ber early under­ground clubs in NYC and that they were safe havens cre­ated by and for young black and brown LGB­TQIA+ youth at a time in NYC when it was illeg­al for two people of the same sex to hold hands in pub­lic, let alone dance togeth­er.  It was these com­munit­ies and their spaces that ushered in what even­tu­ally became known as under­ground dance culture/house dance cul­ture (big shout out to Chica­go — birth­place of house music), a cul­ture that is now present in so many corners of the globe.  You stop to think about it and it will floor you.

Those of us for­tu­nate to be part of these dance com­munit­ies, no mat­ter what our back­ground or life exper­i­ence, have a lit­er­al phys­ic­al remind­er every day of our lives and with every step that we rock, that we, as human beings, have lim­it­less poten­tial to be bet­ter than we were yes­ter­day, to cre­ate, to thrive in com­munity and lead with peace, love and soul.

Music and rhythm are cent­ral to both hip hop cul­ture and this pro­duc­tion, with live per­cus­sion and ori­gin­al com­pos­i­tion driv­ing the work. How does the pres­ence of live musi­cians affect impro­visa­tion, listen­ing and power dynam­ics between dan­cers and musi­cians on stage?

John Angeles is one of the most tal­en­ted per­cus­sion­ists I have ever worked with.  He and Michelle toured togeth­er in STOMP for years along­side Fritzlyn Hec­tor, an astound­ingly bril­liant and multi-faceted dan­cer and body per­cus­sion­ist.  The three of them are oper­at­ing in a dimen­sion of rhythmic com­plex­ity rarely seen on theat­er stages.  Their next-level per­cuss­ive­ness inspires all us on stage to con­stantly push our craft, to show and prove that we can indeed keep lev­el­ing-up and when called upon, hold our own, echo­ing the way many of us train to stay ready for the next battle that might come our way.

You have an aca­dem­ic back­ground research­ing the ver­nacu­lar jazz roots of street and club dance, along­side deep lived exper­i­ence in hip hop com­munit­ies. How do those two modes of know­ledge inform your cho­reo­graph­ic choices, and where do you see them inter­sect­ing in this piece?

I try not to sep­ar­ate know­ledge into modes.  Our bod­ies and minds are fully con­nec­ted.  When I got my MFA I was able to geek out and research/write about the ver­nacu­lar jazz roots of the street and club dances that we do.  This research, how­ever, was abso­lutely in response to grow­ing up with jazz in my ear (my broth­er is a beau­ti­ful jazz pian­ist) and hav­ing the immense gift of learn­ing from and dan­cing with Mar­jory Smarth (Rest in Para­dise).  A big sis­ter to many dan­cers of my gen­er­a­tion, she was the first per­son I saw so fully and effort­lessly embody a mul­ti­tude of dances from the Afric­an dia­spora. In one song at the club, Marj could seam­lessly move through vari­ous West Afric­an dances, ver­nacu­lar Jazz steps, Char­le­ston, Lindy, Hustle, Hip Hop, House…tracing her lin­eage and express­ing her own unique story.  She reminded us to “live true and dance free, “ a way into know­ing ourselves more fully and in turn know­ing oth­ers more com­pletely.  In The Cen­ter Will Not Hold we grapple with the tur­moil that is envel­op­ing the globe.  We can think through our feel­ings, write about them,  talk about them — fear, ter­ror, res­ist­ance, deep care, frus­tra­tion —  but ulti­mately mov­ing through it all in this work is what allows us to find our way for­ward together.

Col­lab­or­a­tion is at the heart of this pro­ject, par­tic­u­larly your ongo­ing part­ner­ship with Michelle Dor­rance. What have you learned from work­ing across dance forms that are often siloed by insti­tu­tions, and how has this col­lab­or­a­tion chal­lenged or expan­ded your own practice?

It is one of the biggest joys to be able to work with people I deeply admire, respect and love.  Michelle and I have been friends for two dec­ades and I have had beau­ti­ful oppor­tun­it­ies to per­form inside many incred­ible works that Michelle has cre­ated for her com­pany.  Work­ing with tap dan­cers — artists who are musi­cians and dan­cers at once —  inspired me to take son­ic respons­ib­il­ity for my move­ment.  What if every­one heard all my steps??  What dif­fer­ent choices might I make?  How deeply am I really sit­ting in this pock­et?  From these niche ques­tions to broad­er under­stand­ings of the way tap dance steps exist inside of ver­nacu­lar jazz, break­ing foot­work and house, my work with Michelle over many years has infin­itely enriched my jour­ney as a cre­at­ive being on this planet.

Present­ing this work at Sadler’s Wells intro­duces these forms to inter­na­tion­al audi­ences who may not be famil­i­ar with their cul­tur­al his­tor­ies. What do you hope UK audi­ences, espe­cially young hip hop dan­cers, take away from see­ing these styles framed as inter­con­nec­ted rather than separate?

First off, I want to shout out Jonzi D for all his years of mak­ing Breakin’ Con­ven­tion hap­pen and giv­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to so many hip hop dance theat­er artists to share their work. My com­pany was a part of Breakin’ Con­ven­tion when it was at the Apollo Theat­er in Har­lem, NYC in 2013 and it was beau­ti­ful to be part of such a long­stand­ing glob­al hip hop dance theat­er fest­iv­al.  This makes me curi­ous and think that per­haps Sadler’s audi­ences have some know­ledge and aware­ness of the many forms that are part of the world of street and club dance.  But yes, as I men­tioned above you, we are all all our own spe­cial cre­ations, yet our stor­ies are abso­lutely con­nec­ted because of the dances we do and their shared lineage.

What a beau­ti­ful under­stand­ing to have; what a deep respons­ib­il­ity and a remind­er that there is room for every­one to have a voice AND that we are all in this together.

Hip hop is often described as a liv­ing cul­ture rather than a fixed form. After cre­at­ing The Cen­ter Will Not Hold, how has your under­stand­ing of pre­ser­va­tion, evol­u­tion and respons­ib­il­ity with­in hip hop shif­ted, and what ques­tions are you car­ry­ing for­ward into your future work?

Exactly. Cul­tur­al reflex­ive forms are liv­ing and breath­ing.  In the early 70s, as break­ing was first being cre­ated, you could lit­er­ally tell what bor­ough someone was from based on the way they danced.   Com­munit­ies, neigh­bor­hoods, cities…they grow and shift. New stor­ies are con­stantly being cre­ated.  My break­ing ment­or, Richard San­ti­ago (aka Break Easy) foun­ded his cru Break­ing In Style (B.I.S) in 1979 in Los Sures (South Wil­li­ams­burg).  He taught us that crispy clean break­ing tech­nique that has helped me main­tain quick­ness and agil­ity through many years, but also instilled in me, and so many of the oth­er b‑boys and b‑girls that he trained up, to keep the spark of curi­os­ity and innov­a­tion alive.

Know your his­tory, know your roots, know why you dance the way you do and keep push­ing forward.

Tick­ets are on sale now for The Cen­ter Will Not Hold 

Grab yours HERE

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

Latest posts by Rishma (see all)

• INTER­VIEW | ILL-ABIL­IT­IES RETURN TO BREAKIN’ CON­VEN­TION ACROSS THE UK WITH BROKEN SOURCE — March 25, 2026
• INTER­VIEW | EPH­RAT ASH­ER­IE ON THE CEN­TER WILL NOT HOLD: WHERE THE CYPHER MEETS THE STAGE — March 5, 2026
• INTER­VIEW | BRIS­TOL DUO CODE RED DIS­CUSS NEW MUSIC AND THEIR HIP-HOP JOUR­NEY — Feb­ru­ary 23, 2026