Review: ZooNation’s ‘Some Like It Hip Hop’

Hip Hop is more than a music­al genre, it’s an artist­ic form of expres­sion found through poetry, music, visu­al arts and dance.  With expres­sion deep enough to tell a story… who needs words? I went to check out the ZooNation’s ‘Some Like It Hip Hop’, an inver­ted take on Billy Wilder’s cross dress­ing 1959 hit ‘Some Like It Hot’ mixed up with some famil­i­ar Shakespeare themes.

‘Some Like It Hip Hop’ is dir­ec­ted by cho­reo­graph­er and self-acclaimed Hip Hop lov­er  Kate Prince, who also dir­ec­ted the Hip Hop music­al ‘Into The Hoods’.

The story is nar­rated by Tachia Newall, com­pli­men­ted by his beat­box and rap­ping skills, along with soul­ful jazzy musi­cians and sing­ers. It is how­ever the visu­al mani­fest­a­tion of the act­ors who all speak the lan­guage of break dance, a power­ful tool of expres­sion that allows us to con­nect with the char­ac­ters in a world where words are no longer required. Using flips, krump­ing, break­ing, and moves that seem far bey­ond the bod­ies cap­ab­il­it­ies, the visu­als were mind-blowing!

So here’s the plot, a Gov­ernor whose grief from his wife passing has caused him to shut out the sun from the city and the people in it; lit­er­at­ure is banned, only men can work in the fact­ory while the women are treated like second class cit­izens left to domest­ic duties with a rule that they should only be ‘seen and not heard’, the ‘rejects’ live out­side the city walls and are left homeless.

Two rebel­li­ous prot­ag­on­ists played by Lizzi Gough and Teneisha Bon­ner whom after being kicked out of the fact­ory, dis­guise them­selves as men along­side a book­worm played by Tom­mie Fran­zen who joins them in their attempt to dance their way in to get work and re-enter the fact­ory.  Without giv­ing too much away the Governor’s daugh­ter also works her way into the fact­ory in an attempt to even­tu­ally reveal her­self and bring back the man that her dad once was.

The grimy, smoky set along with the light­ing works well to set the mood and the scene, espe­cially dur­ing the bunk bed scene, where the char­ac­ters are doing a syn­chron­ised worm!

‘Some Like It Hip Hop’ has raw­ness to it, very high doses of energy with styl­ish wit and humour. The show is a live jam that brings to life a tale of rebel­lion, rejec­tion of know­ledge, broken hearts, love and free­dom. The body move­ment of the char­ac­ters is dripped in emo­tion demon­strat­ing their moments of power, oppres­sion and struggle.  Going back to the early days of Hip Hop, it was used as a voice for the voice­less, a cre­at­ive tool used to empower, ‘Some Like It Hip Hop’ brings back this essence, and in many ways the dysto­pi­an city that exists in this story is a clev­er rep­res­ent­a­tion of today’s society.

With snappy, edgy, smooth, fast and slow dynam­ic dance move­ments accom­pan­ied by neck break­ing beats…Hip Hop most def­in­itely was alive! With its fant­ast­ic music, good vibes, and an ener­get­ic tal­en­ted cast you just can’t help but shake a leg, I highly recom­mend you check out ‘Some Like It Hip Hop’!

For tick­ets and more info Click here.

Rishma Dhali­w­al

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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.

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