Genres:
Dance
Culture & Society
Theatrical Release: 06/24/2005(USA)
Release Date: 01/01/2001
Sound: DD2/DD5.1
Run Time:
Flags: Brief Nudity, Adult Situations, Adult Language, Drug Content
Distributor/Studio: Lions Gate
Noted photographer
David LaChapelle makes his feature directorial debut with this
documentary on a new facet of street culture in South Central Los Angeles. In 1992, after long-simmering racial tensions in Los Angeles erupted in riots following the verdicts in the
Rodney King trial, a man named
Tommy Johnson sought to spread a new message in a new way to the city's African-Americans. Creating a character called
Tommy the Clown,
Johnson developed an act that combined
hip-hop-flavored
comedy and dancing with an anti-gang and anti-violence message.
Johnson's performances became wildly popular in South Central -- so much so that at one point, 50 different groups inspired by
Johnson's example were performing in the area. In time,
Johnson's loose-limbed dance style inspired a new wave of
hip-hop street dancing called "krumping," a wildly athletic style in which arms, legs, and bodies fly with a frenzied abandon that moves at almost inhuman speeds.
Rize follows the birth of clown dancing and krumping in South Central, and records how many young people have adopted the dance as a style of competition, offering a safer and healthier alternative to the gang culture that has long dominated Los Angeles.
Rize premiered at the
2005 Sundance Film Festival.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
;)
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