Interview: Five and the Prophesy of Prana

Photographer: Hugo Glendinning

First of all, how did BoyBlue get started? 
Mikey: We started back in 2001 and we’ve been going from then ‘til now.  
 
How did you get together? 
Kenrick: We were actually dancing together since 1999. We had a group beforehand that fell through, and basically we took the younger kids that we had, and restarted a whole thing called BoyBlue Entertainment, so it pretty much started from the youth centre. We then moved onto Gymkhana where we started to do our stuff. But primarily our practice was in East London.  

What is your process for working together? 
K: It’s all a matter of creativity and inspiration. If for example, Mikey makes a beat, he gets me to listen to it and I’m inspired, I’ll make a piece. But then I could say Mikey I’ve got this concept of movement, and he might make music. So it really depends on the time of the creativity who inspires who and who takes the lead of our work.  
 
With The Five And The Prophecy of Prana, you’ve got Hip-Hop, you’ve got kung-fu and you’ve got manga, which is an interesting mix, what made you decide to combine those different forms? 
K: We’re lovers of all three. We love martial arts, we love manga and we love hip-hop/street dance, it kind of stemmed from a drawing that dictated a lot of art and design. I drew a character called Wang Tang Phooey and then one day me and Mikey started to jam, and he said “okay, there’s an idea here, there’s a show we can do which can mix all three elements together, and if you love your hip-hop you will see there is inspiration from martial arts especially in the dancing, break-dancing.  Also manga wise, there’s a cartoon called Boondocks, which has a manga-esque inspiration towards it, so they all kind of live in harmony next to each other. So we took the opportunity to bring all three together.  
 
How did you translate all the inspirations into a physical musical performance? Especially manga. 
M: The main use of manga specifically is in video. We wanted to make it a moving comic on stage. So the video really plays an integral part in setting the scene and setting the stage. It kind of happened naturally actually, in terms of let that be the state of the stage, so with projection and these intricate blocks we move around, you get movement of the stage. Mirroring the movement of the comic itself. Obviously hip-hop music lends itself to some of this style cos its birthplace is sampling breaks and other rhythms and other music so, the way to get music to lay on top of that was definitely something that works. The dance specifically was more… we did some workshops with some shaolin monks from a Buddhist temple in China, who came down and showed us their style, and it was more trying to find their similarities. We kind of started with our similarities first, then concentrated on the aspects we didn’t think would fit, and see how we could make them fit with the styles 
 
How did you translate those things that didn’t fit? 
M: Shaolin specifically in its style is more earthy in its movement, so you have to be more grounded to perform some of the moves that they do. With dance it’s more airy, and this is something that they kind of noticed as well, because it was a true exchange, not you show me this and I’ll show you that, it was like we were exchanging style and movements together.  That’s something we kind of found was positive, but at the same time it made it a challenge, and I think that’s always a good place you want to be in your creative process. 

M: I wouldn’t say personal philosophies specifically, but there were two things actually, cos from a musical aspect I did some workshops with kodo drumming, and the two are two very disciplined forms. Kodo drumming and obviously kung-fu and shaolin, it really is very disciplined, so that was something that really changed us as individuals, in terms of, we looked at being at total physical fitness, so we ended up training regularly, and that inspired not only the movement but it really helped open our minds and push us. 

Kenrick Sandy. Photographer: Hugo Glendinning

What training did you have to do with your cast? Did they have any martial arts background? 
M: Some of them have touched base with some form of martial arts in the past, but then what we did, all the practices and the training we got from the shaolin, we train up the dancers in them as well, so every morning they had to do the shaolin’s dances, they had to do the body conditioning, they had to work on all those different sections, as well as their choreography as well. From that we were able to mix everything together. 
 
In another interview you talked about how you helped your cast develop their characters and their animal characters, so can you talk about that a little bit?    
M: With regards to helping the performers with their different animal techniques, in shaolin there are very specific animal techniques, so what we do is to look at the dance styles which we are using, and see which animals fit the characterisation of the dance stuff, as well as the different martial arts we used for that as well. So for example, with krump, the way that the krump feels, it has the feeling of a gorilla, so we looked at certain things like jujitsu and judo, and stuff like that because of the whole grappling and the way that krump is. With regards to snake style, we looked at popular boogaloo and we also looked at wing chung, so all of them had different fields with regards to house dancing there’s a lot more footwork, so we looked at tae kwon do,  and then we looked at the animal being the horse, so it’s just a matter of looking at what we have, what we’re using, and how they can mix and become one entity.  
 
Do the actors have any input into their characters and the choreography or the music? 
M: In the show there are areas of self expressionism, so there’s opportunity for freestyle. With hip-hop and freestyle as well, we always allow for self expression because as a performer it helps you to bring something that is not manufactured, something that is quite raw and organic, and it’s in your face. At the same time we are working with them, looking how we can advance the movement and advance the styles, so it is a great team effort.  
 
Can unexpected things come from that improvisation? 
M: Definitely. Sometimes people will come out with amazing stuff. We try to promote maintaining some kind of structured freestyle, cos you don’t want someone coming on stage doing something completely random and then injuring themselves and you’re just like ah, that didn’t really work.” 

Mikey Asante. Photographer: Hugo Glendinning

M: That’s happened many times in the past. When we did our first show, Pied Piper, one guy decided that he wanted to climb up the gates and jump down, but it was a good ten foot drop. When he landed, I think the adrenaline took him and his ankle was busted. We did not tell him to do that [laughs].  

K The whole crowd was like 'whoa, that really was amazing!' [laughs] 

K: It was a little tough in the sense that he was all the way in Japan, and we were over here in London. We also had the language barrier as well. So not only the time barrier, and distance, but also the language thing. The first initial conversations were interesting, as there’s a different way of thinking with the Eastern way of telling a story, and the western way of telling a story. A lot of people did find it tough, the audiences in the UK with eastern stories and that. The way they put on manga and put it out there is more abstract, it’s more about you finding your way through the story, and you coming up with your own ways of looking at it. More like David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick, these kind of characters which really put onus on the viewer to make up your mind; which was definitely something we had to break ourselves out of when talking with them. Initially, with inspiration - I think  if we had the opportunity to be around him more and work with him more directly, things would have been very, very different. But, in that aspect he did give us something so inspirational in terms of the look and feel of the piece.  

 
What manga do you read? 
M: There’s loads of different manga’s out there. I more watch them, and they’re more older ones. I’m still into stuff like Ninja Scroll. Some of the newer ones, like Boondocks like Ken said, it’s a bit of a controversial show but the drawings are beautiful. That has, I guess, the best understanding of the connection between hip-hop and manga. Ghost In The Shell, Akira, Guyver. I read comics more, so more of the Marvel stuff. And the more commercial things.  
 
What Marvel titles are you reading at the minute? 
M: I’m kind of not reading any at the minute. I was reading Civil War and that was pretty awesome. The story was pretty layered, and I can see that The Avengers, the way that they’re doing The Avengers now and the movie, it’s definitely following that trend, so I can’t wait for all of that to kick in.  

What do you think sets The Five and The Prophecy of Prana apart from other dance & theatre performances? 
M: I think it’s a real journey, and it’s something very visual, that a lot of people haven’t seen before. That’s the one comment - people can catch the story 100%, or if they’re into their dance, their hip-hop more, it’s definitely something that you haven’t seen melded and merged as one on stage. You know, the three aspects, music, dance and visual, all kind of roll together, and that was the one aspect of the show we wanted to have - we wanted it to feel like a movie on stage. Something that took you on a ride. I don’t think there’s many, if any, hip-hop shows pushing that envelope. You definitely, probably will see shows after this that will resemble what we have done to a degree.  
 
Will you be doing any sight-seeing in Nottingham? 
M: On a tour, that’s the sad thing. You have to get up and get the show going. But on this one it’s slightly different. Cos, you know the show kind of goes on without myself and Ken specifically. We get it rehearsed, get it up, and then we leave it in the hand of our rehearsals dancer which is Skytilz- Vicky Mantey. So, she’s going to be looking after it for us. So, hopefully we can be more of sightseers.  But yeah, usually on a tour you don’t get that opportunity.  
 
You also do workshops with young people. What can people in your workshops expect? 
M: In regards to the five workshop? They can definitely have an introduction into… we basically made a whole new style. Pih-Poh-Foo and that’s basically hip-hop backwards, and what it is, is an amalgamation of all of the things the cast have had to learn to put on. If anything, depending on who the teacher would be, they would probably learn the style that is seen on the show, one of the animal styles. But definitely routine and fun times. As Ken said, hip-hop specifically is about self-expression. And that’s exactly what we promote more than anything else. So the opportunity to freestyle and showcase themselves will definitely be something that they’ll have the opportunity to do as well.  
 
Can we expect to see a sequel to the Five? 
K: That’s a very big question. You know, we want to keep everyone guessing, so can we just leave it like that?  
 
What's next for BoyBlue?
K: It’s more about spreading the good news I’d say. We definitely feel that hip-hop has a strong space and place in the UK, and its dance market. We’re definitely going to be pushing to create more work, more pieces, I mean every day we get called up to do different types of work, still spreading our way of doing what we do, and it seems to be connecting so it’s now trying to push that to another level. I think possibly in the next two years, another show.