“My style is Mutant.
As a mutant my power is to project a sequence of images through my body that tells an elaborate story to music. The power to storyboard / ballet / jazz / African / contemporary / bruk up / flex / boogaloo.
My earliest inspirations were stop motion films. And watching the locals get down in Brooklyn. My vision was to bring the golden age of motion picture to the streets. So I concluded that it starts with me.
And, so I aimed to conceptualise all of my earliest street dance battles into theatrical style productions with movie scores and theatrical music. And, as the round began I became this Ray Harryhausen / Tim Burton style creature, but only dancing to music. This was my illusion and my goal was to epitomise this presentation.”
I swear I didn’t set out to try and one-up Lazer Horse. The other day he introduced you to the Black Lion Dancehall Dancers, and their, erm, ‘interesting’ take on what modern dance should look like. It’s pure coincidence that over the weekend I also stumbled upon someone with a unique view on the whole dancing thing and I too have no option but to share him with you.
Storyboard P is not your average street dancer. You won’t find head-spinning or jerky body-popping here. He’s basically developed a completely new style of dance (or maybe just taken to the next level what some people have been trying to do for a while, pretty much since MJ first did the moonwalk). I’ve never seen anything like it.
He was lucky to be born with elastic limbs and joints of jelly, but the skill is in the control. He has complete control over every fibre in his body and can move them in such a way that he can just flow, like a fluid.
This is the video that introduced me to Storyboard. It’s a short film made specially for Flying Lotus’ new album Until The Quiet Comes. The music’s by FlyLo himself (if you don’t know him, educate yo’self), Kahlil Joseph shot the pictures, and Storyboard P starts throwing some shapes at 1:50.
☛ More: Weirdass Street Scuptures By Mark Jenkins
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVHC1DXQ7U’]
But that’s only a little cameo, just to give you a little taste of his skills. I meant to properly look into him sooner but it wasn’t until this weekend, after jumping on a train to London to see FlyLo live (speed review: the visuals were mindblowing, but his recorded music is a lot better than his live stuff), and then while spending Saturday toasting it up with my Manchester mates, that I saw Storyboard in full flow, literally.
Witness this:
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE4X3sCVpws’]
And I saved the best ’til last.
From about 1:15 to 2:37 I am speechless. Honestly, his moves just put me in a trance:
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKZOd3IAIPk’]
So go and look up more of his art (it feels weird using the word ‘art’ seriously to describe something I actually care about, but that’s exactly what it is) and spread his name, because he deserves to be famous – certainly a lot more than the people that actually are famous these days.
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