Boy Blue: Redd

A searing work by hip-hop duo Boy Blue turns the stage into a mindscape of black depression, but – like depression itself – can become heavy-handed


In 2017, Boy Blue – the hip-hop partnership founded in 2001 by choreographer Kenrick Sandy and composer Michael Asante – broke new ground with Blak Whyte Gray, a stark, plotless work that was dense with ideas and feelings materialised in sound, visuals and motion. Their follow-up, Redd, occupies similar stylistic ground (the “misspelling” of the colour in the title signals the connection), but suffers somewhat from sequel syndrome: a good piece on its own, yet outclassed by its predecessor.

It’s also a much darker work. The central figure is Sandy himself, who begins shut inside a chamber of harsh light on the smoke-filled stage. One arm skitters as if rattling the bars of a cell. Bolts of energy galvanising his chest and shoulders feel trapped, too, but here the cage is his own hunched body. In the shadows, further figures stalk like guards, or rush past like fugitive thoughts. Asante’s lo-fi score echoes the division between sharp focus and murky penumbra, foregrounding ricochet rhythms and cattle-prod jolts against a background of hisses, echoes and crackles.

This staging serves less as setting than as a state of mind: black depression. Each scene works through another configuration of this engulfing condition. In one, the eight dancers amass behind Sandy, dogging every move. In another, they prod and manipulate him like dispassionate examiners. One man mirrors him like a contemptuous alter ego, mouth agape and arms raised in sneering challenge. One by one, Sandy heaves the others’ bodies on to his shoulder, every one an inert burden. The dancers pose awkwardly as if for a group photo; Sandy inserts himself into the picture, his smile as false as theirs.

Another alter ego appears upstage, each slash of his arms causing another figure to tear off from the fake photo, leaving Sandy alone with a rictus grin.

There’s real pain in these scenes, and skill in both composition and performance. Their relentlessness and occasional heavy-handedness are perhaps justifiable: that’s what depression is like. But the hopeful resolution feels unearned and overstretched, relying more on mime (affirmatory nods, hands pressed to hearts) than on choreography.