[soft ambient music]

(Describer) KQED.

We truly believe that street dancing started it all. Without street dancing, there wouldn't be ballet or jazz or tap.

(narrator) Dancer, choreographer, artistic director. Rennie Harris founded the first and longest running hip hop theater company, creating new possibilities for dance.

(Dancer) He was the first person that helped me realize the value of Blackness and Black dance forms.

(Speaker) Rennie was just magic on the dance floor. So fluid.

(Speaker) He knows how to bring the true essence of street dance forms to the stage, and he's the Philadelphia legend. Hey, this is Rennie Harris, and I'm here with "If Cities Could Dance" in Philadelphia.

(Narrator) Rennie breaks down with us five major moments in his life.

(Describer) Dance legends: Rennie Harris. If Cities Could Dance: Philadelphia.

Rennie's dance story is rooted in North Philly during the late '60s and 1970s-- a vibrant era of Black culture in the city. Philly get down in every which way. I just came up knowing there's a strong culture.

(Narrator) As a student of Catholic school, Rennie envisioned becoming a priest. But his gifts in dance were apparent even as a young GQ dancer or stepper with his first crew, the Step Masters. When street dance styles changed, Rennie started popping, influenced by West Coast dancers moving East, and he danced with the Scanner Boys. We were taking these styles and like morphing them, and changing them, and shifting them. There were always parties, there was always jams. Especially in this summer, we'll walk from one side of the city to the next side of the city to go battle somebody. So yeah, it was a full on culture happening and brewing.

(Narrator) After the Scanner Boys wowed audiences at a performance on the National Mall, Rennie and members of the crew landed an audition to tour with top rap artists on the Fresh Festival.

(Rennie) So after we got off the stage, we would go into the audience and battle cats in the audience. Then I find out like, oh, Whodini's doing this video. I'm like, oh, okay, let's all jump in it.

♪ Friends... ♪

We're gonna sing "Friends" and everybody's just gonna pile out. We're still not thinking this is gonna be like [whooshing). I'm just watching this, like looking out your window and watching everything happen.

(Narrator) After coming off tour, Rennie landed his own TV show, recorded in Philadelphia.

(Describer) One House Street.

Rennie wanted to give local dancers some shine and recruited talent from the city's underground club scene to dance on air. Yo, yo, yo, I'm Rennie Harris!

(Rennie) I went commercial with it and my personality. "Hey, I'm Rennie Harris! Da, da, da!" You know, that kind of thing. That was the gig. I had some problems like far as what I was wearing. I started growing my hair in locks.

(Narrator) Show producers told Rennie they thought his hair locks would turn off some audience members. So you'll notice on those shows, I have a hat on. And that was like the compromise. We're coming out of a culture that was everything is about white is right.

(Narrator) While the show regularly beat out Soul Train, and Club MTV in ratings, it was canceled a year later.

(Rennie) And that was a major lesson like in the industry. You think you're somebody and then you're like, no, not yet.

(Narrator) By the early 1990s, many of the Philly dancers Rennie came up with had stopped dancing, but Rennie's purpose only grew stronger. I realized, like, dance was my thing. And through the dance, I was gonna see God. Through the dance, I was gonna feel God.

(Narrator) After getting his first commission from a local theater, Rennie created his first solo work, a timeless piece that he'd continue to perform for audiences across the country.

(Describer) Endangered Species.

(ethereal voiceover) No one could tell me the first time I would see someone shot that I would be eight. I called it "Endangered Species" because at that time, this was the language that people were using about young Black men, which they're still using. I didn't do anything but pop. I'm just trying to really feel the vibe of like what the inside was doing, and how the inside was reacting, and all those moments in my life from my childhood to now. And then in that journey, the only thing I could figure out is that there was two things I had to do in my lifetime, and that was to stay Black and die.

(Describer) In the dance, he collapses to the floor.

It changed me as a choreographer. It changed the way I looked at choreography. I'm creating my work for me. This is my healing.

(Narrator) This marriage of street dance and theater became the template for future work he'd create with his company, Rennie Harris Puremovement. Its first full length work, Rome and Jewels, re-staged Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set in Philly with rival gangs fighting for control. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star crossed homies take their life.

(Rennie) Rome is a homeboy thug slash kind of like a scholar, but he doesn't know that. Men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee. It reminds me of me a little bit. He has one foot in the street and another foot in the universe.

(Narrator) Rome and Jules was a hit and Rennie became one of the most sought after artistic directors and choreographers. For the first 20 years of the company, people had never seen anything like it. They've seen hip hop in theater, the acrobatics entertainment part of it, but they hadn't seen street dance used in an expressive way with a narrative abstractly. We were the only cats out there doing it on that level.

(Narrator) Spiritual enlightenment, freedom, and cultural understanding are dominant themes in Rennie's work, and why he's been dubbed the High Priest of Hip Hop.

(Narrator) Whether he's staging his next production, teaching, or making bridges between the pioneers of street dance and the new generation of dancers, he spreads a different kind of ministry.

(Rennie) It's not just about performing; it's about being embedded in the community. I think what we're fighting for is humans on the planet, is individuals just to be seen, to be acknowledged.

(Narrator) Thanks for watching, y'all. Check out our other episodes of "If Cities Could Dance," and let us know in the comments below other dance legends we should feature.

(Describer) Accessibility provided by the US Department of Education.

See you next time.