by It’s a Sunday afternoon in Tower Hamlets, east London, and the room is full of teenagers hammering out a hip-hop routine, their trainers rhythmically swiping on the floor. It looks good, but Kenrick Sandy enters. He is a powerful presence, with a stillness about him and eyes that you feel are looking into your soul. “I’m listening to the weight distribution,” he tells the dancers, meaning he’s not hearing what he wants. “Feel the movement in your body, don’t just copy the steps.” He questions them about what exactly is phase energy, the difference between sharp, punchy or explosive. And it’s a stickler for the details: are the fingers together or apart? In his fist, is the thumb on top? In the space of 15 minutes to transform them.
This is how Sandy Boy Blue’s company has been so successful. Founded in 2001 by composer Michael “Mikey J” Asante, both not long out of school, the company emerged from an earlier incarnation, Matrix, a handful of dancers who would fight against other crews from all over of the capital at street dance events i. South London. But while other groups disbanded, or went to find “proper” jobs, Boy Blue rose high. They were soon training a cohort of 50 young dancers; they won an Olivier award in 2007; became an associate company at the Barbican centre; choreography for the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony; and reunited with director of ceremonies Danny Boyle last year when Manchester’s shiny new Aviva Studios were opened with an ambitious show, Free Your Mind, which mixed Alan Turing’s The Matrix with Mancunian pop culture.
In works such as Redd, Blak Whyte Gray and Emancipation of Expressionism (which is on the GCSE dance syllabus), Sandy’s choreography uses impactful and tightly drilled configurations, drawing on hip-hop, popping, breaking, krump and animation styles. It’s soundtracked by bass-driven loops from Asante, best known as a music producer for artists including Kano, as well as being the composer for TV’s Top Boy.
The two have different roles in Boy Blue, but are co-directors, and the sunny and talkative Asante is the one who explains the vision for their latest piece, Cycles. It’s a return to their hip-hop roots, and much of their recent work is narrative based, tackling deep topics or emotional states. “The notion of Black trauma is front and center in much of our work,” says Asante. In contrast, cycles are about movement, perpetual motion and the cycles of life. Asante began reading about ensō, the Japanese Zen symbol of light that represents eternity and circularity, but also presence in the present moment.
When we hear a few days later, in a rehearsal studio near the O2 arena in south-east London, it’s two weeks into an eight-week creative process and they still don’t know what the final piece will look like. “It’s starting to reveal itself,” says Jade Hackett, the show’s associate choreographer. Boy Blue has a real family vibe – Hackett was a dancer in the company back when it won an Olivier. She is cradling her 10-month-old son Asante on her lap. Meanwhile, Sandy describes how choreography comes about: sometimes deliberately, based on ideas about form and structure; other times more subconsciously, just by listening deeply to the music and seeing what emerges in his own body. Now he’s thinking about what makes a movement truly hip-hop and not just another dance step: the bounce, the head nod, the groove.
“You’re not just doing the dry biscuit bop,” he says. “You have to add the flavor, add the butter, add the jam. Asking, ‘What is funk? What’s swag?’ And taking those different energies.” Although hip-hop is originally an American form, this is the genre from the UK point of view, and the influences of garage, grime, jungle, carnival and Caribbean music are in the pot to make something British.
Music is at the heart of Boy Blue’s creation, and so is their friendship. At the age of 12, at school in Ilford, east London, Sandy was introduced to Asante with the words: “This guy can beatbox!” At 14, Asante was growing a goatee to try to join the famous UK garage club Twice As Nice and the two of them would be “raving in Ilford”. A sporty child, Sandy only started dancing seriously at 18. He joined a break class at a youth centre, and the teacher said he could do some freestyle in a show at Hackney Empire in east London as long as he learned it is also the last routine. An 11-year-old girl taught him the routine. “That was humbling,” he admits, but it was a revelation. “After doing that one show everything changed: my whole focus, my whole life. I was like: what is this feeling?”
Sandy began choreographing soon after, and he and Asante formed their first group, Matrix, in 1999, which morphed into Boy Blue a few years later. They always had other jobs on the side – a magnetic performer, Sandy danced in music videos, including the original video for Murder on the Dancefloor. “He didn’t tell me about it!” Asante laughed. “He thought it was too cheesy or whatever. You are part of British music history, brother!” And over the years, Sandy has choreographed for the likes of FKA and Rita Ora as well as major brand advertisements and musical theatre.
Teaching was also a huge part of their work. Boy Blue has trained hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young people over the past twenty years, creating an army of dancers – some of whom have gone on to become professionals themselves – and who have had a major impact on the street dance scene in London. Sandy’s mission has almost a moral basis, a sense of duty to the community: “If we had the keys to certain doors we could open, why not open them wide?” He says.
Unlike when Sandy and Asante were young, traveling miles around London to learn from other dancers, the teenagers who come to classes now have seen it on YouTube and TikTok. And while they can film their 30-second routines for the camera, they have no stamina, say Sandy and Asante. Here their students learn to be athletes, too. “We’re training them to perfection,” says Hackett. There is warmth and humour, but Sandy treats everyone like a professional. “I’m not trying to feed your ego, I’m trying to feed your mind and creativity,” he says. And the dancers rise to it.
There is a lot to come for Sandy and Asante. They will be guest artistic directors of the National Youth Dance Company later this year. As well as Cycles, some young Boy Blue dancers are playing at the Brighton festival in May and there are other things on the horizon that they can’t talk about. Asante, meanwhile, is also busy outside the company. Last year he wrote TV scores for African Queens on Netflix, and Criminal Record with Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo, and is about to start work on Romeo and Juliet with Jamie Lloyd, starring Tom Holland. He tells me that rapper Ghetts recently called him about a collaboration, but he didn’t have time.
You get the real sense, though, for both, Boy Blue’s motto for Sundays spent teaching – “Entertainment, education, sparkle” – is as important as any A-list pastime. “Watching others grow and grow is very rewarding, ” says Sandy. “It is lovely.”
Boy Blue’s Cycles is at the Barbican theatreLondon, April 30 to 4 May.
