Groovaloo- From the Stage to the Street

By Nancy Sheehan TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

Dance imitates life, and sometimes it can even save one.

That’s what members of the hip-hop dance troupe the Groovaloos tell us in a vibrant presentation based on real life stories of the cast. The stories reflect the hardships — from drugs to abusive parents — that often accompany growing up in the inner city. Troupe members’ triumphs speak to the transformational power of dance.

And they certainly know how to dance.

In a performance during a recent run at the Union Square Theatre in New York City, the troupe put on an eye-popping display that included several gravity-defying flip sequences, amazing synchronicity, dizzying spins in the neck-on-ground-feet-in-air mode, and captivating herky-jerky robot-like movements. It was an exhibition of athletic prowess but also of extraordinary finesse.

The Los Angeles-based Groovaloos have recently become familiar to national TV audiences through appearances on network shows including “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Superstars of Dance,” on which they took top prize. They bring their eponymous show with its hip urban vibe and supercharged choreography to The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts Tuesday.

All the television exposure has helped hoist an already successful dance group up to a new level. The Groovaloos had been playing smaller houses, in the 300- to 600-seat range. But last month they kicked off a nationwide tour of larger venues, including the 2,300-seat Hanover.

The troupe’s founder, Bradley Rapier, and director Danny Cistone, worked together to meld the choreography with narration that tells the dancers’ stories, what they love about dancing and what it has meant in their lives.

Some cast members have left and been replaced since “Groovaloo” premiered in L.A. in 2003, but most of the dancers are telling their own stories, including Rapier, who came from more somewhat fortunate circumstances than the others. His decision was, “Do I dance or stay in medical school?” He bid his textbooks goodbye and hasn’t looked back. (This did not sit well at first with his father, a doctor who had hoped his son would follow in his footsteps, but Rapier’s enduring passion for dance eventually won him over.)

We spoke with Rapier by phone recently, catching up with him as he rode in the troupe tour bus somewhere between Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky. “It’s pretty exciting,” he said, of the larger-venue life. But there are challenges. For one thing, the troupe is used to staying put for a run of two weeks to three months in a theater that becomes a temporary theatrical home. Now, it’s a new house every night. And a big one at that.

“We’re popping into these places where you don’t see anybody until the lights come up,” Rapier said. “So there’s a little bit of a distance.”

Does that affect the performance?

“Initially you feel a little bit detached,” he said. “When we first started the tour in Florida, it was a weird feeling: Are they going to connect with us. Is it going to work the same way?”

Somehow, it works even better, he said.

“The response has actually been greater,” he said. “They really react and get inspired, and people are up on their feet and it’s resounding. It’s just really humbling, but also awesome, to see that the story and, of course, the dance and the things that we put together are working in this format.”