(Posted November 17, 2003)

HUNTINGDON, Pa.--Combining hip-hop music and dancing, Rennie Harris Puremovement brings the spirit of hip-hop to the stage by way of the Juniata College Artist Series at 8:15 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 22 in Rosenberger Auditorium in Oller Hall on Juniata campus.

For tickets and information about the Juniata College Artist Series, please call (814) 641-3605 or visit the Web site www.juniata.edu/arts. General admission tickets for single performances are $20. Single-show tickets for seniors over age 65 and children age 18 and under are $12. Juniata College students are admitted free with a student ID.

During its world tour to celebrate ten years of existence, the Rennie Harris Puremovement dance company will hand Juniata College a taste of break dancing, house dancing, stepping, and other dance styles that emerged from urban areas across the country.

The performance will not only include new work from Rennie Harris, but also a repertory of acclaimed works from the past ten years, including ?Endangered Species,? ?Students of the Asphalt Jungle,? ?P-Funk,? ?March of the Antmen,? and ?Continuum.?

Rennie Harris, artistic director, choreographer, and director, created the Rennie Harris Puremovement company in 1992 as a way to preserve the hip-hop culture through workshops, classes, lecture-demonstrations, mentoring programs, and performances.

His latest and first full-length work is a piece called ?Rome and Jewels.? The work presents another side to William Shakespeare?s tragedy ?Romeo and& Juliet.? It focuses on love through the perspective of Rome, a young gang member who tells his story using hip-hop dancers.

Harris has toured the country and abroad with ?Fresh Festival,? the first hip-hop tour in America. During that tour he worked with Run DMC, Fatboys, Kurtis Blow, and Whodini. Harris has also worked with Kool Moe Dee, West Street Mob, Salt ?n? Pepa, and other hip-hop stars.

Harris received the Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Choreography in 1996, and received awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a Pew Repertory Development Initiative grant, the City of Philadelphia Cultural Fund, and 1996 Philadelphia Dance Projects Commission. He has been nominated three times for the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Harris is also a recipient of Chicago?s Black Theater Alvin Ailey Award for best choreography for 2001.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.