Reggie Gray: 'Flexing is storytelling. Our bodies become the vocabulary'

Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray and Young Identity explain how their show explores the world through a fusion of dance and spoken word

Brooklyn-based dancer Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray never imagined that a street dance style he invented during his lunchtimes at school would go on to become a global craze. Used by Madonna, Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj, to name a few, Gray’s “flexing” dance became a phenomenon thanks to the audacity of its moves – many of which look physically impossible – and its powerful political comment.

“The style itself was an evolution of the bruk-up and a lot of dancehall from the early 90s,” Gray explains of flexing’s Jamaican roots. “Bruk-up means ‘broke up’ and in flexing, moves are broken up and limbs flexed awkwardly. We contort our bodies into something that looks impossible, taking our inspiration from things like The Matrix, anime cartoons, Dragon Ball Z.” One of the moves, “bone-breaking”, looks as if limbs are being dislocated as the dancer’s bodies “fold like origami”, as one critic noted. “That’s very much our wow factor,” Gray beams.

Read the full article from The Guardian here.