Graffiti Breaks Free From Wall

The Hip-hop theatre pioneer Jonzi D explores the issue of whether graffiti really is an artform or merely vandalism. He directs a team of six of the UK's best break- dancers and body-poppers, who become "physical calligraphy" alongside specially commissioned graffiti "sculptures" and on-stage video animations.

The dancers, representing paints and colours, move within large, sculpted graffiti-style letters made of wood, steel and upholstery, all created by the British graffiti artist Prime, of Sculptural Graffiti. The dance theatre piece, set to a score by DJ Pogo that combines hip-hop break-beats and scratch patterns, charts the story of an obsessive graffiti writer.

"We're not trying to define whether graffiti art is a crime or not: we know that it is," Jonzi D says. "But it is also an artform. We are having a creative discussion on the vandalism and the criminality and the artistry of the form."

The graffiti artist is played by John Berkavitch, a performance poet and breakdancer who is also a graffiti artist. "Like a puppet master, he shapes the bodies of the dancers with an imaginary graffiti wand into images that come to life," Jonzi D says. "He is exorcising his personal and creative demons in the only way he knows how."

Since graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1993, Jonzi D has dedicated himself to hip-hop theatre, creating Lyrikal Fearta in 1995 and Aeroplane Man in 1999. He was an associate artist at The Place, London, and has performed dance theatre all over the world. He is also the creator and host of Breakin' Convention, the annual hip-hop festival at Sadler's Wells in London.