Breakin' Convention

"We're not about bringing hip hop to the theatre, we're about bringing the theatre to hip hop," yelled MC Mell' O', unleashing a triumphal wall of sound from the Wells auditorium. On the evidence of the crowds packing Breakin' Convention this weekend, the hip hop dance scene is boiling with energy. This season at the Wells is not a lucky break, but long overdue.

Even a brief sampling of the programme shows how sophisticated and inclusive the language has become. The British collective ZooNation includes kids as young as seven and its participants display a technical commitment that ranks with the average ballet student. In the last three decades hip hop has spawned a huge vocabulary - from the choppy footwork and aerodynamic spins of b-boying to the fiercely, co-ordinated muscular squibs of popping. One member of the French crew, Vagabond, is master of a spinning hand stand, which involves him rocking from one hand to another with fluency and speed. The flying, somersaulting Koreans in Project Soul are as good as Chinese acrobats.

One reason why hip hop still feels like a young form is that everybody re-invents it. Vagabond bring the artful charm of classical French mime to their surreal comedy of Parisian mean streets. The Koreans mix traditional flute with hip hop beats to accommodate the peculiarly neat, gliding elegance of their style.

Rennie Harries, director of PureMovement, has proved that hip hop can work as serious dance theatre - though his solo Endangered Species did not sit particularly well in Saturday's stunt-focused line up.

Harries is a big man and a dangerous performer and the imploding desperation of his dancing was compelling. Disappointingly the accompanying lyrics, which presumably supplied the narrative gloss, were inaudible.

The latest hip hop hybrid is Krumping whose inventor, Tommy the Clown, sports a rainbow-coloured afro and frisks though funky conjuring tricks. It's his dance crew though who do the pure Krumping routine in which b-boy moves are performed with a demented juddering of the torso.

The crew often end up in flailing pratfalls, or suicidal leaps from the stage. It looks dangerous, anarchic and funny, but so far only kids in Los Angeles have been able to book Tommy for their parties.