With the success of musicals like Hamilton, it may not seem unusual that the Orpheum Theatre will premiere an important slice of Memphis African-American history this Friday and Saturday, focused on a turn-of-the-century music and dance craze that rose from the streets to take the world by storm. The star of the show is a dancer who is still making that history: Memphis’ own Lil Buck.
By now, most locals have heard of Lil Buck, aka Charles Riley, as he’s rightfully become a global ambassador of sorts for the style of dance originally known as “gangsta walking,” “choppin’,” or “buckin’,” now known over the world as “Memphis jookin’.” As he says now, “Ever since I first saw Memphis jookin’, I’ve always been intrigued by it, and I always had such a deep love and passion for it. Because it helped me find who I am as a person, through the dance and through the movement.”
Even as he’s famously combined jookin’ with elements of ballet and other styles, the original approach to dance he learned growing up here remains at the heart of his practice. And with this week’s premiere of Memphis Jookin’: The Show, he wants to let the world know that jookin’ is about more than just him. “It’s a show about the culture in general, Memphis dance and Memphis music. This show was inspired by a lot of the pivotal people that helped elevate Memphis jookin’ to the place that it is now. People who came before us. What we like to call the OGs. From DJs to OG dancers to people who were recording music at the time, who were very pivotal to us. You see the whole development through our lens.”
Speaking before leading the show’s cast through rehearsals at the Collage Dance Center, Riley uses one word again and again: community. “A show like this has always been on my mind, and something I wanted to do for the community,” he says. “We’re paying homage. There were a lot of OGs before who didn’t have these kinds of opportunities and had to handle things in a different way in their era, who grew up in an era when Memphis was really rough to live in. We want to give a glimpse of what they had to go through. It’s really storytelling through movement. So you can understand what it feels like to grow up in Memphis as a street dancer.”
For Riley, the local dance community is a living, breathing thing; the entire cast of about a dozen dancers is from Memphis. “I love being able to provide an opportunity like this for other jookers to gain some professional experience as dancers, doing what they’ve grown up doing. In Memphis, we have almost no platforms for Memphis street culture to be able to really shine.” Yet soon, the dancers will shine from coast to coast, as the ensemble prepares to take the show on the road starting February 25th.
“It’s definitely a story, a through line from beginning to end, with dialogue. It’s a Broadway-style show,” says Riley. “It features original instrumental music by the Mulherin brothers. Being from Memphis, they understand Memphis music on all levels. They’ve been studying tracks by DJ Squeeky, DJ Spanish Fly, and others.”
The show was co-created with some theatrical heavy hitters. “The idea came from myself and the co-producers of this show, CAMI Music group and Young Jai. Young Jai played a big role in capturing Memphis jookin’ on camera early on. He’s always been around as part of the community. And we have these amazing writers, Malcolm Barrett and Ameenah Kaplan. Ameenah is the director of The Lion King tour, and she suggested Amy Campion, the director of our show.”
For his part, Riley is excited to bring raw street culture to the stage. “It’s one thing to watch it being performed to classical music, but it’s another thing to see it performed to the music it was actually born from. That Memphis underground rap music. That grit. That’s where it came from. I want people to get a dose of that and be able to say, ‘Wow, this is incredible.’”
