Created with and performed by Dinozord, a contemporary dancer from Kinshasa, Solid Gold traces the roots of Hip Hop, from traditional African dance to forms of entertainment dance from Broadway and Hollywood to MTV. As the solo moves from one hit dance style to the next, and from one epoch to another, the amplified steps of one dance become the sound score for the next. Gradually the dancers movement and breath becomes a musical score providing the impulse for the next groove. A line up that poses a vivid alternative to the contemporary western dance cannon.

Inspired by the 1979 American television show of the same name, where the previous year’s musical hits were performed in playback by a chorus of dancers, Solid Gold seems to take up the codes and cliches of black performers onstage. And yet through the sound score and the presence of the performer, it attempts to go beyond cliche to reveal the politics of these dances, to make them visible again.

Solid Gold is the partner piece to Jolie, a solo created for and with Jolie Ngemi.