Rize

Fashion photographer and music-video director David LaChapelle turns documentarian for this look at two new hip-hop-style dance trends in South Central Los Angeles, “clowning” and its spinoff, “krumping.” The film evidently expands on LaChapelle’s earlier short films, Krumped (2004) and Clowns in the Hood (2003, for British TV). From the early efforts of Tommy “the Clown” Johnson in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots through the founding of the krump movement in 2000 and to today, LaChapelle gives a glimpse of a dance style that mixes joy, exuberance, pride, anger and determination in almost equal parts, expressed with astonishing speed, grace and stamina. Johnson’s story is genuinely inspirational, and other adherents of clowning and krumping are as articulate as they are expressive in dance.