Mixtape — Celebrating 20 years of ZooNation: Dance numbers full of warmth and energy

Fast-forward, rewind: Mixtape zips joyfully through the history of ZooNation, from greatest hits to creations for its youth company. It shows off this company’s balance of heart and fizzing hip-hop moves, with a dash of storytelling and a sure grip on its audience

(Paul Hampartsoumian @paulhiphop)

Since 2002, ZooNation has developed a distinctive take on hip-hop dance theatre, mixing in musicals, pop, and a witty sense of narrative. The breakthrough show Into the Hoods played with Stephen Sondheim as well as fairy tales, with updated characters in an urban setting. Later shows dipped in and out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Twelfth Night, with new and sampled scores and colourful stagings.

For Mixtape, Prince adopts a stripped-back gala format, with Dannielle “Rhimes” Lecointe and Bradley Charles co-directing. A scaffolding set by Ben Stones lights up with neon symbols — play and stop signs leading the way through the company’s hits. Simple black costumes mean the cast can switch instantly from one show to the next, with minimal props and staging.

It underlines how much of ZooNation’s storytelling is in the bodies. These numbers are full of driving energy, fast footwork and acrobatics — but there’s plenty of characterisation here, too.

The wonderful Tommy Franzen returns as the librarian from Some Like It Hip Hop, glasses on nose and body juggling books as well as rhythms. His gear shifts are a marvel: from flips and spins to stretched-out moves. He can fall flat in a second, then recover in slow motion: control so precise that he can play with time and gravity.

The soundtrack recordings with live singing, including a dash of beatboxing from DJ Walde, the company’s music director. The material from Message in a Bottle, set to songs by Sting, is the thinnest of the evening, perhaps because Prince is illustrating somebody else’s hits, rather than generating her own story.

Mixtape highlights the battle scenes, the character introductions — the moments dancers can strut their stuff and tell their stories. Prince and her dancers delight in those contrasts. The big finale piles up the athletic turns and leaps, but then another dancer will claim the high ground with an apparently simple, weighted move. There’s a glow of affection to the way they bounce off each other, a warmth that runs right through this show.

Until 8 October. www.sadlerswells.com