Boy Blue’s Cycles review: A triumphant celebration of the shared pleasures of dance

The new show from the leading British hip-hop dance company is driven by a rich soundscape full of looping beats

‘Cycles' by Boy Blue at Barbican Theatre (Camilla Greenwell)

Boy Blue’s Cycles is 90 minutes of gorgeous hip-hop dancing. Serene or playful, individual or collective, it’s a celebration of flow.

Led by choreographer Kenrick “H2O” Sandy and composer-producer Michael “Mikey J” Asante, Boy Blue have nurtured generations of British hip-hop dancers. Their work ranges from the Olivier award-winning Pied Piper to work on Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. Co-commissioned by the Barbican and New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Cycles focuses on the shared pleasure of dance.

It’s driven by Asante’s new score, a rich soundscape full of looping beats. Lee Curran’s lighting defines the space, creating pools of light and shadow – though I’m less keen on the spotlights raking the audience. Matthew Josephs dresses the nine dancers in loose, intricate layers of cream and khaki: sharing the same palette, they’re all individual and all in harmony. 

In unison, the dancers have a sumptuous collective force. Choreographed by Sandy with associate Jade Hackett, Cycles moves effortlessly from individual to group and back again. Boy Blue’s superb dancers draw on a dazzling range of hip-hop styles: speedy footwork, explosively tight moves, a slow motion rise so controlled it looks like levitation. Every dancer is a virtuoso and each one is part of a community.

That duality is there from the beginning, whenever a soloist steps out for a flash of brilliant moves, before flowing back into the group. But it’s also something they play with. Solos become duets or change gear to follow a new direction. One man arches into a deep backbend, arms around a woman’s waist. Then a third comes to hold him steady, so both of them can move on. 

In this show, everything is part of a wider relationship. Paris Crossley’s solo starts out sharp, then slows down – and it’s as if the whole world slows around her, music and the other dancers stretching out, creating a long, suspended moment.

In one lovely sequence, the dancers huddle together in a white spotlight, looking across to another spot in gold. They shuffle and tease, egging each other on, until one is brave enough to jump into the second spotlight. He shows off some moves before hastily retreating to safety. Then another tries, and another, until they all rush into the golden light – which grows to fill the stage. Now that they’ve all claimed it, it’s theirs. 

Until 4 May, barbican.org.uk