Rennie Harris

Rennie Harris toured with the Fresh Festival 1984, the first national Hip Hop tour in the United States. In addition, he has opened, performed, and worked with artists including Run DMC, Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, Brandy, Madonna, Boyz II Men, Will Smith, The Roots, and Raekwon The Chef (Wutang Klan), to name a few. Harris is known for bringing social dances to the concert stage and coining the term Street Dance Theater. He has broken new ground as one of the first hip hop choreographers to set works on ballet- and modern-based companies including Ballet Memphis, Colorado Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, PHILADANCO!, Giordano Dance Chicago, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and others. He is the first street dancer ever to be commissioned to create an evening-length work on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and to serve as a resident artist at The Ailey School.  

Harris has received three Bessie Awards, five Black Theater Alvin Ailey Awards, the Herb Alpert Award, and was nominated for a Lawrence Olivier Award (UK). Voted one of the most influential people in the last 100 years of Philadelphia’s history (City Paper), he’s been compared to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alvin Ailey, and Bob Fosse. He has also received the Dance Magazine Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award in choreography from the McCallum Theatre, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEW Fellowship, a USA Artist of the Year Fellowship, a Governors Artist of the Year Award, the Doris Duke Artist Award, The Andrew W. Mellon Grant for “Building A Legacy of Street Dance”, the Hermitage Greenfield Award, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, and a medal in choreography from The Kennedy Center. He is the first street dancer to receive honorary doctorate degrees from Bates College and Columbia College.  

Harris served as a cultural ambassador for President Ronald Reagan’s US Embassy Tour in 1986 and was invited to the White House by the Clinton administration in 2001 to participate in the recognition of African American artists making a difference in the world. He has performed for such dignitaries as the Queen of England and the Princess of Monaco. His company, Rennie Harris Puremovement, was chosen as one of four US companies to serve as Hip Hop cultural ambassadors for President Obama's Dance Motion USA and toured to Israel, Jordan, Ramallah, Egypt, Palestine, Japan, China, Gambia, and Kazakstan. Rennie Harris, aka JUNGLE, is atop the Hip Hop heap, its leading ambassador and national treasure.