"Krump is a community. It’s a culture. It’s a whole entity itself."

-Norris Duckett III

Norris Duckett III is an astonishingly gifted photographer. He uses his

remarkable technical skills to depict everything from a child in a lizard costume to

architectural oddities to a skateboarder sliding down a ramp. Most of all, he

portrays dancers, especially Krump dancers.

Krump is a street dance based on hip-hop. An eclectic art, Krump borrows

from African dance, tap, and ballet. Krump has roots in Clowning, an earlier hip-hop

dance form. Clowning began in South Central Los Angeles and involved dancers in

clown costumes and/or face paint. The dancer Thomas Johnson, known as Tommy

the Clown, is credited with the 1992 origin of Clowning. Four other Clown dancers,

Tight Eyex, Mijo, Lil C and Miss Prissy, developed the more aggressive and forceful

Krump in the early 2000s. The emergence of Krump is documented in David

LaChapelle's 2005 film RIZE.

Norris Duckett's photographs of Krump dancers are so dynamic, they could

be stills from RIZE. They are not--but his use of active poses, blurring, and multiple

exposures make his static photographs appear to move like motion pictures. They

capture the energetic, often aggressive nature of Krump, where artists battle each

other to achieve dance dominance. Krump battles may be angry, even violent, but

they also reinforce the community bonds that link dancers to their neighborhoods.

(Although both Clowning and Krump began in South Central, these hip-hop dance

forms have spread worldwide, including to Norris Duckett's home Lancaster, in the

California Desert.)

Dance has always been fundamental to community building in Africa, and it

continues to function as a form of social integration in African American

1 https://blog.obws.com/krump-society-young-artists-2022/?fbclid=IwAR2IuNjwNYOIwMbHCt-

vKY4kXpcfmpjGaOAfU596bpkxPUxaT4sgr69U7Io

neighborhoods today. As US communication scholar Sarah S. Ohmer has written,

"Clowning and Krump present strategies of witnessing to and healing from

Hollywatts’ and other marginalized contexts’ histories, shifting the body from a site

of threat of extinction to a source of empowerment, with bodies at the center in

order to negotiate survival from trauma." She continues by asserting that their

performances act as "spiritual retrieval and re-integration of traumatic memories

and afflictions into memory through the body...[They signify a] 're-membering in the

flesh' that enacts self-worth, self-defined sexuality, and agency for and by

marginalized children and young adults." 1

Aware of the compelling links between Krump, identity, and community,

Norris Duckett founded the Krump Society in his hometown of Lancaster in 2017.

The society has constructed a space of stability, growth, and outreach for young

artists to be mentored by more experienced dancers. Bridging the generations

between older Krumpers and novices, the society fosters wide-ranging creative

encounters. Above all, it seeks to build community by giving local youths

opportunities to express themselves.

Part of this creative expression is Norris Duckett's photography. His images

contribute to Krump performances of community with photographs that isolate and

beautify the dancers and the dance. As a culture, we tend to represent what we

value. The disempowered are rarely depicted in mainstream media. But Norris

Duckett confronts such neglect with photographs of Krump dancers that portray

them as courageous and talented. His Krumpers may not be superheroes, but they

are important and contributing members of their communities.

Betty Ann Brown

July 2022

 1 Sarah S. Ohmer, “In the Beginning was Body Language” Clowning and Krump as Spiritual Healing

and Resistance.

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1254&context=le_pubs