Cirque for the soul

Daisy is 14 years old, with red tennis shoes, pigtails and a broad, sweet face that, when she’s krumpin’, becomes suddenly lean and cat-like, beautiful in the fierce manner of Egyptian queens.

“It all comes out when I’m krumpin’,” she says. “Everything that frustrates me and hurts me, it all comes out. I’m angry when I’m krumpin’, but when I’m done, it’s all good. When I’m done, I’m calm.”

Once you’ve watched Daisy in a krumpin’ competition, this catharsis comes as no surprise. The allure of krumpin’, a furiously energetic street dance unique to South Los Angeles, is its no-holds-barred physicality, its encouragement of improvisation and its unexpected and imaginative use of theatrical face paint. Today, Daisy’s plump cheeks have been adorned with carefully executed whirls of white, a flowing, vaguely threatening design that gives her the look of a warrior on the eve of battle.

She and several similarly adorned krumpers have gathered in the parking lot of Jesse Owens Park on Western Avenue, looking rather regal and defiantly out of place. A crowd of young children, accompanied by a few puzzled parents, has wandered over from a playground to gawk. Interspersed among the krumpers is another group of dancers, the clowners, so named for their colorful carnival gear -- baggy patchwork pants, faces decorated with bright mosaics of circus greasepaint. Where the krumpers are tribal in their choice of makeup, the clowners have opted for a look reminiscent of turn-of-the-century vaudeville.

“We’re all of the same tree, but we’re different branches,” says a 19-year-old clowner named Rocco. “If we’re krumpin’, it’s more aggressive. If we’re clownin’, it’s more happy and go-lucky. There’s a style for every mood.”

Suddenly there is a burst of applause. One of the clowners, a pert-nosed 15-year-old who goes by the name ‘Lil Tie Dye, has just opened the back of a parked minivan, revealing a stack of enormous stereo speakers. Someone leans in the van’s front window and hits a switch. After a moment of suspenseful silence, J-Kwon’s hip-hop hit “Tipsy” booms across the pavement.

The battle, it seems, is on.

What follows is a thrilling, nearly gladiatorial display, as the krumpers and clowners form a loose circle around the first dancer, a lithe and tightly muscled krumper called Dragon. Dragon is a handsome 24-year-old with a strong, expressive face and the body of a pro basketball player. He’s wearing all white today, a color that nicely offsets the jet-black lightning streaks he has painted beneath his eyes.

As “Tipsy” kicks into a grinding, sexually charged chorus, Dragon begins to dance, punching the air in quick karate-chop bursts and jerking his body in a way that is somehow both violent and gracefully emotive -- imagine Baryshnikov in a really bad mood. The kids in the circle begin to holler out encouragement, a chorus of “Oh, yeahs!” and “Go-go-gos!” that fuels Dragon’s movements until he is nothing more than a blur in the afternoon air. The bystanders stand gape-mouthed as Dragon does a quick back flip followed by a neat spin. A wave of heat and excitement emanates from the dance zone, a throbbing pulse that follows the bass line and hits straight in the guts.

Something is happening inside the dance circle, something raw and beautiful, a nascent art finding its form and, simultaneously, a generation finding its voice.

“It’s a brotherhood and a sisterhood,” says a krumper known as “ ‘Lil C.” “It’s us as a people coming together as one cohesive unit, as African Americans. When everyone is dancing and the spirit is going from person to person and then you add the makeup -- it’s Africa all over again.”

“Our ancestors didn’t get a chance to tell our story, because they were enslaved,” ’Lil C says gravely. “After all they went through, it comes down to us. We get to tell that story for them, in its raw form. We’re expressing something important, we’re taking what we learned from Tommy and bringing it to the next level.”

‘Lil C smiles and bows his head. “So, much love to Tommy.”

Clownin’s father

Tommy THE CLOWN, as he is better known, was once an unassuming, affable South L.A. denizen with an office job and a knack for making people laugh. Then one day nearly 12 years ago, he was asked to perform as a clown at a friend’s party.

“A woman at my work had a kid who was having a birthday,” he remembers, “and I guess everyone just thought I’d be good at playing the clown. I like to entertain, ... so I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try it out.’ And I liked it. I liked it so much I wanted to do it again!”

Tommy, who no longer uses his last name, had found his calling. And he found himself in high demand for everything from children’s birthday parties to parades and community events. He was evolving into a local spokesman of sorts, an iconic image of a kinder, gentler South L.A. “I think people just wanted to laugh,” Tommy says. “They wanted something positive and happy. And that’s what I tried to give them.”

By the end of his first year of clowning, Tommy had expanded his act to include a troupe of young dancers adept at injecting a gleeful, circus-like mood into any occasion. He allowed his proteges plenty of room for imagination, and eventually they created a distinctive dance style of their own. Clown dancing was giddy and energetic and full of improv gymnastics, moves designed to entertain the kids while impressing the parents.

“For Tommy, it was entertainment and a way to make kids happy,” remembers Dragon, who was part of Tommy’s clowning crew for several years, “but we were the ones doing it, and we weren’t happy. We were growing older and experiencing things, and we needed to find a way to understand ourselves and make ourselves happy.”

With Tommy’s encouragement, Dragon and some of the troupe’s best dancers, including ‘Lil C, split off to form a group of their own, incorporating elements of break-dancing, karate and pantomime, as well as an undercurrent of very grown-up aggression. They named their new style krumpin’.

“Krumpin’ was, and is, our chance to be honest,” Dragon says. “If I have a problem with someone, or if there’s tension, we dance it off.”

As ‘Lil C puts it, grinning: “The dance floor is our canvas, and krump is our ‘Mona Lisa.’ ”

As more and more clownin’ and krumpin’ groups began to form through the late ‘90s, Tommy sensed a hunger for some healthy competition between the crews. He decided to organize community gatherings, “Battle Zone” events where dancers could compete for the audience’s validation.

“If it’s competitive, we all get better,” says ‘Lil C. “We practice every day, we battle each other until we fall down sweating. It’s countless hours of practicing. When you practice you build stamina and character. It’s exciting when you see those kids performing. It gets crazy, but we’re together. That’s why you see all those people screaming in the circle and the physical attention, like tapping each other, slapping each other on the back -- that’s the energy we feel. You watch a session and you see people’s characters develop right before your eyes.”

Industry attention

Within just a few years, Tommy the Clown’s original troupe had essentially created an underground dance movement, an unforgettable indigenous street style that would nab the attention of hip-hop choreographers Richard and Tone Taleuega.

With the Taleuegas’ encouragement, Dragon, ‘Lil C and many other clowners and krumpers began performing in various music videos, including Christina Aguilera’s “Dirty,” helmed by director and photographer David LaChapelle.

“I saw these kids and I couldn’t believe it,” LaChapelle remembers. “I was totally blown away by their skill, their commitment, their talent. They were doing something so incredible and so raw, it was just an amazing thing to witness.”

LaChapelle’s initial interest compelled him to make a documentary short, “Krumped,” which debuted before an enthusiastic audience at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. He is expanding the film to feature length for a late fall release.

“David LaChapelle and Tone and Richard Taleuega,” Dragon says, “they’ve allowed us to see the validity of what we’re doing and to see how integral and sensual our style is and our spirit is. You have big-time choreographers and one of the most sought-after photographers on the planet taking interest in a dance style that’s been bred in the ghetto. They’ve seen everything, and when they see this, it touches them. And it helps us to see how important what we do is and how important it is to protect the integrity of it.”

“For me,” LaChapelle says firmly, “these kids are the ultimate inspiration. They embody what art is all about, about having faith in yourself and working hard and staying true to what you love. You can’t be krump unless you’re pure, unless you truly believe in yourself.”

‘Krump state of mind’

“Krumpness,” explains Miss Prissy, a whip-thin 23-year-old and one of the original female krumpers, “is an attitude. You can see my story when I dance. There’s a lot going on down here in South-Central that’s hard. There are homes being disrupted by violence, and a lot of people do drugs to deal with that, or they drink. Instead of doing that, we dance.”

Miss Prissy looks out over the parking lot, where Daisy is about to take another turn inside the circle. “It’s a real tribal movement,” she says quietly. “It’s hip-hop in its raw form; it’s the meat before it’s on the grill. That’s what krumpness is, and that’s how we give it to you, every time.... You have to be born krump, you have to be in a krump state of mind. It’s a way of turning a negative situation into something beautiful, into a talent. Krumpness changes every day, and I think that’s what’s going to make it stick around.”

As Miss Prissy says this, a round of cheers marks the end of Daisy’s second krumpin’ session of the day. Beads of sweat cling to her face paint. One pigtail is slightly askew. She looks exhausted but happy; ‘Lil C moves to congratulate her, patting her on the back like a proud father. Miss Prissy and Dragon watch from the grass.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dragon says softly. “It’s wonderful and it’s God-given. And who would have thought that we would have created it? God wanted us to find a way to let out our aggression in a positive way, in a way that was creative.”

He pauses a moment as ‘Lil C enters the circle and begins to dance. “The tongue can be poisonous,” he continues, “but with the body, you can express how you feel without hurting someone. It brings us closer together.”

Dragon sweeps his hand across the scene, gesturing toward the dancers, the curious little kids and the late afternoon sun. His voice goes suddenly deep and solemn. “If the world wants to do something with this, it’s going to have to catch us. This is not a show. You come and see it in its raw form; you come to where we are because that’s where this depression is. The spirit that we’re battling is right here in the inner city. And you know what?”

He smiles slyly. The black lighting streaks flash under his eyes. “We’re gonna beat it.”