They’re yours. They’re mime. They’re ours. And if that concept leaves you with a blank look on your face? You’re in good company. They wear the same non-expression.
Blank looks, white masks, expressive bodies and silent passions—aided by multigenre music, multimedia immersion, the redemption tale of a zombie in pajamas (seriously) and a lust-for-life lesson—equals Jabbawockeez and the surreal dreamscape, Jreamz: Journey Within.
Since freestyle-dancing their way to the debut-season championship of America’s Best Dance Crew in 2008, the Jabbawockeez—their name inspired by the fantastical creature of the Lewis Carroll poem “Jabberwocky”—have established a solid presence on the Strip. Debuting in 2010 with Mus.I.C. at the Monte Carlo, then shifting over to Luxor for their follow-up production, PRiSM, in 2013 (the same year they danced behind Taylor Swift at the Billboard Music Awards), the crew hopscotched over to MGM Grand to unveil this latest interpretation of their unique vision in 2015. As with its predecessors, Jreamz inventively fuses a street-wise, hip-hop vibe (note the b-boying/head-spinning moves) with a dollop of whimsy.
Using what co-founding member Phil “Swagger Boy” Tayag has called a “style of no styles”—blending the best of numerous styles—the current creation again emphasizes how the masks they wear eliminate the distraction of facial expressions, leaving their body language to heighten the sensations in your head and heart. By design, the troupe has no lead dancer so audiences can experience them as a single entity, under the “we are one” philosophy.
Sleek choreography peppered with their signature, gravity-defying break dancing frames a trippy tableau of music, 3-D video projections (even streaming off side walls), motion simulation and mime comedy. As the title indicates, everything coalesces into an onstage nocturnal voyage as our hollow-eyed, black-clad imps move silently through their animated antics.
Graphics launch audience members into the far reaches of imagination, such as a frolic through a mushroom forest with echoes of The Blair Witch Project—one of several pop culture references that also include the video game Street Fighter. Jreamz’s plot involves the character of PJ (who also wears them) as a zombie—a metaphor for a fellow drifting through a mundane existence. As the vivid atmospherics of more than a dozen set pieces pour forth, the zombie is encouraged by his fellow Jabbas to abandon his “world of monotony,” bust some killer moves and awaken to the joys of a zesty outlook.
Conceptually nodding toward the plot of A Christmas Carol, the “zombie” is coaxed into shaking off the autopilot-driven life by spiritual mentors. Named Style, Whimsicality and Audacity, they sweep him into a dance frenzy that whisks him everywhere from a beach to deep space. Though hip-hop is the dominant beat, your ear experiences an aural mashup that pinballs from Michael Jackson’s “(P.Y.T.) Pretty Young Thing” to the Eagles’ “Hotel California” to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
And because Jreamz is about being more than a spectator in life, audience members are also pulled into the action—including a lucky lady fielding a belly laugh-loaded “proposal.”
As an announcer informs us: “Choose life. Whatever you do, don’t be a zombie.” Ah, to paraphrase a certain Danish prince: “To sleep, perchance to Jreamz.”
MGM Grand, 7 p.m. Sun.-Mon., 7 & 9:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sat, starting at $49.99 plus tax and fee, VIP package available. 702.531.3826
