We are very excited to announce that Moncell Durden has publicly released his dance documentary, “Everything Remains Raw” for streaming online. The film was in a work-in-progress state for 10+ years, only previewing the latest cuts and edits at various events and panels.

“This film highlights the raw quality of African American dance practice. It looks at connections between authentic jazz dance and hip hop, speaks to elders, pioneers, innovators of “street” or club dance culture. explores ideas about the commercialization and appropriation of hip hop dance.” -(M. Durden)

Due to the many challenges in releasing any type of big film project (i.e. production, funding, licenses, copyrights, etc) it was difficult to get a finalized version completed, but Moncell has kindly decided to share his latest edit with us all, even as an unfinished product. Thank you Moncell!!

Note that although it is not complete, it is still a great documentary and highly recommended for anyone involved in dance. It raises many important topics for discussion, so please feel free to share with your peers, students, and friends. The history and lineage of these dance styles need to be preserved along with crediting it’s creators and pioneers, and this is just the film to spark and open up some minds. We look forward to the future updates Moncell has planned for this documentary. Hopefully feature a section on our Bay Area Boogaloo, Robotting and Strutting OGs? ;)(UPDATE: Moncell actually mentioned that this wasn’t meant to be a history documentary, but more based on the juxtaposition on what we see now and then. The documentary has also been taken down for now. We’ll post another update if/when the time comes)

Stream the video on YouTube here: