Often criticized for being lewd and aggressively sexual, female dancers have helped transformed Jamaican street dance into a massive global phenomenon. The world’s most intimate Dancehall documentary, titled ‘Bruk Out!,’ aims to empower these daring performers.
The Dancehall documentary, which was initially projected to be released in August 2015, has reached “the ‘Rough Cut’ stage of Post-Production process,” according to Cori McKenna, the director of the documentary.
Last year, 343 backers pledged $50,237 on crowding funding website Kickstarter to help bring this project to life. “But we are also fighting schedule and budget issues on the finishing. We will be up and running again in less than a month, and will reach our Fine Cut stage before March 2016. A little later than expected, but still moving forward. I’ve included a clip from the film to show you our progress,” she added.
The film goes deep inside the raw, energetic world of Jamaican Dancehall culture through the eyes of the powerful women at its heart — Dancehall Queens.
Bruk Out! follows six of the best Dancehall Queens from around the world—Japan, Italy, America, Poland, Spain, and of course, Jamaica — as they prepare to do battle at the world’s biggest dancehall competition. Visually provocative and emotionally intimate, their stories converge in a never-before-seen look into the life of the Dancehall Queen.
“At first glance, people who are uninitiated with dancehall see it as a sexual thing,” McKenna told FlavorWire. “And it is — you can’t really divorce it from sexuality. But it’s almost transcending and making sexuality so aggressive that it’s giving all the power back to the woman,” McKenna added.
Currently the Editor of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Cori McKenna has worked in television for over a decade. She has edited dozens of TV shows and documentaries, including One Direction – This is Us, Morgan Spurlock – Inside Man (CNN), The Whitest Kids U Know (IFC) and The Night of Too Many Stars (Comedy Central). Her passion is documentary storytelling and making the world a little smaller through sharing those stories.
