Artnewspress : Inventive and infectious, TT The Artist’s head-turning debut fuses the forms of documentary and music video to honor Baltimore’s vibrant social fabric.
“We dance in the streets because we don’t have anywhere to go now.” There is much that sticks and stutters and loops in the mind after watching “Dark City Beneath the Beat,” a bright, ebullient and simultaneously seething musical documentary dedicated to the Baltimore club scene, but that’s the line that lingers longest. An apparent expression of joy, chased by an admission of crushing, unequal reality, it’s said matter-of-factly by a young black choreographer trying to keep art alive in the face of diminished creative space. It distils the push-pull impulses of TT The Artist’s unique film, which mixes and remixes fluorescently staged performance and candid sidewalk-level vérité to offer an abstract history of a city’s rich musical subculture, a busy snapshot of the black community in which it flourishes, and a consciousness-raising statement of resistance against political and economic oppressors. All that in 65 minutes, and the beat never lets up once.
“Dark City Beneath the Beat” ought to have entered the festival circuit with a bang. It was set to premiere at South By Southwest in March, before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the event, and it’s hard to envision any scenario in which this short, sharp blast of a doc wouldn’t have set Austin crowds alight with its combination of audiovisual dynamism and amplified social protest. Now streaming as part of the Hot Docs festival’s digital program, it plays persuasively on any size screen, but will hopefully see future theatrical bookings where its restless soundscape and scorched, radiant visuals can be best experienced. “Insecure” creator Issa Rae’s involvement as a producer is an additional selling point, though director-editor-performer TT The Artist — a Baltimore rapper and club queen who immediately proves a fluent, adventurous filmmaker — is the woman whose identity seeps from her debut’s every pore.
