Reviewed by Nadia Free­man

Pho­to cred­it: Philip Mer­ry

Jacob Dom­bros­ki is all heart in his per­for­mance of Big J A New Lega­cy. It is clear that he relives the feel­ings of every sto­ry he shares. This vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is most evi­dent dur­ing his dance pieces. From krump to grace­ful, emo­tive sec­tions, his actions are delib­er­ate. He can switch from raw pow­er and frus­tra­tion to smooth and ele­gant move­ment that, com­bined with a per­fect syn­er­gy of visu­als, light­ing and song selec­tion, pull the audi­ence into the shift­ing moods of the show.

The piece is a scrap­book of vignette’s from Jacob’s life that gives the audi­ence insight into Jacob’s expe­ri­ence of the world, from the love of fam­i­ly to dis­crim­i­na­tion and prej­u­dice and the excite­ment of new oppor­tu­ni­ties. Jacob rep­re­sents the unheard voice of many, and attend­ing this show is a reminder of what the empow­er­ing abil­i­ty of the arts can be for minori­ties.

It felt like Jacob was bring­ing us all in to feel like one of the fam­i­ly with the nar­ra­tion start­ing with home videos of Jacob as a child. Framed with the incred­i­ble set design of a hov­er­ing tele­vi­sion screen and Jacob’s back to the audi­ence as though we are all watch­ing the home movies togeth­er.   This won­der­ful method of con­nect­ing us, the audi­ence, to the sto­ry­telling is main­tained through­out the show in con­ver­sa­tion and to the final song at the end. 

Cred­it must be giv­en to the pro­duc­tion team for their com­bined efforts in deliv­er­ing an excel­lent piece of the­atre. I look for­ward to future works from Jacob and Every­body Cool Lives Here.