Chris Morris: Hare Krishna Breakdancer

Well known British satirist Chris Morris sure knows how to spread himself across a smorgasbord of media : as author, short-film maker, radio DJ, TV sitcom scriptwriter & current affair spoof presenter. All the more surprising that his checkered history as a chanting breaker hasn’t received more press until now.

Where Did He Come From?
To understand Chris Morris, we need to understand first two pivotal defining aspects of his character. Born on September 5, 1965, Chris Morris lay mostly dormant until late in the twentieth century, when hip-hop emerged from the South Bronx of New York City, and Chris Morris welcomed breakdancing into his life as only a pasty twenty-something English lad can. A regular in the Bristol battle scene, Chris Morris never rose high in the ranks, but was noted for his abilities at the ‘freeze’, the ‘turtle’ and the ‘buttspin’ dance maneouvres.

Some time before the birth of hip-hop, the other major strand in his life was taking place. Back at the beginning of the universe ( which was not the big-bang according to the Krishna supporters ), Krishna entered the scene in the form of ‘Garbhodakasayi Visnu’ who proceeded to lay at the bottom of an empty sphere, which soon became a salty bath thanks to Garbho’s sweat. Soon after a lotus stem sprouted from the navel of Garbhodakasayi Visnu. At the top of that lotus stem, a brilliant golden lotus flower appeared. And within the middle of the whirl of the lotus flower the first person within the universe was born, “Lord Brahma”. Many, many years later, Chris Morris was often seen eating the free vegetarian meals offered on campus by Hare Krishnas while he studied zoology. Just as the ancient vedic culture informs the modern Hare Krishna movement, some argue it was Chris’s fascination with melding the old and the new which began to dramatically transform and elevate his personal breakdancing style.

Chris Morris Fact Sheet:
With savage wit, and a huge body of acclaimed work, one would wonder why Chris Morris has so heavily suppressed his Hare Krishna breakdancing background. After all with shows on BBC Radio 4, a satirical current affairs TV show in 94 ‘The Day Today’, a celebrated late night ambient music and sketch show ‘Blue Jam’ eventually becoming a widely popular and depraved sketch show on Channel 4, ‘JAM’, another spoofy current affairs television documentary show ‘Brass Eye’, after becoming the WARP Record label’s first film offering in their WARP FILM label with a short film DVD release : ‘My Wrongs 8245 – 8249 and 117’ and now with a ‘new media’ pisstake sitcom ‘Nathan Barley’ under his belt – surely Morris can come clean with his background? To this day however, even his hardened fans refuse to mention his hare krishna breakdancing on any of the below ‘fansites’ or on any torrent community sites still eagerly trading downloads of the above television shows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Morris
http://thesmokehammer.com – site by Chris
http://trashbat.co.ck – Chris’s site for fictitious character, Nathan Barley.
http://chilled.cream.org – links to downloads for most of Chris’s previous radio shows

Krishna B-Boy Fact Sheet:
FACT 1:
Neither the Hare Krishna’s nor Chris Morris believe that humans have been on the moon. To them it is a heavenly body, we cannot reach on this plane of existence.

FACT 2:
Like most organised religions, the Hare Krishna movement has endured heavy allegations about child abuse. Guess the topic of Chris Morris’s most notorious episode of Brass Eye? That’s right, paedophilia.

FACT 3:
Today serious breakdancing battles are usually held at organized b-boy and b-girl events. The battles are usually part of a tournament style competition with cash prizes, or they are featured showcase battles, where each crew is paid to dance. It’s not uncommon that spontaneous battles will happen at events as well, when rival crews show up with most of their members. These events are called “jams”. It is no coincidence that at the height of his body-popping manouevres, Chris named his newest radio show ‘Blue Jam’, which was also a reference to the difficulties he endured breakdancing during the English winter. After a dedicated post-meal chanting session, Chris decided he could better represent the global nature of breakdancing by deciding to shorten this ‘Blue Jam’ to ‘JAM’ when the sketch show transferred to television.

FACT 4 :
Astute viewers of the JAM series will notice a high degree of slowed voices, slowed down music, and motion which give many sketches a dream-like, or medicated quality. Two things worth noting here – if u slow down this footage even further – u will hear embedded chants “hare krishna, hare rama” wedged really fast and at high pitch in between most sentences. And secondly – Chris Morris was on a strong Hare Krishna diet during the making of JAM, a diet known for it’s high use of herbal sedatives. Not to mention the near narcotic effect of an overfull belly of vegetarian food.

FACT 5:
A chronology of hairstyles by Chris Morris over the years, most often revealed a heavily ‘slicked back’ hairstyle during ‘Brass Eye’. Some break-theorists believe this was during a phase of high intensity breakdancing experimentation by Chris, a phase which lasted for nearly 6 months and saw him repeatedly fail to nail more advanced moves like the ‘helicopter’ or the ‘headspin’, for which he often slicked his hair.

Useful Info 4 those Wishing 2 X-Plore Hare Krishna Breakdancing
This book should get you started – Dark Lord: Cult Images and the Hare Krishnas in America – Larry D Shinn

Essays about Women in Patriarchal Religion

Criticisms of Hare Krishna (International Society for Krishna Consciousness; ISKCON);

Rep-re-sent~!

Autobot Roulette:

• The David Attenborough Machine
• Bees, Journalists, Honeypots
• WarpFilms, MIFF 2003