The dance programme
This year, the dance programme is carried by six partners and offers several ways in.
11 companies present 17 shows in 23 performances, and the festival offers 40 events in all: premieres and works in progress, battles, jams, workshops, masterclasses, talks, as well as rap, music, graffiti and cinema.
The invited choreographers approach their work as much through aesthetic research as through social questions.
Some draw on the dance traditions of the Creole and Caribbean world: Mwendwa Marchand (Out/Side, in Tarbes and Montpellier) with dancehall distilled into pure undulation and energy, or Danielo Belcher, who uses Haitian compas as research material (Reyalite n’, with Alma Douki, in Montpellier). Abode (Montpellier) by Moses Olayinka Akintunde and Danielo Belcher centres on lived realities and identity crossroads, in an encounter between two dancers from Nigeria and Haiti.
Others start from technique to transcend it: Virgile Dagneaux previews his all-female trio Météore(s) in Montpellier, and observes his body, its fragilities and the passing of time in his trilogy Plier (Bessèges) and Déplier/Peuplier (Montpellier). François Lamargot presents his work in progress Quetzalcoatl, inspired by Aztec mythology, in Tarbes, and shares his journey in the danced lecture Ma Boîte à Mouvements (outdoors, in Foix), preceded by a glimpse of Bouziane Bouteldja’s path and his new piece Révérence.
In a world in upheaval, Sandrine Lescourant (Blossom in Foix, RAW in Castelnau-le-Lez) and Bouziane Bouteldja (Des danses et des luttes, in Montpellier), both well known to HYPE OCC audiences, create spaces of freedom, conviviality, brotherhood and sisterhood, and invite the audience to join the party. In Montpellier, Sandrine Lescourant joins her longtime companion Virgile Dagneaux in Peuplier: for the first time, the two artists will share the stage, in an encounter whose form no one yet knows.
The encounter is also one between art forms. Krumper Germain Zambi returns to Montpellier and Tarbes with double bassist Florentin Ginot for Intimacy, a dialogue between popular music of the Renaissance, hurdy-gurdy included, and krump, a visceral form of expression born in the ghettos of Los Angeles five hundred years later. Pierre Rigal brings together a classical pianist and a b-boy in a zany lecture-performance, Pianip-Pianop (Saverdun and Foix).
Youth is part of every struggle, and rightly so: in Montpellier, three dance artists in training at CNDC Angers, echoing BOOST, the new training programme developed by Agora, CID, and the showcase of the Wontanara, 17- to 19-year-olds trained in Afro-urban dance by Siaka Coulibaly (#JeSuis programme, run by camin aktion). Their future, like that of many artists, depends on the goodwill of the prefecture: an issue we will address in the talk La danse paralysée par le droit de séjour (Dance held back by residence rights). In Perpignan, the company Allez Hop presents an end-of-residency showing, a moment of sharing and trust around a process in progress.
And again in Montpellier, the talk Mobilisons-nous ! Le mouvement est vital (Let’s mobilise! Movement is vital) invites us to explore the body in motion and in interaction, to question what dance can change in our societies.