Wanted Posse Dance N’ Speak Easy
Jakop Ahlbom Company Vielfalt
Centrum Kongresowe ICE Kraków – Sala Teatralna S2
ul. Marii Konopnickiej 17
Duration: 70 minutes
Artistic direction and choreography/ kierownictwo artystyczne i choreografia Mourad Merzouki
Music design/ projekt muzyki Armand Amar
Aerial stage design/ projekt przestrzeni do działań w powietrzu Fabrice Guillot / Compagnie Retouramont
Assistant to the choreographer/ asystent choreografa Marjorie Hannoteaux
Lighting design/ projekt świateł Yoann Tivoli, assisted by/ asystent Nicolas Faucheux
Stage design/ projekt sceny Benjamin Lebreton
Costume design/ projekty kostiumów Pascale Robin, assisted by Gwendoline Grandjean
Apparatus set up/ montaż aparatury Yves Fauchon
Aerial training/ trening działań w powietrzu Isabelle Pinon
Artists/ Wykonawcy Francisca Alvarez, Rémi Autechaud, Kader Belmoktar, Sabri Colin, Nathalie Fauquette, Pauline Journé, Vincent Lafif, Maud Payen / Alba Faivre, Manon Payet, Teddy Verardo
Additional music credits/ dodatkowy wkład do muzyki Isabel Sörling, vocals/ wokal – Sarah Nemtanu, violin/ skrzypce – Grégoire Korniluk, cello/ wiolonczela – Julien Carton, piano/ fortepian – Armand Amar, percussions/ instrumenty perkusyjne – Anne-Sophie Versnaeyen, viola, orchestrations/ aranżacje na orkiestrę – Vincent Joinville assisted by/ współpraca Jérémy Gaucher, recording, mixing, sound design/ nagrania, miksowanie, projektowanie dźwięku
STATEMENT OF INTENT
In this new creation, I wish to approach a new space, that of verticality. Using a device designed by Compagnie Retouramont and Benjamin Lebreton, and accompanied by ten dancers on stage, I will confront an environment where movement plays with gravity.
Throughout my creations, I have constantly sought to discover what was unknown to me, whether it be classical music, digital arts, contemporary dance… It is also the desire to return to the material, physical, after having explored the third dimension in Pixel.
Everything seems possible, both falling and rising. The connection to the ground, so essential for the hip-hop dancer, will be fundamentally changed. The games of contact between the performers will be jostled: the dancers will be able to be either a base and a carrier or, on the contrary, an acrobat, a puppet animated by the counterweight of his partners on the ground.
This new dance “surface” will lead me to question the concept of scenic space – how can one appropriate the air through dance? – on the relationship between individuals on stage, obvious here by the notion of link, the wire that holds the body.
New converging lines will emerge in this research. The devices used in vertical dance bring new sensations, a form of lightness, the feeling of flying, illusion. Redrawing the game palette and disrupting our frames of reference while preserving the vocabulary of hip-hop dance will animate me in this creation.
I will continue to explore the relationship between dance and Armand Amar’s music, in which the different worlds are combined with infinite poetry. The set and lighting design will contribute to foster dialogue and harmonize these crossovers.
I think of this new opus as a hybridisation and an inversion of the dance codes, down to the wire, in balance!
– Mourad Merzouki