An extract remodelled by the group Danse créative, coordination by Victorine Lucas, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2019/2020) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).  

Transmission by Amine Boussa, performer in the piece when it was created 

Presented on 24 October 2020, Chaillot - Théâtre national de la Danse (Paris).  

The piece when it was created 

Symfonia Piésni Załosnych 

Firstly produced 22 June 2010 in the former Professional High School Lycée Mendès-France during the festival Montpellier danse 2010 

Choreography: Kader Attou 

Piece for ten performers: Amine Boussa, Mathieu Furgé, Mabrouk Gouicem, Capucine Goust, Rachid Hamchaoui, Salem Mouhajir, Véronique Teindas, Vaishali Trivedi, Sébastien Vela Lopez, Majid Yahyaoui  

Music Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, Symphonie n°3, opus 36 – éditions Chester / éditions Mario Bois-Paris  

Original duration: 50 minutes 

The group 

Consisting of seventeen teenage and adult dancers, the group is divided up by affinity between hip-hop and contemporary dance – four of them belonging to both groups. Working separately during the year, they meet up to create a shared  choreography, combining the approaches and diversity of choreographic languages, and allowing the sharing of know-how and experiences within the group. 

The project 

In 2010, Kader Attou composed a choreographic fresco based on one of the major musical works of the 20th century: Henryk Górecki’s Symphony no. 3 (“Symphony of sorrowful songs”). Against this haunting melodic fabric – built on a principle of repetition and progressive accumulation – he has modelled a dancing human community, modulating a broad spectrum of emotions and styles. The  variations of the choreography are wrapped around this melodic lament, creating frictions and contrasts with the soprano’s voice that hovers over the instruments.  

Director of the CCN of La Rochelle and the Poitou-Charentes region, artistic director, dancer and choreographer of the Accrorap dance company.

 Today’s hip hop creative works, independent and new dance scene creations, convey an image of French culture throughout the world.  Kader Attou can claim to be an integral part of this new dance scene.  He is one of the major representatives of French hip hop, and Accrorap is an iconic company.

 Contemporariness, blending of cultures, humanistic commitment, Kader Attou signs a dance of his times, where encounters, dialogue and sharing are the driving forces and creative sources.

 With the excitement of the discovery of break-dance in 1989, and the first shows of Accrorap, a desire was born to examine in depth the question of meaning and develop an artistic approach. In 1994 Athina marks the debuts of Accrorap on stage at the Dance biennale in Lyon. Created in 1996 Kelkemo, a hommage to Bosnian and Croatian child refugees is the fruit of a powerful experience in the Zagreb camps in 1994 and 1995. Prière pour un fou (1999), a pivotal piece in the choreographic universe of Kader Attou, attempts to re-establish the dialogue that the Algerian drama was making increasingly and painfully less probable.  

Then Accrorap broadened their scope inventing a dance that is rich and full of humanity with Anokha (2000), at the cross-roads between hip hop and Indian dance; East and West. Composed of sketches where performance, emotion and musicality intermingle, Pourquoi pas (2002), enters a universe of poetry and lightness. Douar (2004), created within the scope of the year of Algeria in France queries the issues of exile and boredom, echoing the concerns of young people in neighborhoods and housing estates in France and Algeria. Les corps étrangers (2006), an international project - France, India, Brazil, Algeria and the Côte d’Ivoire – evokes the human condition and searches for possible meeting points between cultures and aesthetic styles to construct, via dance, a space for communication to query the future. Petites histoires.com (2008), acclaimed by the critics and public alike, tells of Everyman’s France through burlesque sketches while maintaining a sensitive and committed approach. In 2008, Kader Attou was named Director of the CCN (National Centre for Choreography) in La Rochelle and the du Poitou-Charentes region, thus becoming the first hip hop choreographer to lead such an institution.

Trio (2010) takes us back to the world of the circus. Symfonia pieṡni źałosnych (2010) is a performance of the entire Symphony No.3 also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by the Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. This creation explores all compositional aspects, is carried away by soaring vocals, penetrated by melodic forces to join the message of hope.

 In 2013, Kader Attou returns to the source of hip hop, to his very first sensations: The Roots is a human adventure, a journey, a dive into his poetical universe. Eleven of the most skillful hip hop dancers perform the piece; they form a group that is in complete symbiosis.

 Created in August 2014 for the 10th edition of the Nuits Romanes in Poitou-Charentes, Un break à Mozart, born of the encounter between the CCN of La Rochelle and the Champs-Elysées orchestra, presents a genuine dialogue between dance of today and music of the Enlightenment with the major musical work: Mozart’s Requiem.

In September 2014 for the Dance biennale of Lyon, Kader Attou created OPUS 14 for sixteen dancers, men and women, combining power, otherness, commitment and corporeal poetry in a fundamentally hip hop piece.

With Un break à Mozart as a base,  the premiere of Un break à Mozart 1.1 – a new creation by Kader Attou for 11 dancers and 10 musiciens from the Champs Elysées Orchestra  was performed in November 2016 at La Coursive in La Rochelle as part of the event “Shake La Rochelle !” the first edition of CCN’s Hip Hop festival. In January 2013 Kader Attou was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) and in the New Year’s honors list of 2015 was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the French Legion of Honour).

Source : Web site of the CCN de la Rochelle

More information : http://www.ccnlarochelle.com/kader-attou-cie-accrorap/

Film director, Ivan Chaumeille, has worked with choreographer Dominique Brun a long time, most notably in the production of + One (2014), a creative documentary scheduled as part of the festival “Vidéodanse”, in the editing of which Rafaël Gubitsch participated; he filmed and edited two versions of Afternoon of a faun, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinski for the film Le Faune -un film ou la fabrique de l’archive. He also carried out interviews, and devised and formulated the ROM and video dimensions of the DVD (2007). He shot video sequences for the show Medea-Stimmen by Virginie Mirbeau, created at Festival Les Météores CNN du Havre (2008). With a background in philosophy, he produced a creative documentary entitled Avec François Châtelet, un voyage différentiel (2010) for the collection “À Contre-temps” in co-production with Groupe Galactica, Mosaïque films and Canal 15.