Allegria… The title all by itself resonates like an invitation to join, eyes shut, Kader Attou's dance! A joyful dance, light, seeking poetry wherever it is, in the bodies of dancers, in the burlesque but also in the disorders of the world. With this new work, he express the way he dream the world, imagining beings who meet and then disappear, demonstrating that, if it generates violence and misery, it can also become a place of hope and joy. 

Evolving in the heart of a dreamlike scenography, the dancers invest a "no man's land" where everything is possible. Kader Attou demonstrates his mastery of writing that explores group composition where letting each individuality explode. His dance is fluid and energetic, carried by an extreme virtuosity revealing magnificent sculpted spirals. Régis Baillet's music, alternating lyrical flights and repetitive melodies, underlines the elegance of this hip hop ballet transformed into a dance poem.

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon

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/

Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc) .
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr

In 1989 at Saint-Priest, Kader Attou, Eric Mezino, Chaouki Saïd, Mourad Merzouki and Lionel Frédoc created the company Accrorap.

From the collective of artists at the beginning, to the emergence of unique choreographic works, Accrorap is characterized by its profound openness: openness to the world through journeys conceived as instants of sharing, openness to other artistic forms, to other trends.

Kader Attou has enriched and fine-tuned his dance through the alchemy of hip hop, circus arts, contemporary dance and visual arts. From the local to the international scene, his works have travelled round the world.

Among others: Prière pour un fou (1999), Anokha (2000), Pourquoi pas (2002), Douar (2004), Les corps étrangers (2006), Petites histoires.com (2008), Trio (?) (2010), Symfonia Piésni Załosnych (2010), The Roots (2013) Un break à Mozart (2014), OPUS 14 (2014) and Un break à Mozart 1.1 (2016).

Since 1989, the dance of the company Accrorap and of Kader Attou is generous and strives to break-down barriers and cross frontiers.

The work of Accrorap is the tale of an international collective adventure, where the concept of encounters is at the centre of the company’s approach and where journeys enrich reflection.

Source : Accrorap

More information : http://www.ccnlarochelle.com/