"Short films have always interested me… What I like is that ability to tell stories in a very short time, erase what is superfluous, get to the heart of the matter… and seek an effect of surprise. For the time being, these are ideas that nurture my research, small stories in the form of sketches a little like these short films. Seek, find and tell in a very short time things buried deep inside me and in each of us… Awaken memories, words and aches, hear, hear yourself, spread out… When I was a child, I spent my time observing butterflies and my dream was to fly like them one day. I spent my time catching them one by one and gathering on my fingers the dust given off by their wings. I built myself cardboard wings with three bits of string and placed on them that magic powder which, for me, was the key that would help me fly… But I never did. Take voice and take one’s share of dreams in movement, dance on three small notes with that energy that is so unique to us while speaking of more or less serious things but in a non-serious way”. (Kader Attou)

For Petiteshistoires.com, Kader Attou imagines a show made up of small pieces. Some recount stories while others remain more abstract. The sketches evoke burlesque cinema, while small touches of humour rhythm the choreographic flights of fancy in a free, airy and poetic manner unfettered by codes. 

The things of life just like topicality have always been themes in Kader Attou’s work. Moving from one story to another, jumping from subject to subject, mixing performance, emotion and musicality in a rather burlesque show: that is the challenge.

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/