“Vertikal is a brilliantly inventive deployment of hip-hop technique removed from its usual contexts.” – The New York Times
From a device proposed by Fabrice Guillot, Artistic Director of Retouramont, a company specialising in aerial techniques, the choreographer Mourad Merzouki leaves the ground. After confronting the third dimension with his previous show Pixel, Merzouki opens hip hop to a new field of possibilities.
In the vertical, then, finding new support, ten dancers dash in the air. “The relationship with the ground, which is essential for the hip hop dancer,” says Merzouki, “is fundamentally modified. The games of contact between the performers are jostled: the dancer is in turn base and carrier or on the contrary flyer, puppet animated by the counterweight of his partners on the ground.”
Composer Armand Amar accompanies voltiges by merging strings and electronic instruments. Vertikal weaves links and traces new lines of escape in space while maintaining the vocabulary of hip hop dance.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, no interval
Artistic Direction and Choreography: Mourad Merzouki
Music Design: Armand Amar
Aerial Stage: Fabrice Guillot
Set and Costume Design: Benjamin Lebreton and Pascale Robin
Co-production: CCN Créteil & Val-de-Marne / Cie Käfig, Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2018, Scène nationale du Sud-Aquitain and Maison des Arts de Créteil