Choreography by Abou Lagraa
A choreographic extract remodelled by the group Choré A Jazz Danses (Bourgoin-Jallieu), artistic director/manager of the group Patrick Martin, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2014) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Based in Bourgouin-Jallieu, in the Isère department near Lyon, a dozen women aged twenty to thirty, make up the group Choré A Jazz Danses, whose name suggests their stylistic preference. The pieces usually interpreted are choreographed by Patrick Martin, the dance teacher leading this group. The holding of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” meeting at the Maison de la Danse de Lyon in 2014, stimulated them into wanting to take up a challenge of another level, to be in contact with the dance of Abou Lagraa, a well-known figure in the region. As the aim was to change stylistic habits, their choice fell on a piece Allegoria Stanza, itself a hybrid work, mixing hip-hop and contemporary dance.

The choreographer
Trained in the Conservatoire national supérieur de Lyon, the Franco-Algerian choreographer Abou Lagraa claims to be completely contemporary. He began his professional career in the world of neoclassical modern ballets, then continuing to nurture a taste for great flowing compositions with occasional oriental overtones. In 1997, he created his company La Baraka, loyally supported by the scène nationale Les Gémeaux de Sceaux and Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He set up the Ballet contemporain d’Alger in 2009. The piece Allegoria Stanza, created in 2002, was greatly responsible for his recognition, with its merging of the energies of contemporary and hip-hop dancers. Indeed so much so that he sometimes regrets that he is principally, and unjustly, known for this style of dancing alone. 

The artist
Alongside his interpreter Saül Dovin, Abou Lagraa has taken a personal interest in the dancers of Choré A Jazz Danses to an unexpected degree. He has let himself be won over by a middle-aged group, endowed with a capacity for assertiveness and physical commitment free of all youthful bashfulness. The opening tableau of Allegoria Stanza, to a music by the Lebanese singer Fairouz, inspired a cultural quest around Mediterranean civilisation. In 2002, this highly rhythmic tableau, beaten out on the ground, worked towards a merge of hip-hop and contemporary dance. The subject of a dual converging adaptation, it has slipped from its original male composition to its current all-female composition and from the vigour of hip-hop to greater fluidity, owing something to jazz.

Born in Annonay, Abou Lagraa began dancing at the age of 16 before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse, Lyon. He began his career as a dancer at the S.O.A.P. Dance Theatre, Frankfurt with Rui Horta and became his assistant on a project at the Calouste Gulbenkian Centre, Lisbon. He was soon noticed and went on to work with Robert Poole, Denis Plassard and Lionel Hoche. His qualities as a performer have been rewarded twice:  in 1998 by the 2nd Prize for performance at the Paris International Dance Competition, then in 2009 by the prize for Best Male Dancer, awarded by the International Movimentos Dance Prize. In 1997 he founded his own company, La Baraka.

Once again, recognition came quickly; numerous French venues programmed the young choreographer and he received proposals for collaboration. As a result, after 4 years as an associated artist at Bonlieu Scène Nationale in Annecy, since 2009 Abou Lagraa and his company have been hosted in production residency at Gémeaux Scène Nationale, Sceaux. The fame of the company spread rapidly beyond France's borders and tours followed one after the other, throughout Europe and also in the United States, Algeria, Tunisia and Indonesia… Alongside his work with the company, Abou Lagraa is regularly in demand by large organisations.

In 2001 he devised Fly, Fly for the CCN Ballet de Lorraine. This piece later was subsequently added to the repertoire of the ABC Dance Company of St Pölten in Austria.

In 2003 he devised a work for the second-year students of the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine, Angers, then in 2007 for the pupils of the Frankfurt Hochschule and the pupils of the Centre Méditerranéen de Danse Contemporaine, Tunis.

In 2006 his work entered the repertoire of the Paris Opéra Ballet with Le Souffle du Temps, a piece for 21 dancers, including 3 étoiles (Marie-Agnès Gillot, Manuel Legris, Wilfried Romoli). Then, in 2008, he composed Everyone's One at the invitation of Ballet Memphis (USA).

Since 2009, in association with the Algerian Ministry of Culture and th Algerian Agency for the Cultural Brilliance, he works, with Nawal Aït Benalla-Lagraa, in the elaboration of a “Mediterranean Cultural Bridge", the project of French-Algerian cooperation for the development of the dance and the artistic exchanges which will contain a program of Training and creation. In this frame, he sees confiding for July, 2009, the choreography of Closing ceremony of the 2nd Pan-African Festival of Algiers. In 2010, he creates the Ballet Contemporain d'Alger, under the Nawal Aït Benalla-Lagraa's educational responsibility, with a first piece NYA. The success of which ends in several national and international tours.

This piece was to be distinguished in 2011 when it was awarded the Grand Prix de la Critique as “Best Choreography of the Year”.

In 2016, he becomes the « Dream up » ambassador, an international arts-based education programme set up by the BNP Paribas foundation. This programme will help some 30,000 underprivileged or disabled children and teenagers to develop and find fulfilment by practising an artistic or creative activity. 

In 2016, he becomes “Chevalier des arts et des lettres” nominated by the French ministry of culture. 

Source : Cie La Baraka

More information : https://www.aboulagraa.fr/ 

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
 Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
 Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
 +33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme