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.

Abou Lagraa began dancing in Annonay, before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon. He began his career as a dancer-performer at the S.O.A.P. Dance Theater Frankfurt, working with Rui Horta, before becoming his assistant at the Gulbenkian Ballet in Lisbon.

In 1997, he founded the Compagnie La Baraka, with whom he was successively associate artist at Bonlieu, Scène Nationale d'Annecy (2004-2008) then at Les Gémeaux, Scène Nationale de Sceaux (2009-2013) and finally at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon (2015). The company's reputation quickly spread beyond France's borders, and it began touring all over Europe, as well as the United States, Algeria, Tunisia, Russia and Asia...

In 2010, with Nawal Aït Benalla, he created the first Ballet Contemporain d'Alger with ‘Nya’, a piece whose success led to several national and international tours. This return to his roots inspired his 2013 creation ‘El Djoudour’ (The Roots), the fruit of a fruitful partnership between his own French company and the Ballet Contemporain d'Alger. This creation opened the ‘Marseille-Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture’ event.

In February 2018, La Baraka moved to La Chapelle Sainte-Marie in Annonay. Abou Lagraa and Nawal Aït Benalla decided to co-direct La Baraka and La Chapelle together. This desacralised setting, a jewel of Baroque art, has been transformed into a choreographic studio and houses the company's administrative offices. La Chapelle became a creative residency for French and international dance companies. Like a small ‘Villa Medici’ for dance in the Ardèche.

Source : Cie La Baraka

More information : https://www.compagnielabaraka.com/

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