Since his first footwork nearly thirty years ago,  Ousmane Sy has worked to translate his fascination with the  orchestrated movement of a soccer team into dance. His artistic world,  occupying various fields, is made up of step-overs, lunges between the  dance floor and the stage, and the irrepressible desire to overcome  oneself through the group.

One foot in the club, the other in battle: Ousmane Sy, nicknamed  “Babson,” stakes his belonging to house dance between these two spaces  of expression, becoming one of its major proponents in France. With the  “Battle of the Year,” won in 2001 with his crew the “Wanted Posse,” he  brought the “French touch” to the forefront of the international scene  by transposing androgynous gestures inspired by New York nightclubs into  the heart of the contest. Extending far beyond the boundaries of the  Marshall Plan, his dance practice has gradually turned to the hybrid  histories and African lineages of house rhythms. The result was “Afro  House Spirit,” a contemporary dance style marked by the heritage of  traditional African and Caribbean dances.

The driving force behind All 4 House, Ousmane Sy endeavors to  harmonize, through the mise-en-scène of a multi-act performance, the  individual pathways of the female dancers from the group Paradox-Sal,  whom he has trained in house dance for years. Queen Blood (2019) and One Shot  (2021) were born from this approach: two “corps de ballets” alternating  between group choreographies and expressive solos for an encounter of  styles in the joyful spirit of confrontation. Ousmane Sy’s aesthetic  exploration is influenced as much by the mass as by the freestyle spirit  of hip hop. He strongly believes that identity must serve entity.

Source: CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne

With a background in hiphop and all its influences, we represent a  new generation of choreographers. Our driving force—dance, as well as  art brut—draws on self-taught skills and takes on a universal dimension  that informs our values. It is dance that allows us to forge a  cross-disciplinary dialog with other aesthetics and to be in touch with  reality. We affirm the use of making (faire) as a way of  relating to the world, as well as a method of appropriating, through  action and reaction, our immediate environment and of infusing it,  whenever possible, with desire, poetry, justice, imagination, joy,  sharing, and community…

Gathered together, enriched by our differences and by our individual  artistic approaches, we have been able to sweep aside the residual  modalities of writing specific to our respective fields of aesthetics.  We thus invite you to discover our worlds and partake in the auteur  dance that fits perfectly within the panorama of contemporary dance.

Source: CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne