Underdogs
Trio – Production 2021 – Duration: 50 min Indoors/outdoors performance
Underdogs are those who are expected to lose, never a safe bet. They’re the ones who meld seamlessly with the urban landscape, on whom our gaze settles but never dares to linger.
In this choreographic piece, my aim is to observe the way in which our bodies are shot through with urban imagery and the traces this leaves behind. What influences do we appropriate from, with what characters do we identify to build our personalities, our body states? Hip-hop dance, the urban dance form par excellence, is fueled by everything that challenges the norms. The dancer is keen on detecting any sign of a transgression and to transform it into a creative gesture.
When I watch a dancer perform, I am moved by these interiorised signs. For hip-hop dance draws its inspiration from the postures, gestures and energies of characters found in the clubs and in the working-class neighborhoods of 1970s America. Throughout this performance, I want the dancers to explore the very source of their gestural actions through their dance: to which symbols, to which social markers does it connect? How do the dancers relate personally and emotionally to their own dance’s etymology? How deeply is the explosive energy of their bodies rooted in rebellion, or the rebelliousness of popular movements fighting for the underdogs, for the outcasts of our society?
For this project, I envisage three dancers, one woman and two men, attempting to stick together. Through their dance, they embody an urban imagery that is on occasion provocative, sometimes transgressive, occasionally oppressive, at times liberating. By deep diving into different states of being, they explore the collective unconscious that unites them and embark upon a deep process of introspection. Against a backdrop of soul music evocative of the political climate in 1970s America, they proudly confront the invisible mass of their urban heritage. Through the gaze of the other and by coming face-to-face with their own inner antagonisms, the three dancers highlight the deep bonds that unite them, as well as the choices that make them individuals with fully-fledged personalities.
“In the turbulent mass of peripheral glances, I receive and send out signals with no address. Permeated by the flows of communication between mute bodies, I am lulled by the customary hubbub. A salute, a pointing finger, a stooped shoulder, a head on one side, a determined jaw, an affected gait, an accelerated pace, a waisted silhouette, a hidden glance, a calculated trajectory… A mass of interiorized signs bubble within me. My actions express only a fraction of the collective body language. I celebrate my harmony with the city by jostling my memories of its inhabitants in one single concentrated noisy move. Here is my dance: welcome to my city.”Anne Nguyen, Manual of the city warrior
Performers: Sonia Bel Hadj Brahim, Arnaud Duprat, Pascal Luce
Lighting design: Ydir Acef Music transitions (creation): Sébastien Lété Stage managers on tour (in alternation): Ydir Acef, Pascal Aurouet, Paul Beumer, Alexis Beyer, Marie Ducatez, Matthieu Marques
Partners
Coproduction: L’Auditorium Seynod; Théâtre de Chevilly-Larue.With the support of Centre d’Art et de Culture de Meudon; Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS; Mairie de La Courneuve – Houdremont centre culturel; Centre culturel l’Imprévu de Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône; CND Centre national de la danse – provision of studio; Établissement public du Palais de la Porte Dorée.
The par Terre / Anne Nguyen Dance Company is funded by l’Aide pluriannuelle du Ministère de la Culture / DRAC Ile-de-France, la Région Ile-de-France for “Permanence Artistique et Culturelle” and l’Aide au fonctionnement du Département du Val-de-Marne. In 2022/2023, the par Terre / Anne Nguyen Dance Company is an associate artist to Théâtre Molière -> Sète scène nationale archipel de Thau (34), to L’Auditorium Seynod (74) and to Centre d’Art et de Culture de Meudon (92) and is in partnership with l’Orange Bleue d’Eaubonne (95).