UNDERDOGS

after the show: 20:30 After Talk with the artists held in English

In UNDERDOGS, three dancers, one woman and two men, attempt to stick together to explore the symbols and social markers of the urban collective unconscious that unites them. By going through the postures, gestures and energies that suffuse hip-hop dance, they express their personal and emotional bonds to their own dance?s etymology. Against a backdrop of soul music evocative of the political climate in 1970s America, the explosive energy of their bodies anchors in the rebelliousness of popular movements fighting for the underdogs, for the outcasts of our society. Through the gaze of the other and by coming face-to-face with their own inner antagonisms, the three dancers proudly confront the invisible mass of their urban heritage.

?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.

Urban social dances, amongst which popping, locking and waacking, which are staged in UNDERDOGS, are fueled by everything that challenges the norms, drawing their inspiration from the postures, gestures and energies of characters from the working class and transforming transgression into a creative gesture. UNDERDOGS explores the way in which our bodies are shot through with urban imagery and the traces this leaves behind. It goes back to the roots of hip-hop culture and inscribes it into the political and social context which gave birth to it.

Choreography: Anne Nguyen

Performers: Sonia Bel Hadj Brahim, Arnaud Duprat, Pascal Luce

Understudy dancer: Lisa Boudard aka ?Lady Noscript??

Music transitions (creation): Sébastien Lété

Lights design: Ydir Acef

Stage manager on tour: Matthieu Marques

Production: par Terre / Anne Nguyen Dance Company

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; Établissement public du Palais de la Porte Dorée

Partners of par Terre Company: l?Aide pluriannuelle du Minist?re de la Culture / DRAC Île-de-

France, la Région Île-de-France for ?Permanence Artistique et Culturelle? and l?Aide au fonctionnement du Département du Val-de-Marne.

Partners of C/U Festival: Institut Français in Poland

Premiere: 23.06.2021, Seynod, France

Photo above: ?Patrick_Berger