Boxe Boxe Brasil
by Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne / Compagnie Käfig
 
Artistic direction/choreography: Mourad Merzouki
Music design: Quatuor Debussy and AS’N
Stage design: Benjamin Lebreton in collaboration with Mourad Merzouki
Costume design: Emilie Carpentier
Lighting design: Yoann Tivoli,Re-adapted:Cécile Robin
Set construction: Patrick Lerat
Painting: Camille Courier de Mèré and Benjamin Lebreton
Light control: Fabrice Sarcy, Amélie Verjat (alternating)
Sound control: Capucine Catalan, Cécile Robin (alternating)
Assistant costume designer: Pierre-Yves Loup Forest
Assistant lighting designer: Nicolas Faucheux and Julie-Lola Lanteri-Cravet.  
Stage management: Jeanne Putelat, François Michaudel (alternating)
Production: Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne / Cie Käfig
With the support of Quatuor Debussy
 
On stage
 
Dancers: Diego Alves Dos Santos known as Dieguinho, Cleiton Luiz Caetano De Oliveira, Aguinaldo De Oliveira Lopes known as Anjo, Helio Robson Dos Anjos Cavalcanti, Geovane Fidelis Da Conceição, Diego Gonçalves Do Nascimento Leitão known as White, Wanderlino Martins Neves known as Sorriso, Jose Amilton Rodrigues Junior known as Ze, Alexsandro Soares Campanha Da Silva known as Pitt.
 
String quartet: Quatuor Debussy – Christophe Collette, Marc Vieillefon, Vincent Deprecq, Cédric Conchon
 
 
Additional music credits 
Antonio Pinto and Jaques Morelenbaum : A Carta de Dora - Giuseppe Verdi / Emanuele Muzio : Luisa Miller - Marc Mellits : Prometheus, quatuor n°4, extracts from the 5th, 6th et 7th movements - Heitor Villa-Lobos : 1st quatuor, 2d movement, Brincadeira - Antonio Carlos Jobim-Luiz Bonfa : Manha de Carnaval - Rolfe Kent : Dexter theme - Leo Brouwer : un dia de noviembre - Astor Piazzolla : Escualo - Joseph Haydn : quatuor op. 33 n°5, largo e cantabile - AS’N : creation based on a theme from Astor Piazzolla - Astor Piazzolla : Chador – AS’N : original creation  - AS’N-Dorian Lamotte-Seok Woo Yoon : Flamenco - Anton Dvorak : quatuor op. 96 « américain », lento
Arrangements: Matteo Del Soldà, Thibault Lepri, Robin Melchior, Nicolas Worms
 
Video coproduction: 24 Images
Video direction: Mohamed Athamna

Mourad Merzouki

I met those young Brazilian dancers during the Dance Biennial in Lyon in 2006. Their individual stories struck a profound chord with me, reminding me how I realized as a teenager that dance was the key to find my place in the society. All of them were driven by a fervent determination to make something of their lives in reaching out to others. The desire to create for them soon appeared obvious. That is how Agwa was born in 2008. Since then, it has been an incredible artistic and human adventure : so many years travelling the world and sharing the passion of dance with unconditional energy.
 
Today I want a new challenge, taking them further into their exploration of movement and of mixing genres. It is also a choreographic challenge for me to bring together the gesture of these Brazilian dancers with the piece Boxe Boxe (a 2010 production), written for other bodies and to adapt their dance to a new music score, re-worked with the collaboration of the Debussy Quartet. Revisiting a creation is an exciting exercice : resisting to the fleetingness, proving dance is an art well alive, that adapts itself to bodies and energies, extending the pleasure of the show.
 
It is an impelling gift and I am happy to present it with these fellow travelers.
 
Following on from the artistic project I have been carrying on for 20 years, this new adaptation is part of a wider dynamic of openness to the world, revealing once again the power of dance to go beyond all boundaries.
 
 
Few words from Quatuor Debussy
 
The first round threw all prejudices into the ring’s cords ; the violins’ cords tamed the dancers’ steps, hip-hop figures domesticated the music notes.
 
Second round improbable all the same; how will musicians approach musics from the other continent, how will the Brazilian energy be channeled by the sound of instrumental cords?
 
Exciting bet because it is not a simple copy-paste of the first round but surely a totally new musical atmosphere left to create so that the fusion of cords and bodies may be perfect once again, in a coloring worthy of the most beautiful sambas. May the party begin!

Mourad Merzouki
 
A major figure on the hip-hop scene since the early 1990s, choreographer Mourad Merzouki works at the crossroads of many different disciplines: he adds circus, martial arts, fine arts, video and live music to his exploration of hip-hop dance. Without losing sight of the roots of hip-hop movement - of its social and geographical origins - this multidisciplinary approach opens new horizons and reveals original outlooks.
 
Beginning at the age of 7, Merzouki trained in the circus school of Saint-Priest, in Lyon’s eastern suburbs, while also practicing martial arts. At age 15, inspired by hip-hop culture, he gravitated towards dance. From there, Merzouki began working on his own choreography; he soon created his first dance company, Accrorap, in 1989, with Kader Attou, Eric Mezino and Chaouki Saïd. With this group, Merzouki continued to develop his unique brand of hip-hop movement while simultaneously exploring other dance genres with contemporaries Maryse Delente, Jean-François Duroure and Josef Nadj.
 
Accrorap performed Athina during the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon in 1994 and earned acclaim for bringing hip-hop from the street to the stage, enabling the troupe to perform internationally. It was during a performance at a refugee camp in Croatia that Merzouki saw the power of dance to communicate and express emotion.
 
In 1996 Merzouki decided to establish his own company. Naming it after his inaugural piece, Käfig (which means “cage” in Arabic and German), he set a symbolic tone that paradoxically represents his “openness” and refusal to become locked into a single style.
 
From 1996 to 2006, Merzouki created 14 pieces that explored the world of dance through a multitude of styles.
 
Starting from January 2006, he designed a new creation and choreographic development centre dedicated to hip-hop dance, where he also implemented the Karavel Festival : Pôle Pik, in Bron, opened its doors in 2009.
 
Since June 2009, Merzouki is director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne, where he develops an artistic project that uses “dance as a window on the world”: while creating and performing new works, Merzouki also provides support for independent groups and emerging companies, as well as training and awareness of hip-hop dance, by creating original encounters that promote access to choreographic art. In 2013, he created the Kalypso Festival, offering a new level of exposure to hip-hop dance companies in the Paris region.
 
In March 2016, Merzouki was appointed artistic advisor for Pôle en Scènes in Bron, where he brought together Pôle Pik, Espace Albert Camus and the Fort, in support of the common goal of training, creating and promoting the performing arts. He has stayed true to his artistic beliefs by creating bridges between disciplines, opening diverse spaces to an ever-wider audience.
 
Mourad Merzouki is member of the support committee to choreographic art of the French Ministry of Culture (DRAC Île-de-France) and the sponsorship committee for dance of Caisse des Dépôts.
 
He appears in the famous “Who’s Who book” and was recently included in the dictionary “Petit Larousse Illustré 2019”.