Vertikal

Dancing without weight. Floating without constraint, like a fish in water. You rise, and with one hand touch that of a friend. You perch like a bird on a branch, a blossom of immobile youth at the tip of its stem. Then depart, with the same burst of energy, to other free spirits, to make your mark upon other walls … Have you ever had this dream? Then Vertikal is for you. 

Struggling, step by step, with the weight of conventions. Confronting, mano a mano, the hard life of the streets. Working the body to rise up and reach beyond itself.  In this context hip-hop was born at the end of the 1960s. And because it is still practiced in this same spirit, it has lost none of its affirmative power. But as with all forms of emergent expression, its flow of forms has come to be defined and disciplined over time. A few creators have managed to remain free, creating hybrids with other styles in search of new horizons.

Mourad Merzouki is one of these. He grew up with hip-hop and in turn has helped it grow. Vertikal, with the K that is something of a personal trademark (and the initial of Käfig, the company he founded), marks a new stage in his evolution. The project seems haunted by a dream as old as dance itself: to be free as the air, to become light as breath. This utopic vision is here achieved with the use of techniques borrowed from circus. To launch his troupe in the conquest of vertical dance, the director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Creteil et Val-de-Marne relies on a space with high walls punctuated by grips and holds. Bathed in superb lighting, supported by original music by Armand Amar, the performers take off, fly at will, play with gravity like virtuoso alpinists, opening new paths to other choreographic heavens.

Artistic direction & choreography Mourad Merzouki
Music Armand Amar
Lights Yoann Tivoli
Sets Benjamin Lebreton
Costumes Pascale Robin
Air Training Isabelle Pinon
With Francisca Alvarez, Rémi Autechaud, Kader Belmoktar, Sabri Colin, Nathalie Fauquette, Pauline Journé, Maud Payen / Alba Faivre, Manon Payet, Teddy Verardo, Médésséganvi Yetongnon

 Nous avons décidé de mettre en place le dispositif de contrôle du Pass sanitaire à compter du 1er septembre 2021. La mise en œuvre du pass vous permettra ainsi d’assister aux spectacles de l’Opéra de Dijon dans des conditions de sécurité encore renforcées. En savoir plus