FRANCE: TRADITIONAL INDIAN DANCE AND MODERN HIP HOP COME TOGETHER UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF FRENCH CHOREGRAPHER KADER ATTOU

Record ID: 391727

  • Title: FRANCE: TRADITIONAL INDIAN DANCE AND MODERN HIP HOP COME TOGETHER UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF FRENCH CHOREGRAPHER KADER ATTOU
  • Date: 3rd August 2001
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) INDIAN DANCER RUKMINI CHATTERJEE SAYING: "Our dance is perpetually renewing itself, it never becomes ancient, and it's always a dance of today, which is maybe why it was possible to combine it with hip-hop, which is barely 30 years old. Ours is always a dance of today, which is not associated to any particular circumstance, and is always man talking to
  • Embargoed: 18th August 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAO221DMXAECJ7L8N46OB6R0GH
  • Story Text: Traditional Indian dance and the modern street rhythms of hip hop have come together under the inspiration of French choreographer Kader Attou, in a delightful cross-cultural endeavor called "The Dance of Gods and Men".
    French choreographer Kader Attou and his dance troupe Accrorap, supported by three Indian dancers, have presented his show "Anokha", an amalgam of classical Indian dance and hip-hop, in Paris. The eclectic company comprises five dancers from the Accrorap group, two disciples of Kathak maestro Kumindi Lakhia, Prashant Shah and Vaishali Trivedi, and Rukmini Chatterjee, a Bengali Bharatnatyam dancer from Ahmedabad. The dancers of Accrorap belong to a different cultural ethos: while Kader and Habib Benzaine are of Algerian origin, Pierre Bolo and Christelle Blanc are French and Jose dos Santos is Swiss.
    The performance at the Palais Royal was a meeting of various forms of dance which did not lead to a merger but instead the different styles created their own spaces parallel to each other. Compared to Indian dance forms, Hip Hop is a new form, having started as a street dance in the US in the 1970's.
    Europe quickly adopted it and today almost every European country has a distinct style of its own. The dance style, which celebrates the free spirit, started as a reaction to violence pervading American society in the 70's, and young people would compete by dancing rather than fighting.
    "Anokha", also known as "The Dance of Gods and Men", took one year to be created The leading theme of the sleek and fast-paced performance is non-violence. For Kader Attou, the main premise used to achieve the combination of combining hip-hop and the classical Indian styles was a profound comprehension of each other among the dancers. "We live, more and more, in a situation where the individual is afraid of meeting others," he said, and explained that in his art he tries to work from the experiences he has learnt in other countries, like India, where people are more open to the idea of encountering others.
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