Never Twenty One

Smaïl Kanouté / Compagnie Vivons! (France)

Smaïl Kanouté’s dance production is a lament, a tribute and a protest. It takes its name from the hashtag #Never21–a reference to Black men who have lost their lives to gun violence before reaching 21 years of age. The show pays homage to the memory of Black men in New York, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg who have died from shootings.

On a darkened stage, three men move with a style that applies the urban idioms of krump, popping, baile funk and passinho to contemporary dance. Each man’s body is inscribed with the words of victims’ families–words of praise, of sorrow, of grief. The dancing is effusive yet finely calibrated, with beautiful, forcefully symbolic movements. In its reference to individual lives, Never Twenty One has a heartbreaking specificity; as a political act, it has a global reach.

Production Company: Live! Co-production: Les Ateliers Médicis, Clichy-sous-Bois / Espace 1789, subsidized dance stage, Saint-Ouen / The International Choreographic Meetings of Seine-Saint-Denis / Centquatre- Paris / Théâtre de la Ville, Expanded Dance 2020, Corporate Foundation Hermès

Support: Île-de-France Regional Department of Cultural Affairs / Île-de-France Region / Department of Seine-Saint-Denis / City of Paris / Adami / Spedidam / Caisse des Dépôts Acknowledgments Théâtre de la Ville-Les Abbesses , Paris / Center national de la danse, Pantin / Mains d’oeuvres, Saint-Ouen / House of amateur artistic practices (MPAA), Paris / Artists’ initiatives in urban dances (IADU), Fondation de France, La Villette 2021

Workshop: Hip-hop Freestyle with Salomon Mpondo-Dicka

January 20, 2023 | 1-3pm
Scotiabank Dance Centre (See Map)
$15-30: early bird prices until January 9

The workshop will start from the participants’ own techniques, practices and approaches to build the foundations for your own freestyle.

Different aspects of freestyle hip-hop will be explored, through exercises and short basic choreographic phrases, both solo and in groups.

Then, participants will experiment with how fluidity, dissociation and slowness break down into several forms to feed our vocabulary.

Finally the workshop will focus on the assimilation of this new material to deliver a personal freestyle creation.

For professional and emerging dancers working in all genres – hip-hop experience is not required.

Photo: Lorenza Daverio, Feroz Sahoulamide

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