Presentation

Eight individuals blend into one, driven by a visceral transcending energy. The storyline of Dyptik starts in 2012 with another piece, En Quête. Together they form an artistic diptych that explores culturally rooted topics such as immigration and collective identity.
As the continuation of the artistic reflection started with En Quête, Dyptik is born out of the encounter between French and Malian dancers and questions the fragile balance between the desire for conformity and the search for individual identity.

The choreographic path allows the individual and the group to confront one another and go past their cultural differences through their body language, giving way to bonding and exchange.
Dancers feed off one another’s movement with fluidity, flexibility and elegance, as if merging together and coming out stronger.

For the present piece, Souhail Marchiche created a hybrid language, in which the foundational Hip-Hop basics live side by side with a more traditional, almost ritualistic style of dance. The brutal, sometimes tribalistic dynamic is akin to a trance which creates a tense and intense energy that flows out of the performers and to the audience. The musical composition accentuates the tense atmosphere. The spectators find themselves carried away in a universe both singular and modern that captivates them until the last note…
The musical composition is an equal driving force in setting an atmosphere which captivates the audience. Until the last note, they are carried away in a universe both peculiar and modern in style.

Artist’s note

Through the dialogue between France and Mali in Dyptik, I took the gamble that making two cultural and artistic identities meet and interact would broaden my choreographic research and push it beyond the usual codes.

When I introduce myself as a ‘dancer’ in France, I still have to specify which kind of dance I do: ‘Hip-Hop’. Then, I am asked what kind of hip-hop I dance, which would be ‘break-dancing’ etc…
Having to define oneself has become inevitable. I found out that it was not the case in Mali, where Hip-Hop and dance are approached in their entirety.

Meeting Malian dancers and experiencing their choreographic richness was a triggering factor: from then on, I was going to confront our demands and specialization to their larger range of dance practice and how easily they handle different kinds of dance.
The dialogue that was installed reminded us that Hip-Hop is the messenger of a multiform language which invites one to constantly shake up their choreographic habits.

Dyptik is the story of an encounter and dialogue between two worlds that look at each other to complete each other. It also is a story of movements and bodies that mingle in a choreography inspired by our differences in esthetics, energy and gesture. This artistic approach represents a real challenge for dancers, who are heckled when they perform.
Working between two countries allowed each and every one of them to lose their points of reference, to feel the change of scene and to experience alterity so as to convey these emotions, at best, on stage. Every dancer’s emotions, faced with the other and inspired by their differences are the essence of this piece. This is the reason why I wanted them to be closely involved in the writing and elaboration of Dyptik.”

Souhail Marchiche, Choreographer