VietNamNet Bridge – French artists of the Compagnie par Terre dance group will perform in HCM City today and in Ha Noi on Friday, as part of their Asian tour.  

Frantic ritual: French dancers from the Compagnie par Terre dance group will perform in HCM City and Ha Noi as part of their Asian tour. Photo courtesy of l’Espace

The artists will perform a dance choreographed by well-known Vietnamese-French hip-hop dancer Anne Nguyen, who has won the Battle of the Year several times. During the dance, for 50 minutes, four dancers engage in a frantic ritual, alternating between forward-facing dance moves and free digression.

They transform their respective dance specialities of breakdance, popping and waacking into an abstract vocabulary, establishing their powerful individuality on stage and thrusting themselves into the assigned space in pursuit of territory, alliances and hierarchy.

The front of the stage is the rallying point where the dancers come together and devise a warrior dance directed at the audience.

The inner workings of this restless “tribe”, with all the power struggles that ensue and the search for possible points of harmony, thus unfold on stage to the pulsating, unbridled rhythms of the percussive organic beat.

Nguyen founded the Compagnie par Terre dance group in 2005. Drawing on her experience as a specialist in breakdance and hip-hop battles, a dancer in many hip-hop and contemporary dance companies and a writer of poetry and prose on dance, she created the dance company to highlight the principles and energy of hip-hop dance in shows that focused on universal symbols.

Influenced by her scientific background, Nguyen deconstructs the various hip-hop moves and opens up new areas of expression by setting geometrical constraints.

In an extension of her practice of martial arts, she develops choreographic principles that bring hip-hop dancers into contact within their own dance forms.

Based on the combination of a technical, high-energy dance form with highly graphic, pure, destructured choreographic compositions, Nguyen’s productions convey a feeling of abstraction and challenge the place of the human being in the contemporary world.

The dancers will perform in HCM City at the Ben Thanh Theatre and in Ha Noi at the Youth Theatre, 11 Ngo Thi Nham Street. Tickets are available at l’Espace, 24 Trang Tien Street, Ha Noi.

VNS