Hamid Ben Mahi taught himself hip-hop dance in the 1980s. He wanted to discover other styles such as classical, contemporary, jazz or traditional African dance and so attended the Conservatoire National de Région de Bordeaux, at the Rosella Hightower School in Cannes and at the Alvin Ailey School in New York. He has worked with various contemporary choreographers, including Philippe Decouflé, Michel Schweizer and Kader Attou, and in 2000 he founded his own company, Hors Série. Since his first production, Édition spéciale, and his hip-hop dancing, Hamid Ben Mahi has laid claim to being a true artist and to his place in a changing society. He speaks out in such a way as to exorcise everydayness, to give it meaning and to choreograph a life made up of separations, feelings and generosity as in Chronic(s) and Sekel, his two most recent pieces.
Guy Alloucherie, since the beginning of the 1980s, has been directing at the Ballatum Theatre. Key words in his work are improvisation, dance and collective effort. In 1997, he came into contact with the circus when he worked with the ninth year of graduates from the Centre National des Arts du Cirque de Châlons-en-Champagne and set up the Hendrick Van Der Zee (HVDZ) Company ‘an ensemble with variable geometrics' where the artists come from drama, circus, dance or video arts.
Creative work sites, experiments, research on social issues feed their work on the spoken and the written word, recounting experiences, childhood and memory. Since its origins, the company has produced about a dozen pieces including J'mexcuse or Les Sublimes. Increasing the number of co-directed projects, Guy Alloucherie listens and builds links, producing performances which try to bring together“militant commitment, cultural action and artistic research”.
Hamid Ben Mahi comes from a hip-hop background, a dance style that defies the laws of gravity. From his early days he has retained a precision of gesture which he employs tenderly on the stage to tell the audience about his life and about the world. His vocation as a choreographer and dancer combines with his ongoing research into movement related to real-life experience, to revolt.
In Faut qu'on parle!, concern about others takes root on stage alongside Guy Alloucherie, founder of the HVZD Company. The stage director's projects are about recalling memory, working towards integrating and rebuilding the dignity of people left out of society. Alloucherie's work is patient and delicate and is located at a crossroads of artistic language ranging from circus to dance via images and music. With Alloucherie, Ben Mahi retraces his own path. Together, they researched before starting work on the piece proper, from Algeria where his father lives to the housing estate, Les Aubiers, in Bordeaux where he grew up, via Avignon. Faces and words accompany Hamid Ben Mahi on stage, and with his movements. They make a fertile and sensitive terrain which gives meaning and necessity to this new piece. Written by more than one person, Faut qu'on parle!, about memories and identity, is a self-portrait of a dancer in a musical and visual environment, which reveals, in a sensitive way, the face of a world that is not usually seen.
Irène Filiberti
Distribution
conception : Hamid Ben Mahi et Guy Alloucherie
avec : Hamid Ben Mahi
dramaturgie et vidéo : Martine Cendre
assistant à la chorégraphie : Hassan Razak
scénographie et lumières : Frantz Loustalot
environnement sonore : Nicolas Barillot
régie générale : Antoine Auger
administration : Anne Berger
Production
Production : Compagnie Hors Série, Compagnie Hendrick Van Der Zee
en coproduction avec : le Parc de la Villette – Rencontres de la Villette, Le Cuvier de Feydeau (Artigues-près-Bordeaux), l'Office artistique de la Région Aquitaine, Culture Commune - Scène nationale du Bassin minier du Pas-de-Calais, le Festival d'Avignon, les Hivernales d'Avignon, la CCAS
avec l'aide de : l'AFAA
Le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production