Current Grantees

PIXEL
COMPAGNIE KÄFIG – MOURAD MERZOUKI
IN COLLABORATION WITH ADRIEN M & CLAIRE B

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Lenox, MA
August 24-27, 2023

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kennedy Center, DC
August 30 – September 1, 2023

Jacob’s Pillow Festival, Lenox, MA, in partnership with JF Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, will present Compagnie Kafig’s groundbreaking work Pixel: The Jacob’s Pillow with 6 performances in the historic Ted Shawn Theatre from August 24 to 27. The Kennedy Center with 3 performances from August 30 to September 1st.

Founded by acclaimed French-Algerian hip hop artist Mourad Merzouki, Compagnie Käfig draws on hip hop and contemporary dance with elements of circus, martial arts, fine arts, video, and live music. Pixel a collaboration with performance and digital artists Adrien M and Claire B, features a unique fusion of virtuoso Hip Hop dance with cutting-edge digital projection, with 11 dancers navigating a sophisticated interactive environment of light and video projections.

FUSION CONCEPT
FRANCE – USA DANCE EXCHANGE PROGRAM

Ghetto Style Movement
August in Paris / November in Atlanta

This Fusion Concept France-USA dance exchange program will be around three key events including one in April in the city of Atlanta. Two winners of the US qualifiers picked in April are invited to Paris for 5 days to join the final week of Fusion Concept festival alongside 8 famous professional American guest dancers to participate in the world final battle. Then In November, 8 professional French dancers will travel to Atlanta for a week and give hip hop “French Touch” workshops, then participate in an USA vs FRANCE exhibition dance battle.

Da Modd Empire is an organization organizing Hip Hop and Flex’N Street Dance Festivals since 2014 in Atlanta. They will host all the Fusion Concept events in Atlanta. Fusion Concept is a French dance festival that is now the most influential 2vs2 freestyle dance international competition followed by more than 68000 people around the world.
As part of the celebration of 50 years of Hip hop culture in 2023

THE WHITE PROJECT
THIERRY THIEU NIANG AND ANNE MOURIER

The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, NY
August 2023

White Dance is a collaboration between French choreographer Thierry Thieu Niang and Anne Mourier, French visual artist based in NYC. The white kilt, made of hundreds of pieces of fabric, will serve as a symbol of the interconnectedness of all things. Bringing five non professional dancers together, Thierry Thieu Niang and Anne Mourier will conduct a 3-week workshop before showing public performance.
The dancers will use the fabric to create different shapes, forms and patterns, representing the different stages of life and the ever-changing nature of existence.

TRILOGY OF WORKS
LEÏLA KA

University of Rochester, Program of Dance and Movement, NY
September 9-17, 2023

University of Rochester will present 2 performances of three pieces by French choreographer and performer, Leïla Ka: Bouffées, You’re the one we love, and Pode ser, in the new Sloan Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on the River campus, as part of the Rochester Fringe Festival, a US debut for choreographer Leila Ka who has not traveled or toured in the United States to date.

Emerging in 2018 with her dazzling solo Pode ser, Leïla Ka won the Danse Élargie competition in 2022 organised by the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, for her latest creation, Bouffées, in which the audience meet five women struggling with a grief that is both immense and liberating.

AN IMMIGRANT’S STORY
WANJIRU KAMUYU

CaminAktion for WK Collective
U.S. Tour: Princeton University / PS21 Chatham / The Chocolate Factory Theater
September 2023

Kenyan-France based choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu will tour An Immigrant’s Story in September, in three locations: Princeton University, part of Seul en scène Festival, at PS21, Chatham, and The Chocolate Factory Theater, New York.

Kamuyu’s dance-making’s overall eco-system is grounded in storytelling, focusing on unearthing un-heard, under-heard, ignored, rarely told and untold stories of marginalized communities. Drawing upon a tapestry of cross-disciplinary art forms, she creates socially and politically engaged works that speak to universal human conditions.

SOURCIERES : FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND FEMINIST HISTORY OF DANCE
ANNE COLLOD

& Alters Company
In partnership with PS21, Chatham, NY
October 2023

Creative residency for the French choreographer Anne Collod at PS21, Chatham, and in collaboration with American choreographers such as Jennifer Monson and Pooh Kaye, and performers such as Lisa Kraus (Trisha Brown Dance co.) among others. Sourcieres, a future project to be created in 2024 in France and in Europe by Anne Collod addresses the work of American iconic contemporary dance by Anna Halprin, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Lisa Nelson. Through workshops and visits of archives, the project will research how “wild environments” have inspired, defined and transformed the practices of these choreographers in relation to feminist issues of their time.

NEVERTWENTYONE
SMAÏL KANOUTE – COMPAGNIE VIVONS

U.S. Tour: FIAF, New York / PS21, Chatham / MIFA, Holyoke / Duke U., Durham
September – October 2023

Nevertwentyone, a trio by Smail Kanouté is part of triptych questioning the condition of the Black community in different times and locations. Echoing the hashtag #Never21 coined by the Black Lives Matter movement, Nevertwentyone, will be presented by four prestigieux institutions: FIAF (French Institute Alliance Française), New York, PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century, Chatham, NY, MIFA – Massachussetts International Festival of the Arts, Holyoke, MA, and then, at Duke University, Durham, NC

O SAMBA DO CRIOULO DOIDO
CALIXTO NETO – LUIZ DE ABREU

NYU, Department of Performance Studies, NY
October 9-14, 2023

Performances of the solo O Samba do Crioulo Doido by Calixto transmitted by Luiz de Abreu, workshop, film and panel discussions organized by the Department of Performances Studies of NYU
Faced with the urgency of tackling the issue of de-colonization, as well as questioning the heritage of slavery, the solo conceived and danced by Luiz de Abreu and then passed to France-based brazilian artist Calixto Neto, deconstructs the representations of the black body in Brazilian Culture. By asking Calixto Neto to play out the stereotypes linked to the black body, anchored far too deeply in the Brazilian collective subconscious, Luiz de Abrreu succeeds in turning racist clichés back on themselves.

L’ONDE
NACERA BELAZA

Wesleyan Center for the Arts – Wesleyan University
October 2023

The latest work L’Onde by French-Algerian choreographer Nacera Belaza and her company will tour in three cities during October 2023, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, RedCat, Los Angeles. A third stop was added at Wesleyan Center for the Arts – Wesleyan Univesity, CT

Continuing the journey embarked upon in her preceding pieces, Nacera Belaza explores, with L’Onde, the repetition and the ritual, and raises the question how repetition enables us to connect with the inner self as well as to espouse infinity.

L’ETANG
GISELE VIENNE WITH ADELE HAENEL AND JULIE SHANAHAN

PS21, Chatham, NY
October 12-16, 2023

PS21 will present the US premiere of L’étang, Gisèle Vienne’s adaptation of a short play by Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878-1956) about a child who pretends to drown in order to test his mother’s love. Two virstuosic actors, Adèle Haenel who will be the central child as well as his friends and siblings, and Julie Shanahan who plays the adults. The work utilizes contrasts of story and movement, an unsettling soundscape and the incredible actors to create multiple levels of perception of reality and temporality, interiority and exteriority, and explore family trauma issues presented in Walser’s original piece. After PS21, L’étang will then tour on the East Coast.

CORPS EXTREMES
RACHID OURAMDANE & CIE XY

Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY
October 2023

BAM will present the U.S. premiere of Corps Extrêmes by Rachid Ouramdane as part of the 2023 Next Wave Festival
Corps Extremes takes Ouramdane’s fascination with sports such as rock climbing, tighrope walking and acrobatics and transforms them into works of art, both joyful and meditative. With daredevil athletes and dancers, the aerial choreography demonstrates the trust, the intensity and the fear inherent in these gravity-defying feats. Ouramdane, who now serves as Director of Chaillot – Theatre National de la Danse, in Paris

TAKEMEHOME
DIMITRI CHAMBLAS AND KIM GORDON

RedCat, Los Angeles
Fort Mason, San Francisco
November 2023

As part of a large Utour that includes stops in Minneapolis, New York, the new production by Dimitri Chamblas with the composer-singer and guitarist Kim Gordon (founding member of the rock band Sonic Youth) will be on the West Coast, first at CalArts, then at Fort Mason, San Francisco.

In addition of Chamblas and Gordon, Takemehome brings together 10 dancers including performer and choreographers Marion Barbeau and Salia Sanou, an inflatable lighting zeppelin hanging above their heads and five electric guitars and five amps. Sounds and silhouettes emerge and disappear in the space as forgotten people made visible within the delicate framework.

UNISSON AND RUSH
ASHLEY CHEN – COMPAGNIE KASHYL

La Mama Theater, New York
November 14- December 9, 2023

La Mama Experimental Theater Club has invited French performer and choreographer Ashley Chen to present two US premiere, Unisson and Rush, at the Ellen Stewart Theater in 2023.
In Unisson, eight dancers move in concert yet out of sync attempting to reach an intimate point of resonance. In Rush, two dancers (including Ashley Chen) frantically race until they are breathless and stumble all over the place forcing to find ways of keeping their balance. Ashley Chen will also transmit a third piece Distances, a work with ten masked female dancers to the NYU students, and offer a showcase of his new solo.
Together with Distances, Unisson and Rush form a triptych of works that explore the nature of the social group and collective production.

REPERTORY WORKS
CCN BALLET DE LORRAINE

NYU Skirball, New York
April 21-22, 2023

Invited by NYU Skirball, New York, the Ballet de Lorraine, from Nancy, performed two pieces of its repertory: For four Walls by Petter Jacobsson and Thomas Caley with the music of John Cage performed in live by Vanessa Wagner and Cela nous Concerne tous (This is concern all of us) by American choreographer Miguel Gutierrez, as a “clin d’oeil” to the choreographer Merce Cunningham and a tribute to the youth of the 1968 riots in France

Contact

Nicole Birmann Bloom
Program Officer, Performing Arts
nicole.birmann-bloom@villa-albertine.org