The dance of Fouad Boussouf: an infernal round of fire

The National Choreographic Center of Le Havre and Fouad Boussouf, who now directs it, invites us to an infernal and frenetic march.

This eclectic choreographer with a background in social sciences and hip hop invited around ten dancers to lead an endless, dizzying round on stage. To the point of giving us the impression of transforming into needles on an LP which would spin in 45 revolutions, and sometimes panic in 78 revolutions. The shape of the circle is regularly used by choreographers – there is a good example in Béjart’s Boléro – to, most often, symbolize a ritual. Here, in this show entitled Fêu that we saw at the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris, before its departure for a long tour in the region, it is the African connotation that we retain, with the haunting rhythm of the drum which gradually resumes pro the cadence of a beating heart. From time to time, a dancer leaves the circle, but very quickly the group calls her back and she returns to her rank. After half an hour, the race stops, the music slows down, the tulle curtain surrounding the stage falls and everything calms down. We think we have reached the end. But the race resumes with a vengeance, like a rave party which, under ecstasy, would last well beyond the night, supported by increasingly elaborate variations of the rhythms, signed by the composer François Caffenne. Attention ! the decibels rise with the acceleration of the tempo and earplugs are recommended at the end of the show. The dancers obviously do not wear the regulation bun of the classic, but they play with their mane as much as with their arms and their legs. They thus achieve, and during this eternity, an admirable and true physical and technical feat. A spectacle that fascinates as much as it distresses – isn’t that Fouad Boussouf’s intention?

Le Havre on November 21 and 22, Béziers on December 15, Brest from the 20th to the 22nd, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines on February 2 and 3, Alès on the 7th, Nîmes on the 9th, Vitry sur Seine on March 8 Saint-Brieuc on April 20, Orléans on May 29, Châteauroux on the 31st,

https://lephare-ccn.fr/creations-et-tournee/feu