Allegoria stanza [transmission 2015]

Extrait de la pièce d’Abou Lagraa remontée par le groupe Choré A Jazz Danses (Bourgoin-Jallieu), directeur artistique/responsable du groupe Patrick Martin, dans le cadre du dispositif “Danse en amateur et répertoire” (2014)

Choreography by Abou Lagraa
A choreographic extract remodelled by the group Choré A Jazz Danses (Bourgoin-Jallieu), artistic director/manager of the group Patrick Martin, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2014) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Based in Bourgouin-Jallieu, in the Isère department near Lyon, a dozen women aged twenty to thirty, make up the group Choré A Jazz Danses, whose name suggests their stylistic preference. The pieces usually interpreted are choreographed by Patrick Martin, the dance teacher leading this group. The holding of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” meeting at the Maison de la Danse de Lyon in 2014, stimulated them into wanting to take up a challenge of another level, to be in contact with the dance of Abou Lagraa, a well-known figure in the region. As the aim was to change stylistic habits, their choice fell on a piece Allegoria Stanza, itself a hybrid work, mixing hip-hop and contemporary dance.

The choreographer
Trained in the Conservatoire national supérieur de Lyon, the Franco-Algerian choreographer Abou Lagraa claims to be completely contemporary. He began his professional career in the world of neoclassical modern ballets, then continuing to nurture a taste for great flowing compositions with occasional oriental overtones. In 1997, he created his company La Baraka, loyally supported by the scène nationale Les Gémeaux de Sceaux and Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He set up the Ballet contemporain d’Alger in 2009. The piece Allegoria Stanza, created in 2002, was greatly responsible for his recognition, with its merging of the energies of contemporary and hip-hop dancers. Indeed so much so that he sometimes regrets that he is principally, and unjustly, known for this style of dancing alone. 

The artist
Alongside his interpreter Saül Dovin, Abou Lagraa has taken a personal interest in the dancers of Choré A Jazz Danses to an unexpected degree. He has let himself be won over by a middle-aged group, endowed with a capacity for assertiveness and physical commitment free of all youthful bashfulness. The opening tableau of Allegoria Stanza, to a music by the Lebanese singer Fairouz, inspired a cultural quest around Mediterranean civilisation. In 2002, this highly rhythmic tableau, beaten out on the ground, worked towards a merge of hip-hop and contemporary dance. The subject of a dual converging adaptation, it has slipped from its original male composition to its current all-female composition and from the vigour of hip-hop to greater fluidity, owing something to jazz.