Soli II

First presented in June 2006 at the CND as part of the HipHop Tanz Dance Festival, ever since this original solo has never ceased to be a resounding success. The CND gives you the opportunity to see it again for its one hundredth performance.

Choreographed by Anthony Égéa from the company Rêvolution for the dancer Émilie Sudre, Soli II achieves its aim: wielding all the feminine stereotypes to finally exhaust them in the blunt virtuosity of the physical challenge. The intelligence of the hip-hop body dressed in stiletto heels and a black mini dress – an apparel just the opposite to the specific sportswear look of the acrobatic break dance style – , dazzling with warrior beauty […] No easy seduction in this solo driven by the music of Tedd Zahmal. A perceptible inner harshness makes the dancer invulnerable, untouchable. Her skirt can rise up completely as she somersaults, she can even end up in the wings … Émilie Sudre, dressed only in a black petticoat and knee-pads, remains simple and proud. Her nudity, whatever the position, never eclipses the dance and its quality of writing, which shield her like invisible armour.

Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, February 1st, 2007.

“To the sound of stiletto heels – those who have seen the film “The man who loved women”, will understand – even before the shapely silhouette, backlighted, the scene is set. A stereotype of femininity, Émilie Sudre has come to show what she’s made of. A bullfighter’s walk around the white carpet, her back arched, challenging the public with her stare. Incidentally, you need to imagine that room full, like an arena, of frantic hip-hoppers come to witness the sight of virtuosos giving combat… and the sheer confidence that Émilie needs to be just there. She suddenly leaps onto the rectangle, like a tatami, and carries out hip-hop variations, one after the other, with a slowness that displays masterly skills. From the top of her stilettos, street gestures turn into a calligraphy, a blue-print for a tightrope walker. Better still, she takes off a shoe… Easy to imagine that this display of virtuosity silenced many a whiff of male chauvinism. Such was the aim.

Her arms caught up in her figure-hugging dress, she’s now a veiled woman in an oriental-style. And the hip-hop gestures in this apparel clearly point to an emancipation. Then she’s there, turning her back, half naked. She continues to dance, with sweet modesty, concealing her breasts as much as the dance permits. The scene is of rare beauty, but the demonstration has been made and there’s not much else to say about it. And that’s how it ends.

Soli 2 is the middle part of a triptych that Anthony Égéa has dedicated to challenging hip-hop stereotypes. Now self-standing, Émilie Sudre’s demonstration is an attack on the sexism frequently denounced in this milieu. However, the sheer intensity of the interpreter and the way she dominates her public, evocative of bullfighting, far exceed the initial goal. This solo is also the expression of the Woman using her attractiveness as a weapon and her seductiveness as a power. If, at times, this makes you think of Almodovar’s film Matador, this also explains why – and the solo passage is all the more important for this – in some cultures from which certain members of the hip-hop culture hail, women are constrained, humiliated and veiled”.

Philippe Verrièle, July 2007