Hip hop culture now has a thirty-year history. Its origins date back to 1979, the year the first rap record, *Rapper’s Delight* by the Sugarhill Gang, appeared in the United States. From the American black ghettos, the phenomenon progressively spread and globalized: France was the first among European countries to import this new culture and its diverse expressions in music, dance, mural painting (graffiti), fashion, and lifestyle. In the early 1980s, the social phenomenon grew as the "voice of the banlieues." Over time, hip hop progressively professionalized and structured itself, moving from the streets to the stage, and blending with more "cultured" dance forms. It sought a new dramaturgy of the body that, from the combination of smurf and hype (the former is a dance drawing from the richness of mime, the latter more freely inspired by African dances, music videos, tap dance, and academic dance and its steps), achieved not only choreography in the traditional sense of connecting movements with rules of style, rhythm, and virtuosity but also a strong sense of image and dramatic representation.
Oriente Occidente has chosen to present to the festival audience some representative examples of this phenomenon and its dual nature between stage and street: a French company, Rêvolution, which focuses on female hip hop; a company from Madagascar, Up the Rap, showcasing the globalization of this artistic movement as well as the integration of hip hop with indigenous culture; and another, La Baraka, which, while originating from contemporary dance, has integrated hip hop dancers into its successful creation *Allegoria Stanza*. Significantly quieter compared to the male universe, female hip hop not only has existed since the beginning (as evidenced by double dutch, a dance practiced exclusively by women), but it is also establishing itself on the international scene. The Rêvolution company, led by choreographer Anthony Egéa, conceived *Amazones* to celebrate this world, starting from a cultured reference and the recovery of the Greek myth of the Amazons and their matriarchal vision of society. Six women and two men (will they succumb to the Amazons?) take possession of the ancient myth on stage to tackle the eternal themes of the relationship between masculine and feminine, eroticism, ambiguity, homosexuality, birth, and fertilization.
*Amazones* is a dangerous, rebellious, intense, and at the same time intimate journey through today's taboos, the boundaries of eroticism, the new challenges of hip hop culture contaminated by contemporary dance, accompanied by the original and impactful music of Franck II Louise, the pioneer of French hip hop and the founder of the first group in France, as well as an internationally renowned rap DJ. The French company Rêvolution is also tasked with introducing hip hop in its original street form. In the historic center of Rovereto, the group will evoke free-style through a combination of improvised moments and pre-defined choreographic sequences, seeking a virtuosic and festive contact with the audience who choose to engage with them.
