A fusion of street dance and Japanese butoh is the offering from Traction Avant, a French company at the Festival with a street event and Désert, a creation directed by Zoro Henchiri and Sumako Koseki. The combination of hip-hop and the dance of darkness is jarring at first glance, yet both forms of expression originate from an act of social and political protest. Street dance fights against the marginalization of the ghetto. It hinges on a highly virtuosic body technique, with head spins being the most striking example. The energy that distinguishes it explodes outward, converging into vital and dynamic movement. Butoh, which emerged in the 1950s as a break from the tradition of Noh and Kabuki theater, is a silent scream against the tragedy of Hiroshima. It reacts to the atomic bomb explosion by exposing a tortured body, folded inward. It seeks an inner response to a society that has become irreconcilable with the aesthetics of beauty. Butoh is also a dance of great energy. However, unlike hip-hop, it implodes violently inward, creating a nocturnal, excessive gesturality of voluptuous stillness.
Zoro Henchiri discovered breakdancing in the early 1980s, working with Fred Bendongue. Since 1984, he has participated in all the activities of the Traction Avant company. Un Break a Tokyo was the first step in the journey of combining street dance and butoh, followed by But Hop, a solo for Zoro Henchiri and percussion, and Désert. The origin of this latest creation lies in the desire to express what the desert means through dance – geographically, spiritually, and symbolically. Working with Henchiri and Koseki are Karm Amghar and Kader Belmoktar, two dancers from Valence who began engaging with street dance in the early 1990s, dancing in social centers and with the company Culture Street.
