"We are a hip-hop company in search of a choreographic language. Although our writing is close to contemporary, our dance has nothing to do with the gestures of contemporary choreography." This pursuit of a boundary language, experimented with by various hip-hop groups, is clearly expressed by Mourad Merzouki of the group Käfig. Alongside Chaouki Saïd, another dancer from the second French hip-hop group featured at the Festival, Merzouki, before joining Käfig, was among the co-founders of Accrorap, one of the first formations across the Alps to experiment with the confrontation between street dance and classical and contemporary techniques. The cast of Käfig is completed by four other dancers, all with backgrounds in collaborations with the company Traction Avant and other French formations. Their interventions range from the staging of shows to territorial outreach works aimed at spreading hip-hop culture. The name of the company means "cage" and refers to the contrast between the demand for freedom of spirit and the reality of the limits and constraints imposed by society. "We live with the feeling of being locked up, lost in a cage. One could choose to remain silent in the midst of this defined space. But, despite everything, we feel the need to reach out to others. And it is the energy of hip-hop that allows dialogue and openness towards other horizons." The theme of the show, Génération hip hop, is, unsurprisingly, integration. The work is dedicated to the film of the same name shot by Jean-Pierre Thorm a few years ago in France about the most inventive protagonists of street dance. The company presents a show in which gesture and word echo each other, telling the journey of hip hop, from the revolt against a society that willingly ignores the ghettos, of which it is both mother and cause, to the dream that invites hope, to artistic creation understood as a means of reconstruction.
