Aktuel Force Hip – Hop Dance Company

The company
AKTUEL FORCE, founded in 1984 in Paris, is nowadays one of the most representative hip-hop dance companies in France and Europe.
Since 1984 this group, constantly enriched by new human and artistic experiences, has gained several rewards, taking part to the most important dance festivals: in 1995 it took part to the Hannover Festival, to the Festival Street Artistic Week-End Jam of Bâle (Switzerland), Festivagues du Havre, Festival Bruits de Boulevard à Rouen; in 1997, in cooproduction with the St. Florent-le-Vieil Festival, AKTUEL FORCE and the Japanese RAVERS company produced the "Au Delà du Temps" coreography; in 1998 the company was given the price for young coreographic talents and took part in the creation of “L’oeil du temps”, for the CDNC d’Angers, in collaboration with the theatres of La Roche sur Yon, Mans, Laval, Nantes and St. Herblain; in 2004 it presents “Pyramide” at the Festival des Rencontres Urbaines in Paris in cooproduction with La Villette Park.
The company has been subsidized by the French Culture Ministry since 1997.

Urban and plural hip-hop
When one talks of hip-hop he/she automatically talks of dance (break, smurf, hyp, double-dutch), music (rap, reggae, djing, beat-box) and graphic arts (tag, graph)... these three components are the creative expressions of the young people of the metropolis.
A result of the fusion of different cultures, the hip-hop trend was born in the United States; the roots of graph date back to the 1960s, while break dance and rap were born in Bronx around the half 1970s. “Hip” is a slang word of the black American ghetto and comes from the word “hep” which means in argot “to be unprejudiced”, while “hop” means dancing...
In hip-hop “smurf”, nowadays more commonly known as “electric boogie”, is outlined: it’s inspired to the richness of the mimic art and creates an ondulatory movement very similar to the one of the electric current. “Hype”, which is inspired either to African dances and to tip-tap, circus, classical dance and jazz music, privileges indeed the interation of the dancers. “Double dutch” is a mix of dance and skiping. “Breakdance” (solo) is an acrobatic dance that bring together improvvisation, the so called “free style”, to pre-established coreographic figures.

The show: “Evolution”
A show of atmosphere and mistery, this coreographic tale for seven dancers testimonies, through the prism of the hip-hop philosophy, the evolution of manhood, its fears, its strengths. Carried by Franck De Louise’s original musical, the bodies stretch in the air, roll on the ground, almost touch each other and wrap themselves in a sinphony of movements that faces the force of gravity.
The deep sentiment of being present again at the creation of a world where poetry and physical performances mix up.