A major figure on the hip-hop scene since the early 1990s, Merzouki works at the crossroads of many different disciplines: he adds circus, martial arts, fine arts, video and live music to his exploration of hip-hop dance. Without losing sight of the roots of hip-hop movement – of its social and geographical origins – this multidisciplinary approach opens new horizons and reveals original outlooks. Since 1996, 30 creations have been performed in 700 cities and 65 countries, with more than 3,000 performances given for 1.7 million people. Since 2009, Merzouki is director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne, where he created the festival Kalypso, a Parisian twin of his festival Karavel in the region of Lyon. In 2016, he is also appointed artistic director of Pôle en Scènes in Bron.
We use images as trompe l’oeils. We want to deform perception, blur the lines between what is true and what is false, cross the daily boundaries of reality, and reveal things that are not “possible”. We want to modify, distort and offset our relationship to time and space, just like a hip-hop dancer with his or her body. It is at that point of junction that the performance was born: the quest for illusion.
Claire Bardainne & Adrien Mondot