“[…]
What are the connections between urban and African traditional dances? Anne Nguyen seeks out the answer in her latest production [Superstrat[.

[…] As the audience takes their seats, Mark-Wilfried Kouadio can be seen stretching at the back of the stage, clad in a red shirt and trousers patterned with African masks interspersed with the faces of James Brown and Nina Simone. He comes forward, stands in front of the audience and rotates his hips at hypnotic speed in a series of precise mini-gyrations.

Orchestrated as a prolonged variation on a theme,  [Superstrat[  takes us through a myriad of bodily states, energies and imaginations. The dancer moves his spine fluidly, carefully unfurling his arms like giant wings, then pumping his chest or energetically flailing his arms forward. The mood is at times festive, as he takes tiny dance steps, his head thrust forward as if entranced by the music, then more acrobatic, as he sketches out a few breakdance moves, snaking his body, worm-like, along the ground. Buoyed along by the pulsing, upbeat soundtrack composed by Pierre Demange and Grégoire Letouvet bringing together piano, percussion and electro sounds, we discover similarities between African traditional dances and hip-hop styles of the past decades: breakdance, popping, locking, krumping and hip-hop freestyle. So, are these superstrat dance styles? 

Mark-Wilfried Kouadio unfurls his body before us like an ever-unfolding map in motion. The dancer’s body-map traces lines and curves that create links and bridges between the dances, each of which, suffused with their own style and context, convey unique identities and bond communities together. Once again proof that the history of dance is told through tours and journeys, correspondence and cassettes sent across the world, or videos shared on the internet, but also through colonization, migration and exile. This solo is imbued with the full complexity of gestural language in the making.”

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The journey of Mark-Wilfried Kouadio (‘[Superstrat[‘ by Anne Nguyen)

“In the case of hip-hop dance, it is interesting to follow the work of French choreographer Anne Nguyen, qui who recently unveiled a magnificent solo performed by the young Ivorian, Mark-Wilfried Kouadio alias ‘Willy Kazzama’. The title of the piece [Superstrat[,is derived from the linguistic term superstratum used to refer to an intrusive language that establishes itself on the territory of a local one (substratum).

Mark-Wilfried Kouadio practices both traditional and urban dances. During a conversation last November, when speaking on the subject of traditional dances, he explained that Ivory Coast has over 60 ethnic groups [in a population of 30 million], with each group practising at least 3 dances. In villages, dance features prominently in social life (feasts, marriages, deaths, etc.) and personal life (reaching of puberty, etc.), as well as in dialogues with ancestors, divinities, nature and animals. Some dances may not be seen by children, women, men or people from neighbouring villages. He comes from the Bété people, an agricultural group from the north of the country. Urban dances mobilise movements that we may find, often unwittingly, in traditional dances, and without all the associated connotations.

He appears suddenly this evening, back left of the stage. He performs stretches and warm-ups. He is attired discreetly and elegantly in a loose, strident red shirt, voluminous off-white trousers, which from a distance appear to be speckled with patches of colour that, on closer inspection, turn out to be […] [a combination of faces and masks].

He approaches the audience, whom he observes. He stands facing us. But with none of the willful, easy seductiveness so often seen in dance, nor in any conventional way. Contravening formal expectations of speed, he takes the time to study a face and, more specifically, its underlying mystery. He dances, with precision and ingenuity.

It would appear that the purpose is not to compile a portrait of a man in a psychological or logical manner, but to take him, and the audience, through the different strata of dance, consciousness, perception, clarity and obscurity.“

« [Superstrat[ Anne Nguyen 
  Cie par Terre – approx. 50 min. 5 yrs+

Together with Ivorian dancer, Mark-Wilfried Kouadio, Anne Nguyen goes in search of links between the ancestral roots of dance, music and the heritage of the Afro-American diaspora. She explores the strong ties between Africa and America that gave birth to hip-hop culture, and relates them to the contemporary path of a traditional and urban African dancer.

Through a mixture of dance and music, this solo invites us to examine our relationship with immigrant cultures and to explore the possible common ground between tradition and modernity… As always with the choreographer, it is at once impactful, graphical, generous and intelligent.“