Dance Review: Accrorap

Five male dancers take part in Kader's most successful work, 'Petites Histoires.Com.' All are fine dancers and unique characters, but their camaraderie impresses most.

By ORA BRAFMAN
Accrorap (France) October 6
Dance Projects (Korea),
October 10
Suzanne Dellal,
Tel Aviv Dance
Kader Attou, founder of the progressive Hip Hop company Accrorap, belongs to a line of choreographers which helped to convert the alternative culture product off the streets, into legitimate art form, supported by the establishment and hailed by critics and dance historians. This shift is somewhat similar to the move of street graffiti artists such as Basquiat or Bansky into the embrace of top prestigious museums.
Five male dancers take part in Kader's most successful work, Petites Histoires.Com. All are fine dancers and unique characters, but their camaraderie impresses most.
The work is an assemblage of short scenes, each tells a story using the body, facial expressions and very little text. Stylistically, the work is set in the Hip-Hop and break-dance routines but is committed to theatrical demands. Attou’s choreography is inventive, imaginative, funny and very clever, but most of all it brings the spirit of kindness and human warmth. Their slapstick is never offensive, sexist or rude. It turned to be pleasing entertainment, yet, left food for thought.
A few nights later, contemporary Korean dance was introduced by two different companies. One, directed by Kim Jin-Mi, using pleasing traditional music and costumes but could not compete with the volcanic force of No Comment by Shin Chang-Ho. Chang-Ho devised an intriguing body language which meshed oriental martial arts intensity and various occidental techniques to create a journey from minimalist, introverted duo in an act of repenting which ends with eight able bodied performers who work up and accelerate their actions, amplify their energies and end up in hypnotic ritual that leads to stylized trance.
Toward the end, when the accompanying Arabic music reached its climax, the dancers actually flew from the stage to the hall like exploding fireworks with rare acrobatics.
Chang-Ho felt the need to counterbalance the haunting Arabic music and end the piece with a spiritual song in Hebrew. It was surprising, but hardly necessary. It was an upbeat, uplifting work as is.