Through the creation of Altered Natives Say Yes To Another Excess TWERK in September 2012, we met DJs Elijah and Skilliam from Label Butterz, references in British Grime musical scene. This unusual musical style is a complex dancehall, hip hop and garage hybridisation. As all electronic musical styles, it also derives from Jamaican sound systems – musicwalls which have played since the 1950s a major role in the evolution of various Jamaican musical styles and helped develop ska, reggae, ragga, dub…

For Dub Love project, they collaborate with HIGH ELEMENTS, Dubplates DJ from the Reunion island, who draws from dub roots in order to create an upbeat solar music, defined by a tension between deep bass sounds characteristic of dub and bright melodies. Dub is performed for massive social gatherings in Europe and Jamaica (Nothing Hill Carnival, One Love Rave Festival) with powerful sound systems. Their intense vibrations, their physical impact and their unifying power turned these musical styles into spiritual or even religious events, going way beyond mere entertainment.
On stage, HIGH ELEMENTS plays Dub sets Dubplates mixes through a sound system.

Along with this musical investigation, the duet Bengolea-Chaignaud is carrying out a hybrid choreographic research, from punk bouncing that some early reggae tunes trigger to the most extreme physical constructions that ballet on pointe allows. Pointe shoes, as western classical dance fetish, have been used to challenge gravity and invent an ethereal and celestial body. Outside classical technique, it is also a fascinating tool, generating speed, height, balance, unbalance, lines. Confronting on pointe to Jamaican music, very motivated by a need to go back to basics, to the earth, to peaceful and brotherly intentions, creates potential tension, a fiction, to get away from stereotypes related to those cultures. Far from resurrecting a classical body, the intention to combine on pointe practice with soft religious dances and violent urban dances. Through the sound system vibrations, the three bodies thus draw an abstract and detailed writing. A repertoire of reggae and Dancehall songs will be performed by three performers, Ana Pi, François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea together with High Éléments’ mix.

DURATION 50 minutes

CREATION TEAM

Conception Cecilia Bengolea in collaboration with Ana Pi and François Chaignaud

Performers Cecilia Bengolea, François Chaignaud and Hanna Hedman / Alex Mugler (in the role created by Ana Pi)

Hip-hop collaboration Ange Koué

Dub Plate MatDTSound (playing music from High Elements)

Lighting design and costumes Cecilia Bengolea, François Chaignaud

Technical director Dominique Palabaud

Administration/production Lucie Horeau-Champion

Tour planning Sarah de Ganck/ART HAPPENS

COPRODUCTION

La Ménagerie de verre, Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, SZENE Salzburg, Direct Marketing. This project received support from the APAP-Performing Europe, funded by the European Commission – Culture Program.

SPECIAL THANKS

ImPulsTanz and Karl Regensburger