FOLIA

What Mourad Merzouki achieves in his shows is a whirlwind of amazement and enchantment, a crescendo of emotions that come to life from the irrepressible energy of an extraordinarily talented company. A leading figure in the hip-hop scene since the 90s, Merzouki is an alchemist choreographer dedicated to the fusion of martial arts, circus, visual arts, video and live music in his artistic exploration. From the unexpected cross between hip-hop and baroque music, the Italian tarantella and electronics, classical ballet and the movements of whirling dervishes, appears the unusual and fascinating mosaic of Folia.
Folia is a journey from Southern Italy to the New World in which the dancers of the Käfig Company evolve together with the musicians of the baroque ensemble Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu led by Franck-Emmanuel Comte, between the notes of Vivaldi and the electronic sounds created by Grégoire Durrande.

⇒ Major figure on the hip-hop scene since the early 1990s, choreographer Mourad Merzouki works at the junction 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 hip-hop movement’s roots, of its social and geographical origins, this multidisciplinary approach opens up new horizons and reveals complete new outlooks. Beginning at the age of seven, Mourad Merzouki was trained in the circus school of St Priest, in Lyon’s eastern suburbs, while also practicing martial arts. At fifteen, he gravitated towards dance through inspiration drawn from hip-hop culture. From there, he began working on choreography and soon created his first dance company, Accrorap, in 1989, with Kader APou, Eric Mezino and Chaouki Saïd. With Accrorap, he further developed hip-hop movements while simultaneously exploring other dance genres with his contemporaries Maryse Delente, Jean-François Duroure and Josef Nadj. Accrorap performed Athina during the 1994 Dance Biennial in Lyon and gained acclaimed for bringing hip-hop from the street to the stage, enabling the troupe to perform internationally. It was during a performance in Croatia at a refugee camp where Mourad Merzouki saw the power of dance to communicate and express emotion.