Wed. Aug. 30, 2023 8p.m.

Compagnie Käfig in Pixel. Photo by Patrick Berger.

Eisenhower Theater

  • Runtime

    1 hour and 10 min with no intermission

  • View Details

Overview

Artistic Direction and Choreography

Mourad Merzouki

Concept

Mourad Merzouki and Adrien M / Claire B

Digital Production

Adrien Mondot & Claire Bardainne

Music

Armand Amar

Violin: Sarah Nemtanu – Piano: Julien Carton – Vocals: Nuria Rovira Salat

Additional music: viola Anne-Sophie Versnaeyen

Drum programming “Les Plocks”, Artback Society Stéphane Lavallée and Julien Delaune

Recording, mixing, sound design: Vincent Joinville

Modular synthesizer: Martin Fouilleul

Assistant to the Choreographer

Marjorie Hannoteaux

Artists (Alternating)

Rémi RMS Autechaud, Rachid ZK Aziki, Kader Belmoktar, Antoine Bouiges, Marc Brillant, Daravirak Bun, Elodie Chan, Hugo Ciona, Sabri Mucho Colin, Emilie Eliazord, Aymen Fikri, Justin Gouin, Xuan Le, Ibrahima Ibou Mboup, Julien Seijo, Maxim Thach, Paul Thao, Sofiane Tiet, Nina Van der Pyl, Médésséganvi Swing Yetongnon

Lighting Design

Yoann Tivoli assisted by Nicolas Faucheux

Stage Design

Benjamin Lebreton

Costume Design

Pascale Robin assisted by Marie Grammatico

Paintings

Camille Courier de Mèré and Benjamin Lebreton

Executive Producer

Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne / Cie Käfig

Co-Producers

Maison des Arts de Créteil, Espace Albert Camus - Bron With the support of compagnie Adrien M / Claire B

Pixel premiered on November 15, 2014 at the Maison des Arts in Créteil as part of the Kalypso Festival.

Patrons are requested to silence cell phones and other electronic devices during performances.

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in this venue.

Sponsors

These performances are part of Albertine Dance Season and received support from Villa Albertine

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Terms and Conditions

All events and artists subject to change without prior notice.

Director’s Note

A message from Artistic Director and Choreographer, Mourad Merzouki

We are constantly exposed to images, videos, and digital media. Screens are everywhere. One only needs to walk down the streets of big capitals of some countries to imagine what will be the city of tomorrow: a large exposure to images which is now part of our everyday life.

The Pixel project was born when I first met Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne and from the fascination I felt at that moment—I wasn’t able to make out the difference between both the real and the virtual world. I rapidly decided to try a new association using those new technologies with and for dance.

The first experience mixing dance and interactive video has been breathtaking for the performers who are part of the project. With the same curiosity and an open mind that inspired me, I face, during this new adventure, an impalpable world created by the light projection developed by the Adrien M / Claire B Company. The challenge of making both worlds interact with each other and of striking a subtle balance between both techniques so that dance and abstract representations answer each other without one getting the upper hand, destabilized me again with the way I approached gesture. I followed that quest for motion which I kept developing and improving at each of my creations, with new constraints and new playing partners.

How does the dancer perform in a space made up of illusions on a 3D-set, when video may, by turns, accompany motion as well as hinder it? Besides video projections, I wanted Armand Amar’s music to fit closely to the choreography and the images, like a warmer invitation to travel. Accompanying the performers, his music brings out the energy as well as the poetry lying in the dancer’s body.

Those new discovery paths allow me to work on this extension of reality and to face a synthetic world, which is odd for a choreographer who feeds off bodies and material. Inhabiting dance in a space where the body only faces dreams, developing gestures in moving landscapes created by Adrien M and Claire B.

I wanted to open up where the synthetic world of digital projection interacts with the dancer’s reality.

Each artist has playfully immersed in an unknown world, with a sharing mind, relying on hip hop virtuosity and energy, mixing up poetry and dreams, to create a show at the crossroads of the arts.

Meet the Creative Team

  • Artistic Director and Choreographer

    Mourad Merzouki

    A major figure on the hip hop scene since the early 1990s, choreographer Mourad 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. Beginning at the age of seven, Merzouki trained in the circus school of Saint-Priest, in Lyon’s eastern suburbs, while also practicing martial arts. At age 15, inspired by hip hop culture, he gravitated towards dance. He created his first dance company, Accrorap, in 1989, with Kader Attou, Eric Mezino, and Chaouki Saïd. He continued to develop his unique brand of hip hop movement while simultaneously exploring other dance genres with contemporaries Maryse Delente, Josef Nadj, and Jean-François Duroure. Accrorap performed Athina during the Biennale de la Danse in Lyon in 1994 and earned acclaim for bringing hip hop from the street to the stage, enabling the troupe to perform internationally.

  • Digital Production

    Adrien Mondot & Claire Bardainne

    Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne carry out projects in the fields of digital and performing arts with their company Adrien M / Claire B. They create many forms of art, from stage performances to exhibitions combining real and virtual worlds. They place the human body at the heart of technological and artistic challenges. They develop and customize their own IT tools, creating a visual language that entertains and breeds audience’s imaginations. The company operates as a research and creativity workshop based out in Lyon, searching for a live digital world: mobile, organic, ephemeral, random, and sensory.

  • Assistant to the Choreographer

    Marjorie Hannoteaux

    Marjorie Hannoteaux is a self-taught dancer with a wide range of professional experiences in fashion, cinema, theater, musicals, events, advertising, magazines, and contemporary and neoclassical dance. She dances for the companies of choreographers Montalvo-Hervieu, Blanca Li, Marie-Claude  Pietragalla,  Marie-Agnès  Gillot,  Kader Belarbi, David Drouad, Kamel Ouali, Franco Dragone, and Benjamin Millepied. She also performs for major brands such as Yves Saint-Laurent, Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpel, Swarovski, Jean-Paul Gaultier. She assists Dominique Hervieu, José Montalvo, Georges Momboye, and Marie-Agnès Gillot.

    She joined Compagnie Käfig as an assistant to Mourad Merzouki on his creations for Yo Gee Ti in 2011, Pixel in 2013, Vertikal  and Folia in 2018, along with Zéphyr in 2020.

  • Music Design

    Armand Amar

    French of Moroccan origin, born in Jerusalem, the composer Armand Amar set out at an early age to find that “elsewhere” promised by non-European music. At first a self-taught musician, he practiced the tablas, the zarb, and the congas with various masters of traditional and classical music. In 1976, he discovered dance at the invitation of the South African choreographer Peter Goss. This encounter brought him into a direct relationship with the music, with a freedom to improvise unconstrained. Since then, he has worked with a considerable number of contemporary choreographers such as Marie-Claude Pietragalla, Carolyn Carlson, and Russell Maliphant.

  • Stage Design

    Benjamin Lebreton

    After studying in landscape architecture, Benjamin Lebreton continued training in scenography at the National School of Arts and Techniques of the Theater of Lyon. Graduated in 2005, he works in France and abroad as a set designer for dance, especially with Mourad Merzouki with whom he has been collaborating since 2006 on each of his creations, and also with Maguy Marin. For the theater, he has designed sets for Phillipe Awat, Catherine Heargreave, Thomas Poulard, David Mambouch. In Germany, he designed the set for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the StaatTheater in Wiesbaden. At the same time, he works as a graphic designer participating in the creation of visuals for the Käfig company or the signage of several large buildings.

  • Lighting Design

    Yoann Tivoli

    After a degree in lighting and sound design and four years as a stage manager in two theaters in Lyon, he created his first lighting designs in 1994 and has worked in all areas of the performing arts as a lighting designeror set designer. For dance, he has worked with Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, Frank II Louise, Bob.H Ekoto, Question, Pilobolus, and Entre Nosotros. Since 1996, he has designed all of the lighting creations of Compagnie Käfig. He also creates lighting for exhibitions and events.

  • Costume Design

    Pascale Robin

    After following a program in classical drawing and graphic arts and diligently practicing dance, Pascale Robin improved her cutting techniques at the fashion school Esmod. Captivated by the magic effect of the body on stage and by textile, she has been creating and designing costumes since 1986. In the dance industry, she has worked with several choreographers such as Jackie Taffanel, Régine Chopinot, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Odile Azagury. She also designed costumes for automatons, circus artists, brass bands, street performances, operas, and cabarets. In addition to costume design, she currently works on personal projects, among which is a participation in lectures on costumes dedicated to a large audience.

Meet the Artists

  • Rémi RMS Autechaud

  • Rachid ZK Aziki

  • Kader Belmoktar

  • Daravirak Bun

  • Sabri Mucho Colin

  • Ibrahima Ibou Mboup

  • Julien Seijo

  • Maxim Thach

  • Paul Thao

  • Nina Van Der Pyl

  • Médé Swing Yetongnon

Staff

Kennedy Center Dance Programming Staff

  • Director, Dance Programming
    Jane Raleigh
  • Assistant Manager, Dance Programming
    Malik Burnett
  • Assistant Manager, Dance Programming
    Mallory Miller
  • Senior Press Representative, Non-Classical
    Brittany Laeger
  • Public Relations Coordinator, Non-Classical
    Miles Newton
  • Vice President, Marketing
    Derek Johnson
  • Manager, Marketing
    Chenay Newton

Kennedy Center Executive Leadership

President, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing ArtsDeborah F. Rutter

Vice President, Public RelationsEileen Andrews

Chief Information Officer Ralph Bellandi

Senior Vice President, MarketingKimberly J. Cooper

Executive Director, National Symphony OrchestraJean Davidson

Senior Vice President, Artistic PlanningMonica Holt

Chief Financial OfficerStacey Johnson

Vice President, EducationJordan LaSalle

Vice President, Government Relations and ProtocolLaurie McKay

Senior Vice President, DevelopmentLeslie Miller

General Director, Washington National OperaTimothy O’Leary

Chief Human Resources OfficerFrederick Owusu

Executive Vice President & General CounselAsh Zachariah

Staff for the Eisenhower Theater

  • Theater Manager
    J. Bret Burzio, Sr.*
  • Box Office Treasurer
    Ronald Payne
  • Head Carpenter
    Thomas M. Hewitt
  • Assistant Carpenter-Flies
    John P. Green
  • Head Electrician
    Thomas A. Benya
  • Assistant Electrician
    Michael Cassidy, Jr.
  • Head Usher
    Carol Anderson
  • Head Sound
    Matthew P. Snyder
  • Head Properties
    Matthew L. Roether
  • Head Wardrobe
    Rebecca A. Gessert
  • Assistant Property Manager
    Matthew M. Wooden

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*Represented by ATPAM, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers.

Steinway Piano Gallery is the exclusive area representative of Steinway & Sons and Boston pianos, the official pianos of the Kennedy Center.

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The box office at the Kennedy Center is represented by I.A.T.S.E, Local #868.

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The technicians at the Kennedy Center are represented by Local #22, Local #772,  and Local #798 I.A.T.S.E., AFL-CIO-CLC, the professional union of theatrical technicians.