2200 Ft / Student: 1700 Ft (Trafó Season Ticket is valid!)
20th September, on the Night of the Independents: after the performance from 9:30pm, we will show David LaChapelle’s film RIZE (free!), then Ozzyebreaks and MC Busa Pista will play music in Trafó Café!
2ID Takao Nadia Rock Andrea Benny Amigo (Flying Steps):
Who am I? Where do I come from? What is my true identity? Am I what stands in my passport? Or what is it that really makes me me?
Six hip hop dancers and choreographers, all from a number of different cultural backgrounds, ask themselves these very questions. They go in search of their roots and their heritage and in doing so discover fragments of their other identity – their 2nd ID - which is so seamlessly integrated into their everyday life. For all of them, this everyday life is hip hop, it is the link that unites them: hip hop as a synonym not only for a type of music or dance, but also for a certain aesthetic and lifestyle.
Development in contemporary dance and especially in hip hop would not be thinkable without intercultural exchange. The influence of various current dance styles constantly allows something new to emerge, letting dance take on the role of a universally understood language.
The very personal handwriting of each individual dancer – their diversity and uniqueness, their own understanding of hip hop culture – is reflected in the development of the piece. The result is an image of authenticity, one of the most important principles of hip hop culture, far from all given clichés.
In 2nd ID, the group E-motion uses various urban dance styles such as b-boyin’, poppin’, lockin’, new style, krumpin’ and housedance to go in search of identity. At the crossroads of hip hop culture, tradition and mediality, the individual exchange between dancers take on a central role: hip hop as a common language and collective identity, but also as an independent form of contemporary dance.
Takao Baba from Düsseldorf, co-founder of the dance platform Dance Unity, is the initiator of the collective E-Motion, made up of members of the internationally successful Berlin B-Boy-Crew Flying Steps Amigo and Benny Kimoto, Nadia Espiritu from Düsseldorf, as well as Andrea Böge and Lil’ Rock from Stuttgart. As early as 2003, they developed their first hip hop dance production for the tanzhaus NRW, Düsseldorf. “2nd ID” was produced in close artistic collaboration with the former Forsythe dramaturge Célestine Hennermann from Frankfurt.
Dance and choreography:
Takao Baba, Andrea Böge, Niranh Chanthabouasy alias Lil’ Rock, Nadia Espiritu, Kadir Memis aka Amigo, Benny Kimoto (Lewon Tatawosian)
Dramaturgy: Célestine Hennermann
Video: Philip Bussmann
Lightdesign: Horst Mühlberger
Manager: Joachim Goldschmidt
Sylvia Staude Frankurter Rundschau
(The dancers of the group E-Motion speak), via video, a bit about themselves; and because they all have different cultural backgrounds, but share a common culture in hip hop, they gave their piece the title 2nd ID.
But first and foremost, they dance of course, with evident joy: swift-footed, playful, delicate, powerful, angular like robots, flowing as if they have no bones. Simply in the most diverse of styles. And as if that weren’t enough, they borrow from here and there all over the world, a little from Spanish dance for example, and some leg and foot positions are slightly reminiscent of the new Bollywood craze.
On the one hand, 2nd ID is a series of show numbers, on the other hand, its central theme is the story of this specific culture. This means that the six protagonists do of course speak and when they do so, they speak mainly with their bodies – bursting with enthusiasm. A movement of the rib cage, employed throughout the evening like a leitmotif, lets their heart beat so hard that it seems as if it would almost break out of its cage of ribs and skin. The beauty of this evening couldn’t be described in any more potent way.
Peter Ortmann, taz
The collective “E-Motion” premiered at the Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf. “2nd ID” is already their second production. Hip hop is their everyday life. The group’s two female and four male dancers all come from different cultural backgrounds, live scattered throughout Germany and yet go on a shared journey in search of their roots. In “2nd ID”, they discover fragments of another identity: an identity they call hip-hop, although it has barely anything in common with the flickering world of MTV. Instead, it is the universe of virtual media, from Internet to cell phones that makes transnational identity and worldwide exchange possible. The group distances itself from gangsta rap and half-naked girls on video. But also from the ghetto. Instead, the migratory backgrounds of the group’s participants remain the central focus. It influences battle, robot dance, footwork and freezes on stage.
(...) the stage of the Tanzhaus is empty, just like a parking lot in the Bronx in its own day and age might have been. Only the aesthetic is more reminiscent of modern dance, as are the moves and styles of the dancers. The work is a result of a collaboration with from William Forsythe dramaturge, Celestine Hennerman. Together with six dancers, she developed a coherent choreography, underlined the b-boying with interference-videos, in which the performers rid themselves of their statements. (…) the individual scenes pass by homogenously. The climax is a “battle” between Benny (of the internationally active Berlin B-Boy-Crew Flying Steps) and a virtual videogame dancer on a screen rolled onto the stage.
Benny delivers, what we like to typically think of as breakdance: head spin, ninety nine, glides, everything with unbelievable speed, combining precision and innovation, gym dad Jahn would broken into a sweat. The act goes down well with the audience, the younger generation screams its lungs out. In the end it’s not just his blood machine pumping, the soundtrack also beating like a heart, the never dull choreography continues. Breakdance has justified its position as a contemporary dance form and as a mode of expressing various cultural backgrounds.
Co-production:
Tanzhaus NRW, Künstlerhaus, Mousonturm Frankfurt
Supporters:
Gefördert durch die Kunststiftung NRW, das Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V.
