Biography
Born in 1976 in Morocco, Fouad Boussouf came to France aged seven and discovered dance in Romilly-sur-Seine, a small town in north-east France. Today a choreographer, dancer and teacher, Boussouf trained in hip hop dance, his preferred discipline, while remaining curious about other practices, especially contemporary dance. In 2010, he founded Compagnie Massala, with which he has created 10 works, ranging from a solo to group pieces and including Trans (2013), Näss (2018) Oüm (2020) and Yës (2021). The search for perpetual motion, combining hip hop technique and contemporary dance, and for a specific bodily state, remains a central strand of his work. His eclectic career and his experiences as a performer bespeak an emphatically modern form of choreographic exploration, in which hip hop holds a dialogue with contemporary and jazz vocabularies but also with the traditional dances of North Africa and new circus. His creations – which readily fuse styles, practices, rhythms and influences – are above all about sharing and conveying emotions, thanks to his technical mastery and to the endlessly expressive potential of dance. At the heart of his artistic development is the question of our sensory, flesh-and-blood relationship with our roots and with our disparate, culturally diverse culture. His work is hard to pigeonhole, for it reflects these influences and unflinchingly addresses topical themes that he transfigures through his performers. Indeed, Fouad Boussouf is particularly attentive to transmission: an impassioned teacher, he has always proposed projects for amateur, pre-professional and professional dancers. On 1 January 2022, he became director of Le Phare, the National Choreography Centre (CCN) of Le Havre-Normandy, where he has created two duets, Âmes and Cordes. Boussouf’s career has also included many commissions and collaborations. In 2023, in parallel to the new piece scheduled at the Biennale de la danse de Lyon, he will create Vïa for the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, at the invitation of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.