Compagnie Käfig: Corps est graphique

Showstopping moments scattered through a strangely hollow piece


A skater would score a perfect 10 for turning on the spot like this, but this guy can do it standing on his head. The biggest wow moment in Corps Est Graphique, a hip-hop dance show by French Compagnie Käfig, came from Karim Beddaoudia’s hands-free headspin – as poised as a gyroscope, and sustained enough to make you realise how long you’ve been holding your breath.

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Hip-hop has been flourishing as a theatre form over the past few years, and choreographers have become aware that although impressive physical feats grip the audience, they don’t sustain a show. So while Corps Est Graphique has its share of amazing bounces and balances, artistic director Mourad Merzouki also hangs the piece on a loose theme of boys meeting girls. The gender concept is the weakest part of the show, comprising little more than stylised posturing.

More interesting is how Merzouki mixes hip-hop with circus, mime and film trickery. As the dancers flip and tumble behind translucent screens, the lighting picks out stripes on their bodies like skeletons, so that we seem to be looking at them with x-ray specs. The skeleton idea is fleshed out when the eight performers strap foam puppets to their bodies, filling the stage with funky homunculi. There’s a cute number when the girls and boys sit atop a wall, sidling like kids on play-dates.

The costumes are kiddy, too – scrawled designs and bright colours, headpieces like outsize Liquorice Allsorts. The music, by Merzouki’s brother As’n, melds modern beats with Arabic melodies, and calligraphic swirls adorn the sets – nods towards the French-Algerian origin of the brothers (and some of the cast). But it’s strangely empty. Too often the dancers bounce and rock in attractive but aimless formations, like a backing group without a lead.