Through a dance video, a group of students from Liberté middle-school in Drancy tell the story of fifty Strasbourg citizens that were struck by a dance fever in 1518. Very little information exists explaining as to why these people started to dance: was it a sickness, an epidemic, or a way of standing up to oppression? Street dance remains in any occasion a subversive art form as the question of the body in public spaces is one that is always redefined. This short-film showcases the way these students created an unusual poetical world by working with their own bodies. After the choreographer presented the student with this idea of working on reinterpreting this piece of news from the 16th century, the group imagined the movements that could make up this particular dance if this fever struck today, drawing from different genres: hip-hop, contemporary dance and traditional dance.
This workshop was led by Yves Mwamba and Elise Picon as part of the “Parcours Culture et Art au Collège” an initiative of the Seine-Saint-Denis department.