Kafig Company Starts British Tour

01/05/2005

[File] Kafig company

The Lyon-based experimental hip-hop troupe Kafig Company, led by Algerian Mourad Merzouki, starts its British tour on 4 May in Scotland with its acclaimed show "Corps est Graphique" (Graphic Body). The troupe expresses itself artistically by fusing American street dance with choreographic styles.

Merzouki, who founded the troupe in the mid-1990s, grew up in a family of North African Kabyle Berbers and was exposed to hip-hop for the first time on television in the 1980s.

"Although I was born in France, when I was 16 or 17 I asked myself whether I'm French or not. Dance allowed me finally to propose something that's me. Even if we don't talk about culture or identity or politics, we find something of our history, because our dancers are multicultural, and our music is too - Oriental, Arab, American, Andalusian," Merzouki said. (Scotsman)