Smaïl Kanouté presents "Never Twenty One" at PS21
Company:
Smaïl Kanouté, Compagnie Vivons (Mali/France)
Smaïl Kanouté’s Never Twenty One is a lament, a tribute, and a protest. Its title echoes the hashtag #Never21 and refers to the countless Black men who have lost their lives to gun violence before their twenty-first birthdays. Through evocative, urban-inflected movements that interlace elements of krump, popping, baile funk, and passinho into contemporary dance idioms, the piece pays homage to young Black men in New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Johannesburg who have died from shootings.
On a darkened stage, three men, in black but with their bare arms and torsos emblazoned with words spoken by victims’ families—Gang . . . Guns . . . Glock and others—expressions of rage, remembrance, sorrow, and grief. Kanouté and his fellow performers, Aston Bonaparte and Salomon Mpondo-Dicka, dance effusively yet with precision, a physically charged choreography in a wide variety of styles, with elements that range over contemporary, spiritual, modern, and street dance genres. No words are spoken, but the families’ anguish is visible in the dancers’ embodiment of the violence perpetrated on Black bodies. In its references to young lives lost, Never Twenty One has a heartbreaking specificity; as a political act, it possesses global reach. Popping with Aston Bonaparte; and Hip Hop Freestyle workshops with Salomon Mpondo-Dicka will be presented off-site.
Born in 1986, Smail Kanouté is a French-Malian graphic designer, dancer and silkscreen artist, graduate of the ENSAD. He lives and works in Paris.
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