To mark the 30th annual Eurockéennes Festival in Belfort, VIADANSE – Centre chorégraphique national de Bourgogne Franche-Comté à Belfort (National Choreographic Centre of Burgundy and Franche-Comté in Belfort – CCN Belfort) invited 18 choreographers, representing the wide diversity in the field of choreography. The film director Nicolas Habas followed them on the natural site of Malsaucy, from the beginning of the preparations for the festival, and throughout it to the end. The choreographers took part in all that happened, everywhere it happened (stages, technical storage management areas, traffic routes, crowds of audiences, backstage…) resulting in danced portrayals that documented in a recreational manner the impressive machinery needed to bring about the event.

Clip #16 – shot throughout the Malsaucy site, in the festival’s mud, following a rainy night, with the collaboration of the dancer-choreographer Bouziane Bouteldja (Danse6T)

Bouziane Bouteldja was born on September 3, 1980 in Tarbes (South West, France). He is the youngest in a family of 9 children. He grew up on a council estate on the outskirts of Tarbes. After a baccalaureate in science, he abandoned his studies in geography to devote himself to DANS6T, a non-profit dance organisation, which he founded in 2001. Dans6T works in deprived neighbourhoods, in close partnership with the Hautes-Pyrénées prefecture, the City of Tarbes and Drac Occitane (the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs). Under Bouziane’s management, in 2007 DANS6T formed its own dance company.

Bouziane then undertook to realize his own artistic visions by reflecting and questioning the news. Over the years, his research has become increasingly focused: through his body, he seeks to bring to the stage, his commitments and convictions.

Through his experience of break dance Bouziane went on to discover hip hop dance in 1998. He trained under the tutelage of choreographers Tayeb Benamara, Kader Attou, Karim Amghar and Olé Khamchanla.

These encounters soon led him to take an interest in stage performances and to open himself up to the world of contemporary dance, without losing sight of the hip-hop battle scene (he is a member of the Zulu Nation). 

Over time, thanks to his receptiveness and curiosity, encounters with artists from diverse backgrounds have multiplied.

In 2009, he created and performed his first play PAS SI COMPLIQUÉ(Not That Complicated), a duet with a musician.

This was followed, in 2010, by KIF L’ÉQUILIBRE(Dig your Balance), a group performance aimed at young audiences on themes of food and physical activity through the medium of dance. This project, which aims at promoting physical activity, nutritional balance and tolerance among people, has been awarded several national prizes. KIF L’ÉQUILIBRE is a playful piece, combining dance and theatre with each performance followed by an exchange with students, in the presence of teachers and either a school nurse or a dietitian.

In 2011, through the Scène Nationale de Tarbesinitiative, he met the artist Coraline Lamaison with whom he would train as an interpreter and choreographer. This encounter was a decisive moment. 

In 2012, he approached Lamaison to co-write the play ALTERITÉ(Otherness), which was awarded the jury's prize in the contemporary dance competition, (Re)connaissances. The play, which questions difference, has been performed 35 times.

In 2014, to create the playRÉVERSIBLE(Reversible), he joined forces with artist manager Gilles Rondot, to produce a reflection on the emancipation of individuals within the Arab-Muslim world, but also within the context of the French debates on secularism and freedom of conscience. This play has been performed more than 40 times, in several festivals in France and abroad. To reach out to audiences on the margins of the cultural production, RÉVERSIBLE also exists in a shorter version.

In 2016, with FAUX SEMBLANTS(False Pretence), Bouziane Bouteldja poses the question: "can we be ourselves, or must we play roles to be accepted or heard?" This play premiered at Parvis, Scène Nationale de Tarbeson November 10, 2016 and went on to be performed in several cities in France and Morocco. 

The writing of this piece was shaped by numerous journeys back and forth between France and Morocco, during a training project for dance interpreters.

In 2016, Bouziane Bouteldja was appointed Chevalier des Arts et lettres, by the French Minister of Culture.

In 2018, he conceived FACE À TERRE(Face To Earth), a choreographic and musical play performed withBrazilian dancer Ana Pi andBastien Picot,a singer from the island of Reunion. This play was shapedby his readings and encounters, as well as two fieldtrips to South America: one to Mexico to attend El Día deMuertos (Day of the Dead) and the second to Brazil to familiarize himself with Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. In Brazil, Bouziane immersed himself in a culture where the intense joy of living seems to make more bearable the presence of death related to urban violence.

In 2018 DANSE ET PENSÉE(Dance And Thought) was conceived as a dance forum device designed in partnership with the academic Thomas Branthôme and grassroots cultural activist Elsa Poissonet. In 2019, this forum received the endorsementof the Inter-ministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalisation.

In 2019, DANS6T launched a participatory project in Tarbes involving twenty women from all walks of life, who had never previously set a foot on stage. CHEFFE, the play born out of this experience, was performed on April 15, 2019 at the Parvis-Scène Nationalein Tarbes.

In 2019, Bouziane Bouteldja continued his mentoring work with young Moroccan dancers. Five of them joined two French dancers for the creation of the play TELLES QUELLES / TELS QUELS(As She / He Are), which was performed at the Kalypso festival in Créteil in November 2019, followed by the Suresnes Cités danse 2020 festival before going on tour in Morocco.

Numerous educational projects have allowed him to remain connected to the grassroots and through dance, enable him to carry on, his reflections on emancipation and French republican values. 

Nicolas Habas comes from cinema first, as a screenwriter and director of several short fiction films including Le mal de Claire, broadcast on French TV and documentaries (La parole en chantier, triptych on a popular neighborhood in urban renewal). He is very interested in the tensions between reality and the imaginary, society and intimacy, geography and territories. With a self-taught apprenticeship that led him to a deep understanding of the codes of the film industry, he decided to find «his» cinema and returned with Le Corps de la Ville, the web series anchored in dance, to his first loves, since he made his first dance video in 1998. Shot during the 30° Eurockéennes de Belfort Festival and Broadcast on Arte Concert, Mouvements is its second web series.

Filmography :

2022 Danse ton île - Documentary 52’ (support : HD, © JPL Productions/ AV Com Productions/ France Télévision).

2021 Le corps de la ville en Martinique - Documentary 52 ‘ and web series (support : HD, 10 x 5’, © JPL Productions/ WIPS Productions/ France Télévision).

2020 Pères en prison - Short documentary (support HD, time 5’ © Festival La Rochelle Cinéma/ studio Un Poil Court)

2019 Le corps de la ville à Nouméa - Documentary 52 ‘ and web series (support : HD, 10 x 5’, © JPL Productions/ AV Com Productions/ France Télévision).

2018 Mouvements - Documentary 26’ and web series (support : HD, 18 x 3’, © Séquence SDP/ Eurockéennes de Belfort/ Viadanse/ Ccn de Belfort/ Arte Concert).

2014/2019 Le corps de la ville - Web series (support : HD, 36 x 4’, © studio Un Poil Court in partnership with La Rochelle Cinéma Festival , Studio Chérie (Berlin), le Périscope (Lyon), Nocte Graus Festival (Spain), DAN.CIN.FEST, La Rochelle's CCN, En Knap Cie (Slovenia), Hors Série Cie, Propos Cie, Jean Claude Gallotta Cie and Lyon's CNSMD).

2011 Mauvaise graine - Short fiction (support : 35 mm, 21’, © CLC Productions/ Lyon TV).

2006/2012 La parole en chantier - Documentary triptych (support : HDV, 3 x 40’, © Petits bolides films/ Espace Louis Aragon).

2004 Le mal de Claire - Short fiction (support : Super 16 mm, 14’, © Lumina Films/France Télévision).

2000 En attendant septembre - Short fiction (support : DV, 30’, © Petits Bolides films/ Carré Image). 

1998 Marie au parc - Dance video (support : VHS, 7’, autoproduction).

 True to its spirit of eternal youth, the festival has not aged at the dawn of its fourth decade and once again stands out as the mirror of its time, retaining its place among the great historic European musical gatherings … Since 1989, there have already been 1,777 concerts with claimed eclecticism, having pleased almost 2,813,000 festival-goers, of all ages, all backgrounds and all nationalities! This social mix and diversity of abundant styles, gathered in the hollow of a green cocoon, a little parenthesis out of time, are each year synonymous with shared emotions and beautiful encounters. A festive communion with respect for nature, faithful to the solidarity commitments of a 100% associative festival and all of its partners, communities and local associations.