Fouad Boussouf and CCN du Havre Normandie: Näss (People)

The UAE premiere of Näss (People) by Moroccan choreographer Fouad Boussouf and his company Le Phare – CCN du Havre Normandie is an encounter between the raw energy of 1970s Moroccan music and the physical intensity of contemporary hip-hop.

Inspired by the influential 1970s Moroccan group Nass el Ghiwane, Näss draws a connection between cutting social commentary in the Maghreb and a contemporary search for identity and roots within hip-hop culture in the banlieues. Näss also channels the individual strengths of its seven performers to create a collective, trance-like work that is at once physical and meditative.

For Boussouf, dance is pure impulse, momentum, movement – concepts which also define his artistic journey, driven by his innate curiosity and his desire to escape. His early years in an isolated Moroccan village represented a clean, monastic simplicity; but when he was seven, his family moved to France and he found he had to learn quickly about a new culture and societal codes. As a teenager, he found hip hop and that became the building blocks for his personal style of movement and then choreography.

Appointed director of Le Havre’s Centre Chorégraphique National in 2022, he has continued to develop a street dance aesthetic that channels spontaneity and nonstop movement.

Näss is presented with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef and Arpels.