Silent Legacy

Maud Le Pladec feat. Jr Maddripp (FR)

Diptych for two women, two generations, two cultures

Dance, according to French choreographer Maud Le Pladec, is a place where traditions – chosen or inherited, familiar or strange – are allowed to rub shoulders. So they do in her dance duet for an ultra-young Canadian krump sensation and an academically trained dancer. There is something that binds them: authentic expression.

Julidans
Main programme

Run time 50 minutes
Location Internationaal Theater Amsterdam
Venue Grote Zaal

After talk with Maud Le Pladec 15 July

Maud Le Pladec created Silent Legacy after meeting Adeline Kerry Cruz, an nine-year-old krump prodigy from Montreal. Krump (short for 'Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise') is an urban dance style that emerged in the 1990s in the ghettos of Los Angeles. Anger over poverty and violence is transformed into a jerky dance language with clownish grimaces. As chilling as it is energetic.

In collaboration with krump expert ‘Jr Maddripp', Le Pladec devotes a dance portrait to krump phenomenon Cruz. She presents that alongside another dance portrait: that of Audrey Merilus, a contemporary dancer who danced with dance pioneer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, among others.

-|-Two women, two generations, two cultures. But not as you are usually presented with them: in this diptych, it is the very young, Cruz who has specialised in krumping, the 'dance of the socially disadvantaged', while professional dancer Merilus has an academic background rooted in the Western dance canon. By contrasting the dancers, Le Pladec questions societal norms around identity and cultural appropriation.

Urban dance and contemporary choreography are reduced to the same motives: the search for honest expression through movement. One critic described Silent Legacy as a poetic manifesto that secures the future of dance: as an art form that is constantly looking for the energy to evolve further.

CREDITS

Conception, artistic direction and choreography Maud Le Pladec feat. Jr Maddripp
Solo Adeline Kerry Cruz Maud Le Pladec and Jr Maddripp
Solo Audrey Merilus Maud Le Pladec and Audrey Merilus
Choreography assistant Régis Badel
Music composed, arranged, performed & produced Chloé Thévenin
Voice coach Dalila Khatir
Musical dramaturgy assistant Pere Jou
Dancers Adeline Kerry Cruz and Audrey Merilus + guest -|-
Costume design Christelle Kocher – KOCHÉ
Costume assistant Marion Régnier
Lights and stage design Éric Soyer
General manager Fabrice Le Fur
Light manager Nicolas Marc
Sound manager Vincent Le Meur
Production and development A propic Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent and Lara van Lookeren