In 2017, artist Clément Cogitore made a film with a high energy content. On the stage of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, around forty dancers are doing the krump, a street dance that originated in 2000s in the South Central district of Los Angeles. They display their movements and impose their style and culture to the baroque music of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s, Les Indes Galantes (The Amorous Indies). Shaking up time and genres, and above all avoiding the conventional pitfalls of appropriation, Cogitore succeeds in creating a forceful work that goes beyond cultural clichés.
3 ème Scène, Opéra national de Paris, Entretien avec Clément Cogitore, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMv4EyS08_g&t=35s
2 In a French article on krump, which she describes as “a free, raw, but structured dance”, journalist Rossana Di Vincenzo details the various movements in the repertoire, such as the stomp (which consists of hitting the ground with the foot as mentioned above), the chest pop (a game of frequent chest jolts), but also the arm swing (movement of the arms as if throwing a projectile or a punch, but with open hands), to which are added gimmicks (stuck out tongue, wrinkled forehead, open mouth, threatening looks)
Rossana Di Vincenzo, « Le retour en force du krump, la danse “mal-aimée” du hip-hop », published online 24/04/2018, URL: https://www.telerama.fr/sortir/le-retour-en-force-du-krump-la-danse-mal-aimee-du-hip-hop
MAC/VAL, A propos de quatre œuvres de Clément Cogitore (entretien, 12/06/2017), URL: http://www.macval.fr/Clement-Cogitore
Ibid.
Roland de Candé, Histoire universelle de la musique (T. 1), Éditions du Seuil, 1978, p. 578.
3 ème scène, Opéra national de Paris, Interview in French with Clément Cogitore, URL:
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
See Véronique Doisneau, the film by Jérôme Bel, dedicated to the dancer in the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera.
Patrice Blouin, “David LaChapelle”, Les Inrockuptibles, n° 0512, 21-27 September 2005
Rossana di Vincenzo, « Le retour en force du krump, la danse “mal-aimée” du hip-hop », op. cit.
3 ème Scène, Opéra national de Paris, Entretien avec Clément Cogitore, op. cit.
Philippe Hersant, “Baroque”, Encyclopaedia Universalis [online], URL: https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/baroque/
The value of an artist’s work often lies in its unique place among all his or her other works. This is undoubtedly the case of Clément Cogitore’s The Amorous Indies. While one of his latest videos, The Evil Eye (2018), confirms his skill in manipulating images, and his ability to free himself from their strict…
