What Happens when ballet and breakdancing join forces for Red Bull BC One Cypher tour of Europe?
Featuring Lil G & Virginia Tomarchino
An internationally renowned B-Boy, Lil G, creates a fusion dance with classical dancer Virginia Tomarchio. The unusual meeting took place at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence where the B-boy and ballerina performed “Just Like You”, an original choreography created by Chrisian “Kris” Buzzi.
The two artists, coming from two worlds so far apart, got rid of all the prejudices to break down the barriers of dance genres. In the end they find they’re more similar than they could imagine.
Watch the video “Just Like You”
One is synonymous with drops, the robot and spins, the other with such terminology as déboulé, relevé and plie. On paper, breakdancing and ballet are poles apart but the two genres were brought together inside an unused brick warehouse of a Florence train station for a performance like no other.
On one side was Virginia Tomarchio, a classical dancer at the Red Bull Flying Bach Italy Tour last year, on the other Lil-G, part of the Red Bull All Stars crew, united with the original choreography of Kris. Light pours through two grated windows at the station and a door opens onto the stage where Tomarchio arrives, seemingly looking down her nose at her more maverick dance partner. In turn, Lil-G mocks his unusual dance partner’s opening moves with an impression of a penguin.
Everything comes from the mind of Christian “Kris” Buzzi, one of the most important names of urban dance in Italy: breaker, dancer and choreographer.
“Along with Marco Kira Cristoferi we came up with the idea: take two dancers from very different genres and undress their artistic clothing to highlight their common background. This concept can be transferred very well to all human relationships,” said Kris.
“We have had an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that even choreographers coming from breaking are able to tell stories, overcoming a small cultural barrier in the world of dance”.
After the initial indifference, the four-minute clip shows that the two styles come together – befittingly called ‘Just Like You’ and show that the two dancers are not so different after all.
To the backdrop of classical music, they perform their balletic and breakdancing moves in turn, before becoming increasingly entwined as they slowly undress each other in a hypnotically choreographed performance.
To lead to the Red Bull BC One Italy Cypher and mark the Danza Firenze dance festival, where the pair performed, the concept is that “naked we’re all the same”, the two dancers ending scantily clad and as one, almost with a role reversal in the space of four minutes: he ending with a graceful bow, she with her arms crossed almost nonchalant.
[Story courtesy of Red Bull Content Pool Newsroom, published March 23 2017]
