Näss (People) - Fouad Boussouf | Le Phare - CND Havre Normandie

Näss (People) connects the popular and urban dimension of hip hop dance with the profoundly ritual and sacred aspect it can summon

What happens when the raw energy of 1970s Moroccan music meets the visceral pulse of contemporary hip hop?

In Näss (People), choreographer Fouad Boussouf orchestrates a high-octane encounter between seven men, blending traditional North African rhythms with fierce, urban movement. Drawing inspiration from the legendary Moroccan Gnawa musical pioneers Nass el Ghiwane, Boussouf finds a powerful analogy in hip hop’s own quest for identity and roots. The performance is a profound, hypnotic rite; a sacred commotion that bridges cultural heritage with modern, unbridled expression. 

On stage, the performers confront one another through a stack of diverse techniques, each dancer fiercely committed to his own unique style and strength. Boussouf masterfully orchestrates this group dynamic, keeping the audience on edge through an unending evolution of movement. Infused with the nuances and colors of his native Morocco, where the company retreated during rehearsals to find the work's pulse, the choreography seamlessly weaves urban dance styles into a grand, trance-like experience.

Fouad Boussouf (Artistic Director and Choreographer)

For Fouad Boussouf, dance is pure impulse, momentum, movement. These words also define his artistic journey, driven by his innate curiosity and his desire to escape. His early years in Morocco, living in an isolated village in the region of Moulay Idriss, were filled with festive family events and a natural environment of clean, monastic simplicity. When Fouad was seven, his family moved to France, to Romilly-sur-Seine, near Troyes, and he stepped into a new universe, in which he had to learn quickly about culture and societal codes. As a teenager, he began doing hip hop to cassettes by Prince and Michael Jackson; the form was initially considered a socially acceptable physical exercise, but for him, hip hop became the building blocks for his personal style of movement, in which the body’s will to exceed, to go farther, brought him recognition from his peers.

He finished his education in Chalons-en-Champagne, where he also took workshops led by the circus students from the CNAC (the National Center for Circus Arts). He moved to Paris in 2000 and began studying social sciences at the University of Paris XII in Créteil, where he also taught classes in street dance, first informally, then as an accredited teacher. He continued studying at the Academy of the Cité Véron, participated in the Suresnes Cités Danse Festival, and performed with Farid Berki and Pierre Doussaint. After having presented his DESS degree on hip hop, he took a seven month road trip in Australia, beginning a long cycle of activities layering pedagogical, creative, and travel plans, which also took him to Egypt and to Russia. When he finally returned to France, he decided to focus on dance, and at the age of 27, he founded the Compagnie Massala. In 2008- 2009, he created solos and a trio, and in 2010, he created his first group work, Déviations (Detours).

Since then, he has been creating nonstop, embodying the momentum that has characterized his approach to his art and his life. His work is hybrid, deliberately without labels, profoundly present and in the moment, always incorporating the hip hop movement vocabulary. Over the years, he has built a dance language channeling movement, spontaneity, and the idea of nonstop movement, which has no beginning and no ending. His dancers are inspired by this dynamic, which sets them outside their normal movement patterns, generating an extraordinary, cyclical energy onstage, notably in his recent works Näss (People) in 2018, and in Oüm (2020), an homage to Oum Kalthoum, which affirmed his place in the international dance scene.

For Boussouf, the principal artistic instrument is the body, of course, but he also incorporates other forms, including video and the plastic arts, both contemporary or linked to Mediterranean history. Among these works are the documentary film Le Ballet Urbain (The Urban Ballet) (2019) and his collaborations with the sculptor Ugo Rondinone, on the video installation Burn to Shine (2022) at the Petit Palais in Paris and in Vïa (2023), which he created for the Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva, commissioned by the choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. After Fêu (2023), a piece for nine female dancers, he started a laboratory, in complicity with Equinoxe, scène nationale of Châteauroux, with Paul Molina and Gabriel Majou for a duo of live music and foot freestyle, °Up (2025). This “world citizen” follows a rhythm of creation driven by emotion, the concept of risk, and the constant will to move forward.

From 2020-2022, Boussouf was an Associated Artist at the prestigious Maison de la danse in Lyon, at Équinoxe - Scène nationale of Châteauroux and at the Maison de la musique in Nanterre. On January 1, 2022, He was unanimously appointed as director of Le Phare - Centre chorégraphique national du Havre Normandie, and during that year was also honored by the French government with the distinction of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

Artistic Director and Choreographer: Fouad Boussouf

Assistant to the Choreographer: Filipa Correia Lescuyer

Lighting Designer: Fabrice Sarcy

Costumes and Scenography: Camille Vallat

Music: Roman Bestion, Fouad Boussouf, and Marion Castor

Light Manager: Romain Perrillat-Collomb or Benoît Duboc

Production Takeover: Le Phare - Centre chorégraphique national du Havre Normandie / direction Fouad Boussouf

Production: Compagnie Massala

Coproducers: Théâtre Jean Vilar - Vitry-sur-Seine / Le Prisme – Élancourt / Institut du Monde Arabe – Tourcoing / Fontenay-en- Scènes - Fontenay-sous-bois / Théâtre des Bergeries - Noisy-le- Sec / La Briqueterie - CDCN du Val-de-Marne / Le FLOW - Pôle Culture Ville de Lille / Institut Français of Marrakech

Financial support: ADAMI / Conseil départemental du Val- de-Marne / Région Ile-de-France / Ville de Vitry-sur-Seine / SPEDIDAM / Institut Français of Morocco

Residencies/support: La Briqueterie - CDCN du Val-de-Marne / Le POC d’Alfortville / Centre National de la Danse / Le FLOW - Pôle Culture Ville de Lille / Cirque Shems’y - Salé, Maroc / Royal Air Maroc