Boxe Boxe Brasil - Cie Käfig | Mourad Merzouki

At L’InterValle: a living arena for movement and music

At L’InterValle, we are delighted to welcome Boxe Boxe Brasil by Cie Käfig, conceived and choreographed by Mourad Merzouki, a creator who has continually expanded the vocabulary of hip-hop dance for the stage. From the moment the lights rise, our auditorium transforms into a ring where elegance meets impact: footwork slips and counters like jabs, duets turn into feints and clinches, and group formations pulse like a crowd on fight night. Bathed in luminous, theatrical chiaroscuro and surrounded by live musicians, the dancers channel the electricity of a bout into a sweeping celebration of rhythm, breath, and resilience. The Brazilian inflection infuses the choreography with sun-soaked swing and percussive dialogue—echoes of roda, samba, and street parades coexisting with the refinement of a concert hall—while classical strings and vibrant rhythms converse across the stage. For our audience, this meeting of worlds is more than a stylistic hybrid; it is a sensorial immersion where the precision of technique and the warmth of popular traditions meet in real time. Boxe Boxe Brasil is at once playful and poetic, a work that invites seasoned dancegoers and first-time visitors alike to feel the thrum of bodies and the music’s heartbeat under the same roof.

About Cie Käfig and Mourad Merzouki

Hosting Cie Käfig at L’InterValle means presenting an artist whose influence resonates far beyond any one production. Mourad Merzouki has built a singular path, drawing from hip-hop’s founding spirit—virtuosity, community, and invention—and placing it in dialogue with circus, contemporary dance, and the classical repertoire. With a company that has matured over nearly three decades, he continually revisits his signature works for new generations of performers, nurturing collaborations with musicians and visual artists while inviting audiences to look again at forms they think they know. In recent seasons, his projects have been marked by a renewed attention to live music on stage, by an appetite for cross-cultural exchange, and by outreach that turns touring into an occasion to meet local dancers, students, and families. Within that continuum, Boxe Boxe Brasil feels both like a homecoming and a leap forward: it reprises the ring as a space for dramaturgy and metaphor, then lets Brazilian artistry recalibrate its pulse. What emerges is a freshly voiced statement about play, competition, and grace—an invitation to share the same energy, to breathe together, and to witness what happens when discipline and joie de vivre collide before our eyes.

Our team at L’InterValle has shaped this date to foreground the work’s theatricality and its live musical drive. Expect the stage to read like an arena—ropes evoked by lines of light, gloves and props shifting from witty symbols into choreographic partners, and musicians positioned so their sound wraps the movement rather than merely accompanying it. The rounds structure—entries, crescendos, breathers—gives the evening a gripping pace, yet the ensemble’s generosity keeps the atmosphere open and welcoming. Brazilian colorations weave through the score and the movement: a hint of batucada here, a capoeira tilt there, bright harmonies rippling under soulful strings, and the irrepressible swagger of street dance remapped for the theater. In our hall, known for its intimate sightlines and warm acoustics, the finesse of footwork and the snap of a turn carry to the last row with clarity, while the quieter passages—duets that read like whispered confessions, or a suspended hush before the next bell—invite genuine stillness. We present Boxe Boxe Brasil as a highlight of our season because it embodies what we value: craft and accessibility, virtuosity and play, music and movement meeting without hierarchy. Join us at L’InterValle to experience a night where the ring becomes a stage for empathy, humor, and contagious rhythm.