Two dance genres collide in unlikely but hypnotic performance in Florence.
One is synonymous with drops, the robot and spins, the other with such terminology as deboule, releve and the splits.
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.
In the relative darkness of Stazione Leopolda, light pours through two grated windows and a door opening 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. But after the initial indifference, it increasingly becomes clear in the four-minute clip befittingly called Just Like You 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.
Reuters
