Babacar Cissé suspended in mid-air, legs crossed, against a concrete wall, a burst of flame above him. Le feu sacré, 2016.

Opéra de Bordeaux, Théâtre National de Chaillot,
CCN de La Rochelle.
And a company, since 2006.

BabacarCissé« Bouba »

Hip hop choreographer Artistic director Dancer On stage since 1994 · Cie Les Associés Crew since 2006

Le feu sacré, 2016 · Photograph Julie Bruhier

On stage since 1994. The company came twelve years later.

First stage in 1994, at the Opéra de Bordeaux, with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, for Verdi’s Aïda. Then the Théâtre National Bordeaux Aquitaine under Jean-Louis Thamin, Anthony Egéa’s Compagnie Rêvolution, and eight years alongside Hamid Ben Mahi with Compagnie Hors Série — where he became assistant choreographer in 2005, for the Ballet de Lorraine.

From 2009 to 2012, dancer at the Théâtre National de Chaillot with Dominique Hervieu and José Montalvo, in Orphée and in the opera Porgy and Bess. Since 2013, dancer with Kader Attou’s company Accrorap, first at the CCN de La Rochelle — The Roots, Opus 14, Un break à Mozart — and the company’s referent for passing pieces on. Between 2008 and 2010 he trained hip hop dance teachers for the Centre National de la Danse, in Pantin and Lyon.

He founded Compagnie Les Associés Crew in 2006. He has signed a dozen pieces there, and danced through some thirty creations counting other people’s — from Bordeaux to Boston, Bogotá, Beijing and Tel Aviv. International WDSF judge and federal judge for the French Dance Federation for Olympic breaking.

His work starts from the body as an archive: lineage and exile, the pack, fire.

1994first stage
12pieces signed
30creations danced
5continents

Statement

What the body keeps

Growing new branches on hip hop dance.

He discovered hip hop in 1984 and choreographed his first shows in Aquitaine. Alongside it he trained in African dance, jazz and salsa. It is that crossing, rather than any one school, that gives his movement its recognisable signature.

For twenty years the research has turned on the meeting of styles: classical choir with Carmina Burana and Éliane Lavail’s Ensemble Vocal d’Aquitaine, live music with À corps et à cordes and Back to the roots, and flamenco for a piece now in the making.

The other thread is lineage and exile. Le syndrome de l’exilé, An amerikkkan dream, then La dernière danse du Monarque: the memory of the Senegalese tirailleurs, uprooting, what one body hands on to the next.

The monarch butterfly takes four generations to cover the eleven thousand kilometres between it and its land. No single individual makes the whole journey; each one advances and hands on. That is the very structure of the piece — and the way this work looks at identity.

Today I know that I am the third butterfly. The one who will let the fourth reach what I will call the promised land.

Babacar Cissé, La dernière danse du Monarque

2008 1st SACD Beaumarchais prize for best young French company, for Être et renaître.

Available

Six pieces available for touring
Babacar Cissé arched backwards, arms open, beneath hanging microphones, in red and blue light.

2022 · Choreographic solo · 60 min

La dernière
danse du Monarque

  • Alone on stage
  • Triptych on wolves

Third part of a triptych on wolves, after Wolves and La Meute. The piece is built on a parallel with the monarch butterfly, which takes four generations to reach its land. Babacar Cissé becomes in turn his grandfather, a Senegalese tirailleur conscripted while he was a farmer; his father, who left for the French dream; then himself, born in France and questioned about his identity. The fourth butterfly is his daughter.

Solo — Babacar Cissé alone on stage. Germaine Acogny and Indyia Cissé take part in the writing and are present on video and in voice-over.

Touring dossier (PDF, in French)
Some fifteen dancers on a white stage washed in violet light, among large white blocks.

2022 · Large form · 60 min · up to 20 dancers

Carmina
Burana

  • 60 minutes
  • Up to 20 dancers
  • Transmission version

A piece on Carl Orff’s composition, created during the companionship with the Théâtre du Figuier Blanc in Argenteuil. It also exists as a residency version, passed on to amateurs or to a group of students, as an excerpt or in full.

In collaboration with Eliane Lavail

Touring dossier (PDF, in French)
Two dancers and a percussionist on a white stage, set built from pale blocks.

2025 · Performance · short form · 3 performers

Back to
the roots

  • Short form
  • 3 performers
  • Live percussion

A dialogue between dance and percussion played live. Created for Le Châtelet fait son jazz, in February 2025.

With Robert Modestine and Yannice Lavaly

Babacar Cissé suspended in mid-air, legs crossed, against a concrete wall, a burst of flame above him.

2016 · Solo · 7 minutes

Le feu
sacré

  • Poetry and dance
  • Brief form

What drives us and what binds us. What makes us the individual — the flame — and the collective — the fire. This fire that destroys, that warms, that protects. This fire at the centre of the village, around which the story is told and the present is made, together.

Seven minutes. Created for the Festival Traces Contemporaines in Cahors.

Photograph Julie Bruhier

Touring dossier (PDF, in French)
A dancer reaches towards his own shadow, vast, cast on a pale background.

2011 · Solo · 60 minutes

Le syndrome
de l’exilé

  • One dancer on stage
  • Width 10 m · depth 9 m

“There is not one but many exiles; journeys sometimes forced, sometimes chosen, sometimes geographical and physical, but most often inner and spiritual.” The piece crosses these successive exiles and keeps returning to the same question — why stay, why leave?

Some know the pain of leaving a native land, others the hope of somewhere better. Are we not all, intrinsically, exiles — uprooted from a place within ourselves, from our childhood, from a part of us that life has led us to cover over, forget, leave behind?

Artistic direction and performance Babacar Cissé · Technicians Yvan Labasse and Stéphane Lesauce

Touring dossier (PDF, in French)

Since 2019 · Creation format

Les petites rencontres

A spell of unplanned creation, from a few hours to three days, between artists from different disciplines — dancers, musicians, photographers, visual artists — gathered around a word or a theme. Like a laboratory: they exchange, they propose, they experiment. A filmmaker shoots, and a trace remains that the host venue can share.

  1. #1L’instantNouakchott, with the Institut français — a dance filmed by drone, in a single take, in the Mauritanian desert
  2. #2Le voyageSharing a journey where everything is written on the spot
  3. #3SymphonieOn women as objects, on battered women
  4. #4Orchestre 2.0Digital tools meet the artist and become an instrumentalist
  5. #5ÉtincelleWhen the circle gathers round the fire, time stops

The artists who have taken part

  • Andy Andrianasolo
  • Cyril Atef
  • William Baldé
  • Jeanne Boucharnic
  • Damien Bourletsis
  • Julie Bruhier
  • Hugo Ciona
  • Moussa Abdallah Cissakho
  • Pape Klé Fall
  • Nicolas Frossard
  • Christophe Garbage
  • Hicham Ghabté
  • Kamel Ghabté
  • Marine Ladoire
  • Pierre-Étienne Larous
  • Jordan Malfoy
  • Vincent Malgrange
  • Anthony Mezence
  • Antoine Mortoir
  • Stéphanie Moussu
  • Savanah Pouchan
  • Hassan Sarr
  • Mara Satre
  • Amen Viana
  • Serap Yildiz
  • Yoan Zaire

Also in the repertoire

Pieces created and performed. They are not offered for touring as they stand.

Two bare-chested dancers in a snow-covered forest. WoLvES, 2015.
2015WoLvESFirst part of the wolf trilogy
À corps et à cordes, 2018.
2018À corps et à cordesLaurent Gambarelli / Traces
Je suis fait de la matière de mes rêves, 2017.
2017Je suis fait de la matière de mes rêves
La meute {Wolfpack}, 2017.
2017La meute {Wolfpack}E•Djipal
An amerikkkan dream, 2013.
2013An amerikkkan dream

Career

  • 1994 — 1995Opéra de Bordeaux — Orchestre National Bordeaux AquitaineDancer — Verdi’s Aïda. The first stage.
  • 1998 — 1999Théâtre National Bordeaux AquitaineDancer — Bal Trap by Xavier Durringer, directed by Jean-Louis Thamin
  • 1999 — 2003Compagnie Rêvolution — Anthony EgéaDancer — Noir Blanc, Tryptik
  • 2003 — 2008Compagnie Hors Série — Hamid Ben MahiDancer — Sekel, On n’oublie pas, Apaches. Assistant choreographer in 2005 for the Ballet de Lorraine.
  • 2006 →Compagnie Les Associés CrewFounding, artistic direction and choreography
  • 2008 — 2010Centre National de la Danse, Pantin and LyonTraining hip hop dance teachers
  • 2009 — 2012Théâtre National de Chaillot — Dominique Hervieu and José MontalvoDancer — Orphée, and the opera Porgy and Bess to music by Gershwin
  • 2013 →Compagnie Accrorap — Kader AttouDancer — The Roots, Opus 14, Un break à Mozart, created at the CCN de La Rochelle. Referent for passing pieces on.
  • 2019 — 2025Associate artistVille de Cenon (2019-20) · Right About Now festival, Amsterdam (2019-24) · Théâtre du Figuier Blanc, Argenteuil (2024-25)
  • JuryFrench Dance Federation — Olympic breakingFederal judge at national level, and international WDSF judge

Transmission

Workshops, masterclasses, residencies

Weekly workshops in dance schools and in schools, short introductions, training for teachers, and creation residencies mixing professionals and amateurs — the « petites rencontres », opened in 2019 to artists from different disciplines.

  • University of Santa Barbara
  • Conservatory of Boston
  • Dance Complex, Boston
  • Bogotá
  • Cali
  • Medellín
  • Guangzhou
  • Shanghai
  • Beijing
  • Tel Aviv
  • Rishon LeZion
  • Istanbul
  • Bizerte
  • Dakar
  • Nouakchott

For a touring enquiry, a technical rider, a quote, a workshop or a residency: the company office answers at this address.

Touring dossiers, piece by piece (in French): dossier.lesassociescrew.fr

The company, its classes and news: lesassociescrew.fr