After winning over local audiences at last year’s International Theater Festival (FIT), Kafig returns to Caracas, this time thanks to an invitation from the Caracas Contemporary Ballet to perform in their fifth annual Gala of International Dance Stars.

Mourad Merzouki, Kafig founder and director, sat down before rehearsal at UCV’s Aula Magna to talk to Jose Orozco about what it means to take hip hop from the streets to the stage.

Where did you get the name for the dance troupe?
It was the name of my first show 15 years ago. Hip hop was born on the streets, but I felt that it needed other cultures in order to evolve. It needs new music and new movement. The cage [refers to] hip hop’s need to get out.

You studied circus and martial arts before you got into hip hop. How do you incorporate those influences into Kafig?
I started with circus. I’m an acrobat. So hip hop is similar. It’s natural to mix the circus and hip hop. For hip hop, it’s good because you find more creativity.

How about taking hip hop from the streets to the stage?
For me, it’s important to meet different cultures. It’s good to take hip hop from the streets to the stage. Onstage, I feel and dance differently because of the stagecraft, or the lighting. The audience makes it a different show. It’s important to go back and forth.

Do you still dance on the streets?
I don’t so much, but members of my crew do. [It helps to] stay connected to reality. If I stay in the theater, it’s dangerous. After a few years, I might find that what I’m doing is passé. It’s also different because on the streets you have people here and there, but in the theater people are seated. Onstage, you improvise less-there’s more choreography. In the theater, the audience might see me differently because they see me, Mourad Merzouki, as a dancer. Politically and socially, that’s good.

Like graffiti’s admission into the art world, hip hop dance in theaters must provoke a lot of cynicism.
I consider it normal. You need to change some things. Hip hop was born on the streets, but you need to change some things. If you don’t do that, people will forget this culture. Hip hop isn’t the same today as it was 25 years ago. You have new ideas and new connections. We take risks. It’s an exchange. It’s great when we mix things, when we try something unknown.

How hard was it for hip hop dance to gain acceptance among theater audiences and in the dance world?
Because of rap, people associate hip hop with aggressive behavior, bad words, and so on. They confuse real hip hop with this [other] hip hop.

Your artistic work has a social as well as an artistic message. How do you handle those messages?
The artistic is the priority. When I dance with black and Chinese people, I see socially and politically positive things [coming out of it]. I don’t do the job for political [reasons]. But maybe I can change some ideas.

Do you use exclusively hip hop music or do you incorporate other styles?
Five years ago, we started using musicians who [produce original music], which we play on CD during performances. When I was young, I listened to hip hop and music from around the world. In the shows, I want to dance to this music. [People also] get tired of hip hop’s “boom-boom” [beats].

Musical fusions are commonplace, but we know less about dance fusions. How do you combine diverse dances?
When you listen to different music, you think that it’s too hard to mix. I like to try mixing. In one piece, we have a violin sound and I appear as if I were playing the violin. It [might surprise] people to see me, [a French Arab], playing the violin. I like confrontation. At first, it’s difficult. The audience’s reaction is important. If you try something, and the audience reacts with surprise, [it’s good].

When we think of hip hop dance, we think break dancing. What else is hip hop dance?
There’s the smurf, pop, electric boogie, looking, hype.

What will you perform at this weekend’s gala?
I only brought 3 dancers, so no stagecraft, and no technical crew. We usually have 8 dancers. We’re performing two small parts, taking 2 to 3 minutes from different pieces. We’re cooking, taking a little bit from everything. There’s modern dance, African [dances], and Capoeira. But the foundation remains hip hop and the circus.