Relevant Company
Associate Artist
2025/2027
Associate Artist
The Company
The members of Relevant Dance Company are all from Lyon.
They decided to form their own company in 2016 after taking part in Ba-bel 8.3, a participatory project led by the Maison de la Danse de Lyon and choreographed by Abou Lagraa. They are interested in exploring other dance styles and worlds, motivated and driven by the creative energy of hip-hop. Their aim is to address human and social issues, all the while challenging and questioning contemporary society.
Creations
SLAM TOUR (2025)
In the context of a concert, “slam” refers to a practice in the pit, where members of the audience lift a person up and pass them from hand to hand. This creates collective energy and encourages interaction between the audience and the artists, a way of celebrating music by adding a physical dimension to the concert experience. It is this experience that the Compagnie Relevant and the La Fougue collective wanted to explore choreographically. With incredible hip-hop energy mixed with various aesthetic influences, the two Lyon-based artist collectives have surrounded themselves with young dancers from the ID and Désoblique training programmes to imagine a unique large-scale performance.
CASTING
Creation and choreography: COMPAGNIE RELEVANT with Marwan Kadded, Freddy Madodé, Jerôme Oussou, David Walther, Karym Zoubert and LA FOUGUE with Indy Belmounes, Brian Kpadja, Léo Tardieu, Joël Sossavi, Aisi Zhou
Creation and live music: Wilfrid Haberey
STAND OUT (2023)
For this new creation, a quintet, the company wishes to explore the uniqueness of each member that makes up a group. What are the relationships between the individual and the group? The individual is shaped and nourished by the collective; the group allows each member to develop their own identity. To explore this notion of individuality within the group, the unique characteristics and qualities of each dancer will be highlighted. Throughout the piece, each performer’s individual movements will be emphasised, as an ode to difference.
CASTING
Choreography and performance: Marwan Kadded, Freddy Madodé, Jérôme Oussou, David Walther, Karym Zoubert
Sound design: Wilfrid Haberey
Lighting: Maureen Bain
UPSHOT (2018)
Upshot focuses on the behaviours, norms and attitudes of an individual within a group. Excluded, included, marginalised. Using their own distinct choreographic vocabulary, each dancer takes turns interpreting different social roles based on the codes they have and those they must acquire in order to integrate into the group. Movements and the body then become a way of presenting oneself to others, of talking about oneself, of initiating a dialogue. The piece recounts the confrontation between the individual and the group, the degrees of inclusion or exclusion, and takes us on an exploration of symbolism and representations of the self.
CASTING
Choreographer and performers: Marwan Kadded, Freddy Madodé, Jérôme Oussou, David Walther, Karym Zoubert
Replacement dancers: Liesbeth Kiebooms, Soirmi Amada, Carla Munier and Brian Kpadja
Music: Wilfrid Haberey
Lighting design: Nelson Paraiso
Production: Compagnie Relevant
Executive production: Compagnie Art-Track
Co-productions, partners and supporters here.
Agenda 2025
December 14 — UPSHOT, Mionnay, as part of festival Cuivre en Dombes
December 5 — UPSHOT, La Scène – Grand Pic Saint-Loup, Saint-Gély-du-Fesc
September 27 — SLAM TOUR, Les Grandes Locos, Oullins, as part of the Lyon Dance Biennale
July 4 — SLAM TOUR (studio’s opening), Le BLOCK, Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape
June 27 — UPSHOT (private show), Association GERME, Lyon
April 18 — UPSHOT (extract), with students of DTCA, Cultural center Brin de chocolat, Lomé (Togo)
March 7 — UPSHOT, L’Ombrière, Uzès
January 28 — UPSHOT, Relais Culturel – Théâtre de Haguenau
Agenda 2026
April 10 — UPSHOT, Salle de la Pyramide, Bagnols-sur-Cèze
Team
His dance practice is enriched by a theatricality and emotional work that reinforces the choreographic vocabulary acquired during his training as a performer. He began hip-hop at the age of 15, then trained as a self-taught dancer before joining a professional dancer-performer training program in Lyon. Through various artistic and cultural projects, he has enriched his vocabulary through mediation and transmission to a variety of audiences. Marwan has worked with the HKC company as a performer and has taken part in various projects with the Danser sans frontières association in France and abroad. Passionate about exchanges, he draws on his encounters to develop his artistic lexicon.
His curiosity and thirst for learning led him to discover gestures during workshops with Jann Galloi, Mickaël Le Mer and David Drouard.
In 2017, he joined the first class of the ID (Interprète Danseur) training program based in Feyzin (69) and run by Cie De Fakto, where he discovered many different choreographic worlds.
Freddy has worked with Compagnie Ma' on the piece Si c'est une fille and with Compagnie HKC on Urgence.
He joined ID training in 2017 with the desire to become a professional. He approaches dance in a very musical way, and his approach to contemporary dance, Bboying and House allows him to develop his own gestures. This curiosity has led him to a highly musical dance, mixing lightness and power, a versatile dance that he knows how to adapt to his environment, a hybrid dance that blends his different influences. In 2018, he joined Compagnie Relevant, while also working with other companies in the Lyon region and beyond (Cie Kham, collectif AR, Concert de l'Hotel Dieu, Cie 100 Blazes).
Later, he explored Latin dance and began teaching hip-hop at the age of 18. He developed a passion for transmission and encounters. In 2018, he joined the ID training program. He continues to teach but prefers to work as a performer, joining several companies, including Compagnie Relevant. Since his training, he has been interested in contemporary dance and various artistic aesthetics. He has worked with the De Fakto, Kham and DADR (David Drouard) companies.
After taking part in the Babel 8.3 project, it was at the age of 16 that he began to professionalize as a dancer-performer and decided to join the ID training program in Feyzin. Karym's many influences and open-mindedness enable him to discover and practice other dance styles. It is with curiosity that he nourishes his choreographic work to develop a hybrid style, combining powerful, explosive dance with a very aerial aesthetic. He also works as a performer for HKC and Dyptik.
Photo © Jim Lassouille