"This is our way of living, loving. Our love. Our psychosis?"
Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang
Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang are a couple both in art and in life. He is French with Spanish roots, she is of Korean descent, born in Germany. They perform worldwide and live in Berlin, where they work and share their status as "migrants." Their experiences and relationship inevitably lead them to confront phenomena related to interculturality and differences, raising existential questions about identity.
"Who are we?" they ask in Monchichi. "What unites us?" "Dance, love, a common language built in the diversity of origins" is the answer. The point of unity, in a globalized world where cultural differences fuel polar feelings of attraction and repulsion and contribute to multi-layered identities, seems to be the relationship with the 'other.' The language that allows Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang to build bridges between cultures and possible relationships is that of contemporary dance influenced by hip-hop. The dancers draw from their mutual experiences the content of the duo Monchichi, countering the repellent force of difference with the much more seductive and constructive power of encounter. The man and the woman engage on stage in the eternal game of attraction versus retreat, of chasing versus hiding, of seeking and separating only to (re)find each other: dancing through emblematic sequences of the game of life, they stage resistances to further enhance the unions that result from those resistances.
Sébastien Ramirez began his career as a B-Boy in 1996, becoming a professional dancer and choreographer in 2000. Today, he works as an artistic director, choreographer, and dancer. Inspired by hip-hop culture since childhood, his focus was on B-boying, but he later developed an interest in other movement genres, exploring various areas of dance and creating his own style. The dancer and choreographer centers his art on three pillars: creativity, beauty, and diversity. The meeting and blending of cultural traditions and practices, essential elements of his daily life and experience, produce, according to Sébastien Ramirez, a positive and creative "clash." In 2007, Sébastien Ramirez was one of the 16 best B-Boys in the world and represented France at the 1 vs 1 Red Bull BC One World Championship in South Africa, after winning first place in the French selections. This summer, after their acclaimed performance at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang were nominated for the New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies) as outstanding performers.
Honji Wang was born in Frankfurt and lives and works in Berlin. After academic training in classical dance, she developed her skills in bgirling, newstyle, and house dance. She also collaborates with contemporary choreographers Arco Renz (Belgium) and Constanza Macras (Berlin). Ramirez and Wang have together developed a new choreographic language often described as "urban dance-theater." Their creations are internationally supported and appreciated, and both boast an impressive collection of awards and prizes, such as Red Bull BC One, the contemporary dance competitions in Ludwigshafen and Hannover, and the Osaka festival. In 2012, they were nominated for the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative Program.
