ABSTRACT
In French urban dance, also called le hip hop, minorities take the stage. For more than two decades, French hip hop dance has served as a symbol of the suburbs and of a state-supported politique culturelle. This chapter focuses on a recent hip hop choreography by Mourad Merzouki, Pixel, first performed in 2015 shortly after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Hip hop has served to represent minorities in France in a context in which there has been little discussion of racial or ethnic difference, and now, in the context of an explosion of negative images of youth of North African or Muslim heritage in France. The chapter expresses that minority visibility was only a first step, and far from a simple one: controlling one's own image, countering the negative sensational images bombarding cities – as some critics have pointed out, with the force of the terrorism they claim to be fighting.
