As part of its seventh edition, the “Les femmes s’exposent” festival is dedicating an exhibition to breaking until September 1st, 2024, with the images of Sophie Bramly. The photographer followed the hip-hop scene in New York for three years, in the 80s, when it was still emerging and underground. She attended the legendary evenings at the Roxy, one of the first multiracial and multicultural hip-hop dance clubs, a legendary place for fans from the early days. She followed breakers like “Crazy Legs”, the most famous dancer from one of the most iconic groups, the Rock Steady Crew. At the beginning of the 1980s, few people in the United States wanted to hear about this culture born within a particularly disadvantaged social class, that of African-American and Latino youth in the Bronx neighborhood, where it was formed. a decade earlier. On her return from the U.S., she also followed the French hip-hop scene and immortalized “battles” which took place in particular in the Center de la Grange aux Belles, in Paris. Sophie Bramly says she entered hip-hop culture through dance. “I couldn’t understand how bodies contorted so elastically and quickly. From the outset, I was won over by the way they invented a world in their image. The candor of this era is reflected in the photos: whatever the photographer (there were few of us), the images are grainy, there is softness, astonishment, and the photo often leaves a blur in the movement, like if we had been taken by surprise.” Her images date back to four decades ago and no one imagined then that breakdancing would be included in the 2024 Olympic Games as an additional sport, celebrated on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, in the same way as surfing, skateboarding and climbing.
Les femmes s’exposent 2024
June 7 – September 1
Houlgate, Normandy
www.lesfemmessexposent.com
