Summer Carnival Street Parade by Alida Dors

With her roots in hip hop, Rotterdam-based choreographer Alida Dors has developed a singular dance language. For her carnival parade Dors explored the role of dance in Afro-Caribbean funeral processions, in which loved ones are brought to the grave with swirling dance and music to ward off evil spirits and celebrate life.

Dors connected the act of a dancing farewell to hip hop protest culture. She created an exuberant hip hop choreography for dancers carrying coffins adorned with slogans like ‘Let’s bury our fears!’, ‘Let’s bury distorted realities!’. Her dancers thus symbolically said goodbye to oppression and buried that which keeps them from being who they want to be.

Dors also recognised a political gesture in both Afro-Caribbean funeral processions and the Caribbean carnival tradition. The funeral procession can become a means for those whose socio-economic position might keep them invisible in life, to make sure they are seen on their way to their last resting place. The Caribbean carnival can act as a public stage on which hierarchies and power relations are playfully overturned.

Collaborators
Dors works with dancers from all four hip hop houses in the Netherlands. Hip hop DJ Lovesupreme developed a composition, mixing hip hop with live music by a traditional Surinam brass band Boven de Sterren. Stylist Isis Vaandrager dressed the dancers, and artists Laser 3.14 and Brian Elstak designed the texts and drawings for the carnival float.