Séverine Bidaud – Artistic director

Séverine Bidaud

Séverine BIDAUD, aka Lady Severine started hip-hop dance in 1996. Her encounter with the pionners of Poppin’ The Electric Boogaloos was a revelation for her.

She followed and then organized numerous trainings with “her masters” and some other American creators, as Development Director of urban dances at the ADIAM 91: Association Départementale d’Informations et d’Actions Musicales et chorégraphiques en Essonne (Departmental Association of Information and Musical and Choreographic Actions in Essonne) between 1999 and 2003. Her position at the General Council of Essonne enabled her to get a solid experience in this field: she could structure and develop hip-hop dance in this territory, with the setting up of training courses for trainers, choreographic accompaniment, creation of urban dance classes, festivals, battles… In 2002, she became a pioneer in organizing Internationnal Battles in France. Thus, she co-organized with the URGE association “The Original B.boys Contest/Benji-Crumbs Challenge” in Brétigny-sur-Orge (91), then with the company 6e Dimension she co-organized “Power Battle Circle” at the Agora of Evry’s Arenas in 2003…

As a dancer, Lady Severine got involved into the world of battles and got internationally recognized by taking the 3rd place at the mixed individual world competitions in 2002 and 2003 in the USA: B.boys Summit in Los Angeles and B.boys Pro-Am in Miami. After this remarkable rise, she was nominated for the “Dance Hip-Hop Award 2003” in Hollywood (USA). In 2006, she won the Funkstyle contest in Clamart / mixed Popping category, she was judged by Boogaloo Sam, creator of this style.

In 2004, she grew in the environment of choreographic creation and incorporated the Montalvo-Hervieu company and danced in several pieces until 2012: les Paladins, On danfe, La Bossa Fataka of Rameau and Lalala Gershwin. In 2009, she performed for the Black Blanc Beur company in My Tati Freeze. From 2011 to 2014, she danced for Marion Levy, and more specifically in her creation In the belly of the wolf and in 2014 she incorporated the company of Laura Scozzi to perform in her piece entitled Beard Snow which will be on tour until May 2017.

In parallel to her career as a performer, she developed her choreographic skills.

She co-founded in 1998 with her sister Jane-Carole Bidaud, the company 6th Dimension of which she became the main choreographer from 2002. Thus, she has written and directed several projects which were essentially feminine and left the trademark that distinguish her for a long time: gathering female figures, each one specialist in a street-dance technique in order to open up to another sensibility.

The year 2004 signed the beginning of a long collaboration with Disneyland Paris, which entrusted her the creation of numerous hip-hop shows presented during different events, such as the Halloween festival, until 2012.

In 2009, in order to further develop the theatricality of her dance, she met Jacky Sigaux, with whom she was trained under at the Théâtre de boulevard. In 2011, in the same artistic approach, she trained herself in clowning techniques with Mylène Lormier from the company carte blanche and in 2012, she improved her comedy skills with Xavier Letourneur, Corinne Boijols, Roland Marchisio…

Through the years, Séverine Bidaud has gradually built her choreographic style. Her various collaboration as a performer, as well as her different encounters with other foreign choreographers, such as Robyn Orlan and Kaori Ito have influenced her aesthetics. Today, her signature is closer to an approach borrowed from contemporary dance. In her different creations, we can note that Séverine Bidaud uses hip-hop dance as a body language in its own right, a powerful vehicle that allow dancers who feel multiple sensations to communicate their emotions, their feelings to the spectator, in offbeat poetic universes.

With her piece I feel good, she wrote what she considers as “her first play” in 2010, using her sensibility for the benefit of a topic hardly tackled by dancers of the genre: old age. “I feel good” was awarded several prizes, including the “Beaumarchais SACD” Writing Award in 2010. In 2014, she signed “Hip-hop, is it really serious?” and then “Tell me, what are you dancing?” in 2015.

According to her, and this from the beginning of her career, creation only makes sense if it is accompanied by artistic actions aimed at raising public awareness and participation, in a desire to exchange and meet future spectators. In that respect, so as to enrich her different projects, Séverine Bidaud prefers meeting individuals, from the public, at hom but not only. Gathering of testimonies, narrated experiences, cooking and shared movements, this is what symbolizes her approach.

She offers numerous workshops and masterclasses in France and abroad particularly for the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, Itinéraire Bis (Association of Cultural Development in Saint-Brieuc), at the Studio Harmonic (Paris), at the “Nexus Funkmasters” School (Florence – Italy)… Throughout her career, she could feel a real need, a necessity to transmit to a large public (especially in age) the history and tha values of hip-hop dance, by approaching its different techniques, in order to create places of communication between generations.

It is on this path where she continues nowadays this approach within the Company 6th Dimension, by creating a large number of cultural actions, which she sets up as part of partnerships with various structures, around her creations.

According to Séverine Bidaud, hip-hop has no boundaries, all artistic forms can find their place and enrich the play. All audiences can understand this sensibility.