Hungry Sharks Béton Brut

In BÉTON BRUT the Austrian dance company Hungry Sharks combines the aesthetics and principles of brutalist architecture with the social aspects and history of breaking. Hungry Sharks bring to light a rich web of contextual similarities between architecture and hip-hop culture, ranging from the social to the material concrete is built with or danced on. In this work the intersection of both worlds becomes the driving force of dance and choreography of a „brutalist body theatre.“

The revolutionary current of Brutalism enriched the architecture of the 1950s with new values, principles and buildings that are still visibly present in cityscapes around the globe. On the dance form breaking – one of the four pillars of hip-hop culture, the Hungry Sharks uncover a wide range of similarities in the history of its creation. The social thought, which addresses the poorer society with an expressive aesthetic and numerous other similarities serve as the basis for the development of the piece. The common aspects arrange themselves in a leitmotif- like manner around the authoritative element of raw concrete, which is both an important means of expression of brutalist architecture and a physical basis for the development of breaking. The piece was premiered in 2022.