Theatre
Urban Essentials 2026, the international festival of hip hop dance and culture, opens with a double bill featuring two striking solo performances.
The evening brings together “IT AM” by Kazakh dancer and choreographer Amir Zakirov and “LIMBO,” the debut solo work by Italian-French choreographer Suzanne Degennaro, arriving in Vilnius fresh from its world premiere in France.
LIMBO | Suzanne Degennaro (Italy / France)
Somewhere between an inner sense of vertigo and a physical manifestation, Limbo explores a state of limbo, of being in-between: neither departure nor arrival but a murky zone where one dwells in doubt. Driven by ‘whacking’ — a dance form that originated in a queer club in Los Angeles, Le Ginos II — Suzanne Degennaro brings to life this inner space where celebration, melancholy and resistance coexist.
Through a dance that is at once flamboyant and suspended, Limbo evokes the intersex experience, a fragmented relationship with gender, the sensation of living at odds with oneself, and the generational feeling of being adrift, as if on the brink of something that never comes. Inspired by ‘liminal spaces’—those empty yet familiar spaces that populate the post-internet imagination—the solo navigates an aesthetic of gentle discomfort, observed solitude and endless waiting.
Limbo is a silent cry, a party in limbo, an attempt to dance what defies words. With this debut solo, Suzanne Degennaro presents an introspective and direct choreographic piece that explores the state of identity in flux and post-contemporary limbo. A dance of the edge, of turmoil, and of untamed beauty.
Susanne Degennaro
Suzanne Degennaro is an Italo-French dancer and choreographer based in Paris, whose work explores the blurred zones of identity, gender, and bodily memory. Her artistic language is built at the intersection of whacking and a sensitive, autobiographical approach to movement. Suzanne’s practice of whacking became an entry point for reconnecting with her personal history, transforming dance into a tool of liberation, a language of survival, and a poetics of unrest.
Alongside her choreographic research, Suzanne works as a performer for several companies in France, including those of Josepha Madoki and Mounia Nassangar, and performs at the Paris Opera in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet. In 2024, she also participated in the creation of Saïdo Lehlouh’s Apaches Opéra before joining the creative process of Témoin.
Creative team
Chorégraphy, interpretation : Suzanne Degennaro
Artistic collaborator, scenography,
video creation : Colette Degennaro
Lights : Maël Teillant
Music : Timo Tekken et Suzanne Degennaro
Costume : Suzanne Degennaro
Head of production : Céline Gallet
Production manager: Daphné Bouhours
Tour : Marion Roger
Technical coordination : Joël L’Hopitalier
Thanks: Yulan Bouqueau
Duration: 20 min.
Premiere: 2026 m. spalis, UNDER/GROUND, TNB, Renas
Photo credits: Duy-Laurent Tran
Production: A creation by Suzanne Degennaro
Deputy production : Collectif FAIR-E / CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne, An association that receives grants from the Ministère de la Culture (Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles / Bretagne), the city of Rennes, the Regional of Brittany and Ille-et- Vilaine Departement (FR).
Coproduction: LEBLOCK – Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape, Compagnie DCA / La Chaufferie.
Support: Attitudes, Creative Europe project funded by the European Union, Project grant – Ministry of Culture (Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles / Bretagne) (ongoing), Artist residency support – City of Rennes.
IT AM | Amir Zakirov (Kazachstan)
A simple tool can radically change how the body is perceived in motion.
In the solo performance IT AM, Amir Zakirov reverses his body. He wears an inside-out costume of his own making, a mask with his own face on the back of his head, and custom shoes worn in reverse. As a result, the dancer’s body moves in the opposite direction, breaking the familiar perception of human anatomy and opening a new space for imagination and radically new possibilities of movement.
IT AM is a dance where the familiar body becomes unfamiliar. It carries a quiet sense of unease, because nothing is more disturbing than something that looks like us, yet is not. The reversed character embodies the darker side of the human self. Throughout the performance, a struggle unfolds between the real self and this dark side. At times one takes control, at times the other, yet the winner remains unclear.
It never screams.
It whispers.
It is.
Creative team:
Choreografija, atlikimas: Amir Zakirov
Trukmė: 20 min.
Nuotrauka: @sandraews
Amir Zakirov
Amir Zakirov is a breaking dancer and performance maker from northern Kazakhstan. From a very young age, breaking became his form of self-expression, eventually leading him to international recognition. Today, his distinctive movement language inspires a new generation of dancers around the world.
Amir is a multiple world champion and an Olympic Games participant. Despite these achievements and titles, he consciously refused commercial contracts, gave up his championship belt, and stepped away from the competitive scene, choosing artistic creation over victory. Today, he works across social, visual, and dance performance, developing his own artistic language, free from the limitations of the industry.
