Please note: this event has already taken place
12:30 Doors 13:00 Film Program - Summer Dance Forever
Every year in August, Summer Dance Forever brings together dancers and dance lovers from around the world for a week-long celebration of music, dance and culture! The festival showcases a wide variety of dance performances, next-level battles, soulful club nights, and energizing workshops to refresh and boost your skills on various locations in the city.
In Melkweg Cinema you can watch two powerful films: the award-winning documentary 'It Ain't Where You're From' by Dubai based director Jamal Rachid about the thriving Gulf Hiphop scene, and the premiere of 'Les Corps Èlectriques', a personal story by dancer and film maker Raphaël Stora.
After the film programme, the free-to-attend seminar “Are you ready for the stage” will start, in which we will talk to a number of artists about creating and presenting hip-hop dance as a performing art.
Melkweg often hosts different types of programmes at the same time, such as concerts, club nights and films. Please note that there may occasionally be some noise pollution from other programmes during the screening.
IT AIN'T WHERE YOU'RE FROM (2023)
Jamal Rachid, 52 min
Summer Dance Forever and Cinedans present this award-winning documentary by Soultrotter Films founded by director/writer Jamal Rachid (Iraqi-Kurdish / Bulgarian) who now resides in the United Arab Emirates.
What do you do when you grow up without a family or a homeland, with a different vibe and a different tribe? You have to create your own path! Dance, music, spoken word, graphics and street art collide in this powerful film portrait of a thriving scene. Imbued with saturated colours, stylish fashion and backed by a pulsating soundtrack. Each artist has a personal history, each is struggling to find their way. We get to know what it takes to follow their passions.
LES CORPS ÉLECTRIQUES (2025)
Raphaël Stora, 48 min, NL Première
At 40, Raphaël Stora decides to return to the stage, picking up the hip-hop dance he once left behind to become a filmmaker. But the comeback isn’t easy: his body resists, the rhythm feels unfamiliar, and the competition is fierce.
What begins as a physical challenge soon turns into something deeper—a search for reconciliation. How can Raphaël reconnect with his father, Benjamin Stora, a renowned historian of the Algerian War? If dance once offered an escape from his family history, could it now become a way to confront it?
With camera in hand, he documents his journey through doubts and small triumphs, while filming virtuosic dancers whose movements echo his own inner struggles. Between battles, rehearsals, and performances, this intimate documentary dives into the world of underground dance—where movement speaks louder than words, and dancing becomes a way of telling a different kind of story.
