Valentine was born in Japan and grew up in France with the influence of Eastern and Western cultures. Attracted to dance since her childhood, Breakdance smiled to her in 1998. As a psychology student, she used public places and empty train stations as playgrounds before joining the Cie Black Blanc Beur (1st French hip-hop dance company).
From Paris to Rotterdam or Los Angeles, Bgirl Valentine competed against hundreds of Bboys and won the title of vice-champion of the world at the BOTY in 2004 and a victory at the We Bgirlz in 2007. She collaborates with several international dance companies (Montalvo/Hervieu, Par Terre, Farid Berki, 6ème Dimension, etc.) and sets up her own company "Uzumaki" to choreograph a solo: Sadako-2011, a duet: JE suis TOI-2014 and a quartet: #MMIBTY- 2018 where she mixes breakdance and Voguing. She continues her research on bgirlism with BE.GIRL- 2020/21, a piece for 5 b.girls.
Inspired by Asian traditions and European modernism, Valentine's career has taken her from battles to performances to choreography.
She teaches and gives back to the new generation her experience nourished by her travels around the world and her constant search for the evolution of movement.
Valentine Nagato-Ramos © Paul Belêtre
Valentine Nagato-Ramos © Rstyle
Bboy or Bgirl is a boy or girl who dances Breakdance, one of the first dances to emerge from the hip-hop culture in the early 1970s in the slums of New York.
At the time, during Block Parties, DJ Kool Herc realised that the dance floor was reaching its peak during certain passages of a song where only the bass and drum lines were present. So he decided to play these passages in a loop. To do this, he used two record players and put the same record on both decks. In this way, he switches from one record to the other, repeating the same passage, which is called a break, or breakbeat.
Breakdance is characterised by movements that are more or less lively, jerky, fluid, close to the ground and acrobatic, in rhythm with this lively music. It is a dance that is also associated with a masculine image and energy because of its technical movements (big phases/Power moves such as headspin or windmills), more or less upside down positions (Freezes), as well as quick footwork and support (Pass Pass or Footworks and Toprocks) that require agility and body control that are not really feminine. However, since the beginning of this dance, women have been practising it...
Besides the technicality of Breakdance, there is a very instinctive side that young people and/or parents appreciate: walking on all fours, finding oneself in a stopped position, legs in the air on a precise count gives a funny and light aspect, but also a feeling of surpassing oneself (one is capable of it!)
The proposed workshop will be based on musical listening, which is essential in hip-hop.
From top-rock (preparation steps before going down to the floor) to footwork (very fast footwork) to freeze (standing still), bboying will be approached in a playful and lively way. This dance seems inaccessible at first sight, but Valentine makes it easy and understandable for children and seniors alike.
Trained by the breakeuse Valentine Nagata-Ramos of the Uzumaki Company, the participants appropriate the steps, the rhythm and the figures on the ground characteristic of Breakdance. To understand that the body can stretch, bend, turn or jump is also to understand that the creation of movement can be infinite.
Valentine Nagato-Ramos © Paul Belêtre