Les Twins

Laurent Nicolas Bourgeois and Larry Nicolas Bourgeois, professionally known as Les Twins, are a French hip-hop and freestyle dance duo from Sarcelles, north of Paris. They describe themselves as self-taught dancers, their training built through observation, exchange, experimentation and the competitive culture around street dance rather than conventional studio training. By the mid-2000s they were associated with Criminalz Crew and were building experience in battles, public performances and theatrical presentation. Their early work depended on a productive contradiction: the recognizable likeness and shared timing of identical twins, set against sharply different temperaments and movement choices.

National attention followed their appearance as finalists on the French television competition *Incroyable Talent* in 2008. International recognition accelerated after footage from a 2010 World of Dance event in San Diego circulated widely online. The clip presented their work in a form that travelled especially well on video: detailed beat interpretation, sudden stops, elastic isolations, comedy and a constant exchange of attention between the two dancers. They made a United States television appearance on *The Ellen DeGeneres Show* later that year, while continuing to compete and teach.

In 2011 Les Twins won the hip-hop new style division at Juste Debout, one of the major international street-dance gatherings. The same year brought a decisive expansion into arena-scale entertainment. They performed with Beyoncé at the Billboard Music Awards and subsequently became recurring collaborators in her concert world, while also working as featured dancers on Cirque du Soleil's *Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour* during part of its first year. Their relationship with Beyoncé continued through projects including *The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour* and the 2014 *On the Run Tour*. Alongside this concert work, the brothers maintained a global workshop and battle presence and appeared in music videos, advertising and fashion contexts.

Les Twins did not move simply from street to commercial dance. They continued to circulate between competitive freestyle, filmed shorts, brand work, live concerts and teaching, carrying different expectations of improvisation, camera awareness and scale into each setting. In 2017 they returned to a televised competition format on the inaugural season of NBC's *World of Dance*. They won the Upper division and then the season championship, receiving the program's US$1 million prize. The final became an especially clear example of their adaptability: Laurent competed while recovering from a leg injury, and the duo reworked material to foreground seated and upper-body phrasing rather than concealing the constraint. The victory substantially widened their audience, but it came after more than a decade of performance, battles and touring.

Later screen credits extended their visibility beyond dance programs, including appearances in *Men in Black: International*, *Cats*, and Beyoncé's performance films *Homecoming* and *Renaissance*. They have continued touring, battling, teaching and developing music under the Les Twins name. Their current official site presents music releases alongside dance and event work, indicating a broader creative practice.