Éléphant

Modena, Teatro Storchi, 7 and 8 October 2022

An intimate choreography between movement and voice to share the question of how to keep hope in the face of the disappearance of things.

Modena, Teatro Storchi
October 7 h 21
October 8 h 20.30

duration 1 hour
National premiere

in collaboration with Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena

elephant @tala hadid

Artistic direction Bouchra Ouizguen
Dancers, singers Milouda El Maataoui, Bouchra Ouizguen, Halima Sahmoud, Joséphine Tilloy
Light design Sylvie Mélis
Production – Administration Mylène Gaillon

Production Compagnie O
Supported by Fondation d’entreprise Hermès within the framework of the New Settings Program
Coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festival Montpellier Danse, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou, Wiener Festwochen, AFAC (Arab Fund for Art and Culture), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), ERT Emilia Romagna Teatro (Italy), Kampnagel, Service de Coopération et d’Action Culturelle de l’Ambassade de France au Maroc
Funded by Cultural Foundation – Abu Dhabi

Logo Hermes

logo Afac

Carne - Focus di drammaturgia fisica

“Éléphant represents a continuation of my earlier works. It is also a beginning, something similar to hope when all that surrounds us risks disappearing.
Bouchra Ouizguen

The choreographer and dancer Bouchra Ouizguen is one of the leading figures in contemporary dance and choreography in Morocco, where she has been committed to developing a local choreographic scene, working on the encounter and connections between Moroccan popular art and the influences of the contemporary choreographic scene.

In this last show, once again with the female artists of her Compagnie O, she generates a female choir whose intensity of voices is stunning. The choir forms in the darkness, becomes a collective body, and oscillates between strength and fragility, creating something that is continuously on the verge of disappearing, a reminder of our present, and of the elephant of the title, which could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade.

A tragedy draws closer, yet glimmers of hope and joy shine through: Éléphant shares with us the question of how to keep hope in the face of the disappearance of things.

“Although I have been creating shows for years, I am constantly questio-ning the legitimacy of continuing this path and reassembling a piece. If it is far from obvious, it is even within these doubts that arises my desire to reengage in the path of creation. within these doubts that arises my desire to reengage in the path of creation. The notions of unknown, of dreams, of fragility, of truths, of masks that are at the heart of existence continue to contaminate my choreographic process and nourish my creative imagination. A piece arises as much from emptiness and silence as from the chaos of my mind and from the doubts that invade it… The challenge then is to gradually and collectively move towards a form that I hope will always be imbued with freedom.

I first dreamed Éléphant for the extra-ordinary men and women that I could have crossed on a street or on a trip. They echo my ordinary heroes – peasants, gardeners, housekeepers – that I cross in my daily life. It is first and foremost the artists of the company, experienced artists from the popular tradition, whom I have met in the southern region of Morocco over the years and who have been inspiring me since then.
What would we be without smugglers of all ages and times? Fumbling and tracking are both an individual and a collective adventure. The difference, the friction with the unknown, the risks involved and the choice of a common destiny nourish this individual quest in the same way as the nature and environments of each, whether real or fantaed. It is in the dust, with the birds, in the forests, the deserts, the cabarets, the street that others inspire me.

The sound and music participate in this dream mythology by magically convening temporal spaces which, according to the course of things, tend to disappear irreparably: songs and music drawn from the popular Mo-roccan repertoire brought back to life by a choir of musicians from the depths of the ages…

Éléphant is the continuation of my creations. It is also a beginning, a kind of hope when all that surrounds us tends to disappear. I am looking for what is being transmitted, which is about humanity. A collective act in which a journey towards oneself could exist, which does not deny man.”
Bouchra Ouizguen

VIE Festival focuses on contemporary creation with the aim of intercepting new identities in the field of live performance. It takes place annually in different cities in the Emilia-Romagna Region and is organized by Emilia Romagna ERT / National Theatre.
The path of VIE 22 winds through the different approaches and styles of the contemporary scene, both Italian and international.

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