Armand Amar

Mourad Merzouki: Zéphyr

Мурад Мерзуки: Зефир

Dance against the wind: French choreographer Mourad Merzouki sails towards a new adventure in the direction of the “Everest of the seas” – the sailing race Vendée Globe. After Vertikal, which propelled hip-hop into the air, Merzouki continues to exalt this dance in a play with natural forces: from weightlessness to the breath of the wind, from vertical to horizontal, he performs a 90-degree rotation and imagines a new poetics of space in which a gentle wind of lightness blows from the west: the Zephyrus. César Award winner Armand Amar (“Le Concert”) wrote the music. “A great fresco on life […] And the magic works.” Le Figaro

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Actors

Soirmi Amada

Ethan Cazaux

Wissam Seddiki

Simona Machovičová

Camilla Melani

Mourad Messaoud

Tibault Miglietti

Crew

Artistic Direction & Choreography

Mourad Merzouki

Stage design

Benjamin Lebreton

Costume design

Sigolène Pétey

Lighting designer

Yoann Tivoli

About

Hand-to-hand with the wind

"«The most beautiful trip is the one we haven’t done yet » said a famous sailor. It is because there is always an archipelago of possibilities to explore, an unknown elsewhere to marvel at, that I pursue this quest which pushes me to sail from territories to territories.

Here, this territory is that of the Vendée, the starting point of mythical expeditions, and more widely turned towards an ocean of fantasies around the taming of winds and tides.

Artists or explorers, we are looking for spaces of freedom with our dreams and determination as baggage. The desire to embark on a singular adventure and to share an extraordinary experience with as many people as possible. Artists or funambulists of the seas, this ambition brings us closer together.

I have chosen as a course for this new creation the human challenge in the face of the forces of nature, which is the very essence of life at sea: a hand-to-hand combat with the wind.

Giving shape to what by definition has none. Sculpting through the wind where the ineffable cannot be told. Transforming the impalpable into concrete matter through dance. Making air become a substance that can be tamed. Bringing a natural element to the stage and giving it life.

Movement in its pure state, the wind exists only in motion. A new approach to the set for high level dancers. I will be accompanied by my faithful collaborators in music, lighting and scenography.

I will also invite the local talent Mickaël Le Mer to bring his choreographic sensibility and his unique approach to hip-hop aesthetics, all in lightness and poetry."

- Mourad Merzouki, artistic direction and choreography