The Tunisian choreographers Aïcha M’Barek and Hafiz Dhaou have been based in Lyon since 2005. However, they remain key figures in the artistic landscape of their country. The performances they create provide a glimpse into the imagery that permeates their life journey: a continuous back-and-forth between Tunisia and France. Their first collaborative work dates back to 2003 when they created the duet Khallini Aich. Then, in 2005, they decided to form their own company: Chatha. Several titles emerged, including the quartet Khaddem Hazem, the quintet VU, and the solo Kawa, from 2010, which pays tribute to the Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish.
The political events surrounding the emancipation of the Tunisian people, starting from the Arab Spring that erupted in 2011, have transformed their danced vocabulary and influenced subsequent creations that have become a warning of hope and solidarity for a better future. Their latest piece, Sacré Printemps!, presented at the 2014 Biennale de Lyon, embodies this. Evoking the same revolutionary spirit as Nijinsky-Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (though there is no trace of it in their composition), M’Barek and Dhaou recount the hopes sparked by the Arab Spring in the construction of a democratic Tunisia. Thus, while the political forces in their country were writing a new Constitution, the two authors liberated their imagination by bringing seven dancers to the stage, the voice of the traditional Tunisian singer Sonia M’Barek, the music of the Lyon post-rock group Zëro (their loyal collaborator), and about thirty life-sized silhouettes created by Dominique Simon, inspired by the cardboard silhouettes of the martyrs of the revolution that the artist Bilal Berreni, also known as Zoo Project (murdered at a young age in Detroit in 2013), placed on the streets of Tunis during the uprisings.
This performance serves as a constant reminder—“each of us exists because the other exists”—asserting with conviction that diversity is wealth, and togetherness is strength. The authors convey all this through choral dance, a spatial shift in unison that is in constant tension towards the affirmation of the group, which never crumbles even when the individual seeks their own validation. This is the spring of Aïcha M’Barek and Hafiz Dhaou, the first of many to come. There will be others, as indicated by the inscription that stands out at the end of the performance on the white cloth beside the stage.
