At the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui misses his sacred night

Published on November 15, 2024 at 08:32. / Modified on November 15, 2024 at 08:44.

Have Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and his tribe missed out on their sacred night? At the Grand Théâtre, courtesy, the new creation of the Belgian-Moroccan artist has just been completed on a splendid level. The public gives a standing ovation, enthusiasts applaud. The dancers – 22 from the Ballet du Grand Théâtre and four from the Eastman company, a phalanx created in Belgium by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui – salute in their saffron or sand dresses and pants. They are admirable, as are singer Fadia Tomb El-Hage and singer Mohammed El Arabi-Serghini. But their path of wisdom is weighed down by an overflow of have-you-seen effects, sometimes decorative when they are not flatly illustrative.

However, nothing announced this idle inflation. Ihsane takes root in the childhood bedroom of the director of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre. Didn’t he want to sleepwalk, that is to say, while seeing, the Morocco of his childhood summers, the Tangier of his father, Sidi Mohamed Cherkaoui, exiled to Antwerp for love of Monique van der Schueren ? Did he not also want to honor a soul brother, Ihsane Jarfi, a young gay man murdered in Liège after leaving a club in 2012? The Swiss Milo Rau also took up this drama in a moving spectacle, La Reprise, History(s) of theater (1), at the Théâtre de Vidy in 2018.

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