This time, we had the whole access to La Ludothèque, making it our headquarter. Balkis had asked for both time alone (to write down the choreography) and time together with the dancers. New few people came to this “dance open studio”: Rani, from Pakistan; Celeste, from South America… Flore Olivieri from La Cité de l’Emploi had managed to find these motivated women, and also proposed to host a dance workshop at l’Espace la Croix des Oiseaux, where Balkis met, between others, Latifa. But within these women, none were available for the 3-days show, and some didn’t even want to dance in public.
So, from the very beginning of the workshop, just a few participants had accepted to perform and were available at least two out of the three performing days. Balkis had, normally, Mamadou and Rayna’s duo; Momo and a young guy from the gym, the girls from Sunshine Crew, plus eventually Michelle and Arlette from the DO-IN dance class. So, that wasn’t enough for the initial dance procession she had imagined.
Expectations > reality
Finally, the powerlift group unfortunately couldn’t make it… For the Sunshine Crew, only Imène could take part. But that was something, because she really is a stunning dancer. So, Balkis had to begin on writing a totally different global choreography with the very few people remaining.
Rayna kept on filming the gestures and also went around the neighborhood to film the quiet buildings under the hot and beating summer sun. She video-recorded a flying garbage bag, whose dancing partner was the invisible wind. That was precariously poetic.
For the fabrics covered with the bodies screenshots, she had managed to find someone that could print it on time, back in her hometown in Bulgaria. So, she came by with these three-big beautiful supple canvas, showing Mamadou’s hand; Imene’s belly and a young guy’s muscly arms. She then had to find the way of hanging them, and the type of structure that Giacomo would have to construct for this.
He still had a lot of construction work: the DJ table for Fred, more benches to sit and tables to eat for the audience. Hopefully, on his first arrival day, he received the help of Aurélien and Thierry from les Compagnons Bâtisseurs but also from almost ten volunteers of an intra-muros migrant center. Most came only for a day (few came for a second day of work), but that was the most productive one. Together, they built the main structures.
As for the flags, the women had done an amazing job by assembling the pink frame and the shapes drawn by Giacomo. They even had customized some of them with embroideries of their friends’ initials, or with “Saint-Chamand” written in Arabic letters.
Now was the time to think about how to hang them on people’s balconies that surrounded the small place where the performance would take place. This time, Lahouari was there, and he was really an unconditional help since he knew very well the inhabitants. Knocking from a door to another, based on Rayna’s repartition, we asked the neighbors if they agreed to hang the flags from their home – in order to be part of the upcoming show. All the people that had opened their doors accepted, and actually played the game. As we walked down back to the natural stage, we could see flags coming out of the windows…
Fred had the sound-skeleton of the show almost done. He shared with us some extracts – the global journey… We couldn’t exactly know how it’d be but we believed it would sound amazing. We trusted him. This kind of project is also a lot about trusting the others.
On Wednesday the 13th, the first general repetition took place. We could discover more of Fred’s songs, and could appreciate Balkis’ storytelling and dance process. It was still a bit of a draft, still unsure. There were two days left before the performance.
Text & pictures by Céline Delatte
