16 > 19.10.24
La Villette, Pavillon Villette
Mille et Une Nuits (A Thousand and One Nights) revisits the notion of night through the eyes of Scheherazade. The original work, conceived by a heterosexual cis-gender man, has often been criticized for relegating the character of Scheherazade to the status of a narrative instrument, plunging her body, desires and subjectivity into the shadows of the tales. For Sorour Darabi, night is not simply a metaphor for inventing tales, but a space where Scheherazade's true essence can finally blossom as a queer myth. A Thousand and One Nights explores a transgender aesthetic by focusing on the voice. For most trans people, hormone treatments induce a transformation of the voice, affecting sound placement in the vocal cords. It is this fragility that Mille et Une Nuits brings to the stage, considering the voice as an affective landscape. An emancipating opera for the 21st century, a spokesperson for new aesthetics and thinking, to build another relationship with the world, in the hollow of the ear, on the expanse of the night.
Sorour Darabi
Sorour Darabi is an Iranian trans-disciplinary artist based in France, working and living in Paris. He was a member of the ICCD underground association, whose Untimely festival (Tehran) hosted his work before he left for France. In 2013, he joined the Master Ex.e.r.ce at ICI-CCN in Montpellier. Since 2016 his projects have been represented in numerous theater and festivals in France and abroad: Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Centre George Pompidou (Paris), Lafayette Anticipation (Paris), Festival d'Automne (Paris), Centre National de la Danse. (Paris), Tanzquartier (Vienna), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Tanztage festival (Berlin), Trans Amérique (Montreal), Zürcher Theater Spektakel (Zürich) Alkantara (Lisboa).. He created Farci.e in 2016 at the Montpellier Danse festival, Savusun in 2018 at the Montpellier Danse festival, Mowgli in 2021 at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Natural Drama in 2021 at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, From the Throat to the Dawn in 2022 at the Palais de Tokyo and Mille et Une Nuits will be created in 2024 at the Montpellier Danse festival.
Choreography, conception, dramaturgy, texts and artistic direction
Sorour Darabi
Music composition
Pablo Altar & Florian Le Prisé
Performers, singers, actors and live musicians
Aimilios Arapoglou, Li-Yun Hu, Lara Chanel, Felipe Faria, Sorour Darabi, Pablo Altar, Florien Le Prisé & Ange Halliwell
Vocal coach
Henry Browne
Light design
Shaly Lopez
Technical director
Jean-Marc Ségalen
Set design
Alicia Zaton based on an original idea by Sorour Darabi
Ice sculptures
Samuel Girault / Ice & Art
Costumes
Anousha Mohtashami
Text editor and English-Persian Curator (POETIC SOCIETIES, Crafted Counsel Remote Residency Program)
Ava Ansari
Exclusive production/ tour Manager
Jenny Suarez
Administration/production Manager
Martin Buisson
Exclusive Production
DEEPDAWN/ Sorour Darabi
Coproduction Festival Montpellier Danse, CCN-Ballet national de Marseille dans le cadre dans le cadre de l’accueil studio / Ministère de la Culture, Arsenic - Centre d'art scénique contemporain (Lausanne), Initiatives d’Artistes - La Villette, CND Centre national de la danse, Tanzquartier Wien GmbH, Fonds franco-allemand Transfabrik pour le spectacle vivant, Charleroi danse - Centre chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Festival d'Automne à Paris. Avec le soutien de la Drac Île-de-France – ministère de la Culture.
With the support of la Manutention du Palais de Tokyo, CND Centre national de la danse, Trauma Bar und Kino (Berlin), Goethe Institute, Tanzhaus Zürich (Zürich), PACT Zollverein (Essen), KWP Kunstenwerkplaats (Bussels) & POETIC SOCIETIES (Detroit), The Saison Foundation (Tokyo), with the support of ADAMI & the support of SPEDIDAM
Thanks to Palmina D’Ascoli, David Lopez, Thomas Gachet