Libya

Eight dancers and a series of lines on the ground seem to trace the trajectories of a moving constellation we are about to observe. They move in a wonderful balance between extreme freedom and the idea of group unity, like leaves in the wind. They transmit to each other a song that becomes the element holding them together. In North Africa the crafts, science, philosophy, and culture of the Amazighs are passed down through story and language, dance and song. Libya celebrates this legacy. Radouan Mriziga’s dance performance is crafted as a landscape to which one can surrender. The dancers create a territory that cannot be conquered but instead asks to be contemplated. Among the different sounds we hear tarab music, a genre from the Maghreb region, characterised by long temporalities, intensity, and a restrained emotionality. It invites the listener to become lost in and carried by the music. Libya brings this same feeling of abandonment to dance and the unknown. The effect is amplified in the impressive hall of the Mercerie, with its decadent and sumptuous verticality. Libya’s blend of performance, choreography, scenery, tarab and rap generates a magnetic way of looking at dance, becoming a landscape of stories.