Synopsis

Several stories, several eras, one body on stage. In 1940, in Guelma, colonized Algeria, a woman prepares herself at dawn, wearing men’s clothes and taking the first steps toward an intimate rebellion. In 2025, in France, her descendant, in search of identity, confronts the legacy of uprooting and patriarchal oppression.

Through dance, silences, and absences, these stories (inherited or lived) intertwine. The scenography is gradually revealed, unveiling a space of transformation, until a collective euphoria ensues and the audience is invited to dance in a kitsch setting that encourages an effortless celebration of taste, a letting go that brings us closer to the simple liberation of dancing together. Between imaginary archives, humor, and poetry, Guelma explores through movement, clothing, and music how the stories of our ancestors pass through our bodies and our contemporary struggles. The piece questions the possibility of a joyful reappropriation of our stories of exile and struggle as collective survival.

Intentions

Guelma, archive of dancing bodies is a dance narrative of our exiles, our struggles, and our liberations.

The dancing bodies are those of people who have migrated, gone into exile, resisted. They are living ancestors, whose history has made mine possible. They dance exile: yesterday’s, today’s, and perhaps tomorrow’s, through my own body and experience.

How can I tell my story when I don’t know it myself? So I invent it. I reclaim a story, as I imagine it, or as I would like it to be: halfway between past, present, and future, where struggles, dreams, and contradictions of identity intertwine.