Mohamed El Khatib
Stadium
© Stadium © Frédéric Hocké ©
© Stadium © Pascal Victor (ArtcomPress) ©
Devised and designed by Mohamed El Khatib and Fred Hocké
Text, Mohamed El Khatib
With 53 supporters from RC Lens Football club
Scenography, light, video, Fred Hocké
Sound environment, Arnaud Léger
With artistic collaboration from Violaine de Cazenove, Éric Domeneghetty
Assistant, Coraline Cauchi
Technical management, Léopold Frey
Production/Distribution, Martine Bellanza
Press relations, Nathalie Gasser
Thanks to Sylvie Gode, Thierry Péteau, le RC Lens et le Laboratoire Sherpas – Université d'Artois
A production by Collectif Zirlib // With support from La Fondation d’entreprise Hermès // Co-produced by Centre dramatique national de Tours-Théâtre Olympia ; Théâtre National de Bretagne – Centre Européen Théâtral et Chorégraphique (Rennes) ; Tandem scène nationale (Arras-Douai) ; Le Grand T, théâtre de Loire-Atlantique (Nantes) ; Châteauvallon – Scène nationale ; Théâtre du Beauvaisis ; Les Scènes du Golfe (Vannes) ; La Colline – théâtre national (Paris) ; Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // Corealisation La Colline – théâtre national (Paris) ; Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; Festival d’Automne à Paris for performances at La Colline – théâtre national //// Collectif Zirlib receives aid from the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - Drac Centre-Val de Loire, via Région Centre-Val de Loire and Ville d’Orléans // Mohamed El Khatib is associate artist at Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, at the Centre dramatique national de Tours - Théâtre Olympia and the TnB - Théâtre national de Bretagne.
First performed on May 16 2017 at Tandem scène nationale (Arras-Douai)
Partnership with France Inter
Mohammed El Khatib brings together 53 supporters from RC Lens Football club for a unique aesthetic experience. Ranging from the deeply intimate to the deeply political, this documentary performance pays tribute to his football-loving father, sets the cat among the pigeons in terms of the many clichés about the world of football and draws up an anthropological map of stadium agora.
By enabling us to hear, directly, the voices of individuals who dedicate a considerable chunk of their existence to football supporter-related activities, the director overturns the working-classicist mythology that fuels a certain condescendence in relation to football lovers. The piece is backed up by a host of different trajectories and testimonies, and an in-depth insight into the highly-coded behavioral patterns prevalent in the stands. Mohammed El Khatib forages through this tightly-knit structure in search of complex values, social links, and the role that the contemporary ceremony of the match plays in the imagination. Honing in on the choreographic and visual element of this extended family, he creates a movement-led, documentary and choral score in order to build up multiple portraits of a crowd in movement. With its focus on the relationships between the individual and group at the heart of a ritual, Stadium dismisses all received notions in order to set in motion an astute exploration of the definition of the word “public”. For what is this “public”, if not an aggregate of individuals that a mixture of circumstance and sociopolitical determinations has brought together before a single, spectacular offering?
See also
Mohamed El Khatib La vie secrète des vieux
Mohamed El Khatib furthers his passion for documentary theatre by tackling a subject that he brings from out of the shadows, namely that of eroticism and the love lives of “oldies”. Put together in a daring yet tender way, his new piece explores this theme from the perspective of desire, thereby going against the usual connotations associated with old age.
Talents Adami Theater, Mohamed El Khatib Stand-up
What will it be this time: thunderous applause or icy silence? In Mohamed El Khatib's opinion, the inherently risky nature of stand-up comedy elevates it to a theatrical art in its own right. A framework for expression of all kinds, it clears the path for transgressive laughter, in a cathartic space which brings us all together.