Following on from t u m u l u s, François Chaignaud and Geoffroy Jourdain continue their exploration of Renaissance funeral chants, putting the audience at the very heart of the experience. This proximity means that the slightest breath, drop of sweat, or movement become sensory matter in which the celestial and the earthly intertwine.

Artist Lina Lapelytė explores performance through music, sound, and the visual arts. As a gathering of a hundred of children and teenagers, this new large-scale performance, titled The Speech, invokes nature to speak about relations and care.

Dambudzo is a live anti-genre work by nora chipaumire, combining sound, painting, sculpture and performance. Continuing her exploration of the dissonance between knowledge and language, specific to those educated under colonial control, the Zimbabwean artist envisions new possible worlds.

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. 

In collaboration with the choreographer and dancer Radouan Mriziga, the challenge taken up by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is to make Vivaldi's Four Seasons heard, using the tools of dance to hone the way we listen to this baroque masterpiece. Under the auspices of abstraction, the resulting alliance reconnects with the imaginary ecological world that is conjured up by this famous concerto.

Committing moving bodies to a contemporary form of orality, Soa Ratsifandrihana, the guitarist Joël Rabesolo and performers Audrey Mérilus and Stanley Ollivier draw on their diasporic narratives and origins to tell a story they would have liked to hear or see. The three Malagasy words Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna, meaning comparison, transmission and rivalry, form variations in which the performers slide in and out of different states and seem to follow a movement in perpetual metamorphosis.

In what ways does the unstoppable development of artificial intelligence (AI) permeate our lives and behaviour? Kurō Tanino, playwright of the poetry of our everyday lives and the imperceptible movements of the psyche, brings to the stage a world in which technology reveals the depths of our unconscious.

Das atmende Klarsein marked the last of Luigi Nono's different styles. In it, the Venetian master exalts the demise of our certainties, a way new of listening, made up of silences and fragile, unique sounds, and an attention to space and the possible. A possible which is always going somewhere and in which song equates to the existence.

The Festival d'Automne gives Carte Blanche to the multidisciplinary Dream City festival in Tunis, which inaugurates the Commune's first Pavilion. Spanning the Medina of Tunis all the way to the town of Aubervilliers, Selma Ouissi, Sofiane Ouissi and Jan Goossens will be making use of artistic creation in the form of a new urban space.

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

In November 2023, Angela Davis was guest at the Festival d'Automne for a conversation with Elvan Zabunyan about the meeting point between the arts and activism. A year later, the Crédac contemporary art centre now presents a group exhibition bringing together archive material by Angela Davis, Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison.

In Figures, Dalila Belaza looks into the possibility of a universal rite, by inventing an imaginary traditional dance "without origin or territory" that links the present to eternity. This force takes possession of the body, echoing a heritage that each of us carries with us, often unconsciously.

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

Rabih Mroué's objective with his “non-academic conferences” is to subvert, via the perspective of performance, the principle of the conference. He does so by imitating the mechanisms at work within the conference format. He does not set out to make fun of the principle of the conference itself, but rather to exploit the power of the exercise as a form of public address. This is achieved by operating a shift of a voluntarily ambiguous nature, passing from presentation to representation and from reality to the imagination. The illusion it sets up is a disturbing one: the tone is neutral, the expertise seems well proven, and the documents supporting the speech suggest authenticity. This, of course, is precisely the aim of the whole mischievous, moving and intellectually stimulating operation.

We find ourselves in the company of major figures of European Body Art (Joseph Beuys, Orlan, Marina Abramović, to name a few) via their accounts of exhibitions and public scarifications dating back to the 1970s. In parallel with this runs the true story of a killing spree carried out by a Lebanese office at his workplace, and the fluctuating motivations for his acts.

The piece takes us a road-trip in the form of a double portrait involving two destinies, namely those of Gurshad Shaheman born in Iran, and Dany Boudreault in Quebec. Authors, directors and performers, the two artists got to know each other in Europe. Here, each of them sets off in search of their respective pasts.

Fill your lungs. Feel the volumes of air inflating inside you in opposite directions. In Rêche, to be presented at the Pantheon, seven dancers enable us to see what is at stake in our bodies when we breathe. For choreographer Myriam Gourfink, this vital movement absorbs our fears and transforms the harshest behaviour into a gentler one.

In Como una baguala oscura, Nina Laisné teams up with dancer and choreographer Nestor 'Pola' Pastorive in this musical and danced portrait of Argentinian pianist Hilda Herrera. With its exploration of the roots of popular and folk music, she brings us a lively show with the hallmark of freedom stamped firmly upon it.

In Territoires, Mathilde Monnier will be taking over the galleries of the Centre Pompidou during the course of a weekend in order to bring us a piece that deals with memory and circulation, "a collection of gestures from her work over the past thirty years". In doing so, the choreographer sets up the possibility of playing out memory in the present, from now onwards, or by means of anticipation.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents the complete retrospective of his films at the Centre Pompidou. It consists of his eight feature films, thirty or so short (and rare) films, various collective works, and two feature films produced by him.

The Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul is guest at the Festival d'Automne and Centre Pompidou. His exhibition, featuring around ten video installations, transforms the former solarium into a nocturnal space inhabited by biographical and architectural reminiscences.

Using the 'pas de bourrée' dance step as her starting point, Dalila Belaza explores the universal part of the relationship between humans, their territory and our immemorial reminiscences. With a telluric intensity that extends beyond time, she builds a community linked by rhythms, and in doing so questions otherness and states of transcendence.

At the crossroads between musical and documentary, Lola Arias brings us a choral composition in which six female former inmates talk about their lives during and after incarceration. Their six intertwining destinies raise questions about the various forms of violence present in contemporary society, whilst exploring the margins of fiction and reality at the same time.

If, up until now, the performances of the South African artist have consisted of exposing himself onstage or in public spaces, in his latest piece Steven Cohen plays host to audiences from within the confines of an intimate, private space, the boudoir. The latter, a chapel or refuge, becomes a place in which he gathers up his memories of his past - as well as those of the last century, gruesome though they may be.

Which voices nourish artistic practices? In parallel with the exhibition "Chantal Akerman. Travelling" presented at the Jeu de Paume art centre, the artist Manon de Boer and choreographer Latifa Laâbissi conjure up a space in which voice and gesture seek to understand the meaning of artistic genealogies.

Featuring different works by the LIMINAL, Forensic Oceanography and Border Forensics collectives, the multimedia installation From Sea to Sky approaches intersectional immobility and frontier-based violence at sea. The objective is to highlight the way in which the Mediterranean maritime space has been transformed into a militarized border zone.

Zifzaafa, is an arabic word to describe a wind that shakes and rattles all in its path.  Here, it becomes the title of a performance of artist and researcher Lawrence Abu Hamdan, that enmeshes sonic composition, video game engines and spoken word, to immerse us in the heart of a movement to resist green colonialism in the occupied Syrian Golan heights. 

A Conversation with the Sun (VR), the Thai filmmaker's second foray into the realm of performance, uses virtual reality to set up the conditions for a collective dream.

Clara Iannotta's project is to listen to the city and its various life-forms, in a space, that of a church, which a priori preserves those inside from the noises outside. She does so by means of an electronic installation designed for the acoustics of the Church of Saint-Eustache, a building with a rich musical tradition, ranging from from Rameau to Berlioz.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, artist, researcher and performer, revolutionizes the visual arts through the power of sound. As founder of Earshot, a non-profit organization that makes audio-based investigations for the defence of human rights and the environment, he kept a diary of Lebanon's anxiety-provoking airspace for a whole year. In a sound creation by Moe Choucair, he brings us a performance combining background noise and a climate of violence.

Certain encounters are life-changing. This piece is about Marion Duval's encounter with Cécile Laporte, an activist and author to whom she has decided to dedicate a show. The resulting 'truth-performance' is an inspiring one and enables us to embrace the unbearable complexity of the world in a light-hearted way.

The Hungarian film and theatre director Kornél Mundruczó has always been a shrewd observer of the way contemporary society has transformed family structures, as shown in his films White God (2015), a prize-winner at Cannes, Pieces of A Woman (2019) and Evolution (2021). In Parallax, he investigates the notion of identity, at the crossroads between social affirmation and area of freedom.

What are the relationships between a spider's growth, the sound experience of radiotherapy and the lights and clicking sounds of old-fashioned slide viewers? The work of Clara Iannotta, of which this concert offers a journey through its recent years, is a mode of self-knowledge, or an autobiography in which sound and body are intimately linked.

Alone onstage, Thomas Quillardet unravels the stories of patients he encountered during an artistic residency in a hospital. He assembles a polyphony of voices in order to share in his empathy and create a radiography of what links us together.

Three women return from the past thanks to three female contemporary historians who bring them back to life via three separate accounts. Here, the actress Jeanne Balibar uses them as the basis for a staged reading. Four women from today’s world take a particularly eloquent and incisive look at three emblematic female destinies.

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.

Pursuing the collaboration they began in 2023, Jérôme Bel and Estelle Zhong Mengual bring Baptiste Morizot 's thoughts to the stage in order to ask questions about our place in the living world. Together, they conjure up an account or story that is told to a child by a female philosopher. The ancestral worlds it evokes set up the possibility of reinventing the present one.

Sorour Darabi, the Iranian choreographer, who has been living in France since 2013, unveils his first opera, an ambulatory performance which enables voices marginalized by ancient myths to be heard. It is a piece devised by and for committed bodies.

Set to a complex score of sound and light, a trio sets about uttering phrases of a visceral nature, creating an outlandish, chorus-like effect. Each sequence emerges, bouncing off an impromptu connection, thereby developing a new theme - ranging from distraught observations, memories, tributes, apocalyptic visions, and intimate observations, to unspeakable experiences.

The director Maxime Kurvers furthers his research in theatrical anthropology by bringing the actress Yuri Itabashi face-to-face with the ban which prevents her, in accordance with tradition, from performing Okina, a play and ritual originating from nō theatre. As such, this piece is about how, through the power of the imagination, we can embrace what is forbidden to us.

The choreographer Katerina Andreou draws upon the constant confusion and noise of the world as the driving force in this her first group piece. Playfulness, absurdity, fiction and poetry arise from within this mental and emotional state. 

For Ali Cherri, mud embodies a liminal territory in that it is neither entirely land nor water. It is a fertile place for the imagination, and defies the limits of our perception. Accompanied by English and Arabic-speaking writers, the multidisciplinary artist guides us through the meanders of a musical and poetic performance where mud is both material and memory.

How do we go about presenting the adaptation of a famous film to the Lebanese authorities in charge of censorship? We come to realize that it is about a film which recounts the improbable encounter between two very dissimilar individuals both of whom are experiencing social alienation in fascist Italy in 1938. The adaptation is set in Beirut in 2007, shortly after an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

Have a good day! arises from the collaboration of Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė, and Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė. The three artists turn their focus toward the inner lives of cashiers in a shopping centre. “Good afternoon!”, “Thank you!”, “Have a good day!” : this opera examines what lies behind mechanical statements and their associated perfunctory gestures.

In Still Not Still, choreographer Ligia Lewis pursues her exploration into the silences and shadows of history. In this piece, the performers play out a score over and over again, the burlesque dimension of which makes it all the more tragic.

In this new piece, the choreographer Eszter Salamon continues her Monuments series with an extension of her work M/OTHERS (2019). It explores her bond with her mother and the intimate construction of bodies. Drawing upon slowness, touch and filiation, the piece maps out an ethical and sensory framework of our collective intimacy.

Picture a day like this, the fourth opera by two master-craftsmen, one of words, the other of sound, Martin Crimp and George Benjamin, is a universal tale which is as unreal as it is full of emotions. The piece is a magical fable about human nature and self-discovery.

Donnerstag (Thursday), the first opera of the Licht (Light) cycle, to which Karlheinz Stockhausen devoted twenty-five years of his life, is the day of Archangel Michael, his youth, journey around the earth and his return. It is also an autobiographical moment in time, overwhelmingly so, in a spiral that leads to the stars and the harmony of the universe.

Toshiki Okada, a critically-acclaimed figure on the Japanese theatre scene, probes the mechanisms and symptoms of our society. Mixing together science fiction and poetry within the confines of a group on a space expedition, his new play The Window of Spaceship ‘In-Between’ tackles the issues of distancing and the definition of humanity.

In a highly original manner, Émilie Rousset and Maya Boquet bring to the stage testimonies and archives arising from a crucial event in the advancement of women's rights. Navigating a path between the fifteen performers, each spectator builds his or her own mental journey in relation to the subject and its ramifications in today's world, but also in terms of the very process of representation itself.

The Festival d'Automne continues, for the third year in a row, its partnership with the Louvre Museum. Together, they have been building up a collection of new contemporary performances dedicated to the museum and its works. On the occasion of the 'Figures du Fou. Du Moyen-Âge à la Renaissance' exhibition, which explores the subversive value of the foolish or the nonsensical in medieval society, the dancer and choreographer François Chaignaud brings us Petites joueuses. In this piece, an immersive and uninterrupted journey through the medieval Louvre, mutant and resonant creatures take over its fortifications, giving rise to a somewhat disturbing carnival.

Fabien Gorgeart adapts the narrative might of Les Gratitudes, the novel by Delphine de Vigan. It recounts the final moments in the life of Michka and her words which little by little fail her. Despite the fear of the forthcoming silence, the protagonist builds up a relation with Jérôme, her speech-therapist, enabling her to delve deep into the intricacies of her past. 

Now it is the turn of Émilie Rousset and Louise Hémon to work with eight young performers as part of the Talents Adami Théâtre scheme, hosted for the tenth year running at the Atelier de Paris. With their habitual brand of humour, they dissect beliefs and representations linked to death, rituals and funeral-related practices.

At the crossroads between theatre and stand-up, the first show by the visual artist Mohamed Bourouissa brings to the stage the different phases in the life of a woman in prison and its transformations. In the absence of pathos, the piece uses humour to circumvent the arduous nature of its subject matter.

With a reputation for minimalist and captivating choreographies, Nacera Belaza continues the exploration of the circle and rhythm she initiated with Le Cercle (2019) and L'Onde (2021), both landmarks in her choreographic language. Following on from an initial period of creation in Brussels in May 2024, the choreographer then enlarged the creative process of La Nuée by inviting ten new performers to the stage.

The hero of this new work by Robert Wilson is Fernando Pessoa. And a paradoxical hero at that. The Portuguese poet spent his life 'multiplying himself', inventing heteronyms, or fictitious authors, to whom he attributed works he himself wrote. He even went as far as to invent relationships, either amicable ones or from master to disciple, between his different avatars.

A year after the premier of IRIS at the Butte-aux-Cailles swimming pool, commissioned by the Festival d'Automne, in which he explored the Italian polyphonic repertoire, Alessandro Sciarroni brings us U. (un canto). This music-based performance piece evokes the profoundly mysterious relationship between human beings and nature.

Like descending into the darkest depths of hell, Carolina Bianchi exposes the unspeakable horror of sexist violence, plunging us into a median space in which all memory becomes blurred. Following in the footsteps of the artist Pippa Bacca, she uses her own body for the purposes of the piece, thereby anchoring herself in the history of feminist performance, and casting a critical gaze upon it at the same time.

Taking his inspiration from traditional Japanese forms, playwright and director Satoko Ichihara brings us a puppet theatre for today's world. It is a troubled one, in which the story revolves around the ambiguous nature of the dolls. In this modern tale, loneliness, suffering and sexuality are the driving forces behind these puppets the various weaknesses of which makes them ever more human.

By means of a family portrait, The Vegetarian, a masterpiece of South Korean literature, charts a dizzying map of violence, be it physical, psychological, or political. Tapping into the the power of the text itself, Daria Deflorian and her onstage companions tease from out of it the stuff of a theatrical elixir.

Brought to the public eye by Ryūichi Sakamoto, Kakushin Nishihara takes the biwa, the short-necked lute which is emblematic of Japanese musical tradition, to undreamt of horizons. Her intense presence transforms each of her concerts into an almost shamanic ceremony.

These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia et Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.

These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia and Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.

In Atlas/The Mountain, the Moroccan choreographer Radouan Mriziga transforms his body into a catalyst for energies and traditions from the Atlas Mountains. This solo in the form of a ritual is transcended by polymorphic figures and captivating rhythms.

Inspired by the work of Marcel Pagnol, this show explores the theme of escape. Some of the actors had their first experience of theatre at the Maison centrale d'Arles prison. Marius provides audiences with a unique opportunity to discover a little-known but crucial dimension of Joël Pommerat's art.

Rimini Protokoll's roving director Stefan Kaegi takes us, in the company of three native performers and residents, to the island of Taiwan. The fictional element of this show, in which the onstage action filmed live takes us through the twists and turns of a miniature décor, points to a somewhat grotesque geopolitical reality.

By reconstituting four perfectly extraordinary, but very real, stories Marcus Lindeen and Marianne Ségol raise questions about the notion of memory. Their unique form of theatre, in which spoken words of a personal nature are exchanged and feed off each other, is scrupulously crafted and philosophical in equal measure. 

Following on from Consul and Meshie, Latifa Laâbissi and Antonia Baehr bring us a duo in the form of a series of heterogeneous sequences, interlinked by a common thread of the impure, hybridization and collage. They combine their respective vocabularies, such as the relationship with the expressiveness of the face, and the crossing of genres, registers. Over the course of different numbers or acts, Laâbissi and Baehr interweave their respective universes, thereby overturning the various choreographic codes and blurring the frontiers.

The profession of the geisha, an emblematic figure of a fantasized vision of Japan, is often a little-known one, and which is also in the process of disappearing. Going beyond the stereotypical vision we have of them, what is the reality of their practice? In this documentary performance, Shingo Ōta and Kyoko Takenaka set out in search of the last geishas of the Japanese archipelago.

Spanning three centuries, these three works speak of self-care, the incessant quest for new languages, crisis and renewal, and the inherent element of wandering in our lives. And of the landscape in which each point, equidistant from the centre, reveals itself to a traveller who moves around there without moving forward.

The Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué duo presents two “non-academic conferences” and a concert-performance in collaboration with Rima Khcheich. Rabih Mroué makes frequent use of the former concept in order to create presentations which adopt the various mechanisms of the conference format whilst opening them up to the various possibilities of performance. In doing so, the duo plays upon the ambiguity which is inherent in this form of subversion. Added to this, for the first time, is an artistic proposition featuring poems set to music.

In this breakthrough piece for Jan Martens, VOICE NOISE brings together six dancers to shape a soundscape comprising some of the great female performers and composers of our time. In his own pop-inspired and precise way, the choreographer questions a very contemporary story, and in doing so raises the question of how some of these voices were silenced. 

For this new performance, titled Inconditionnelles singer, author, and choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza stages her French translation of Kae Tempest’s fervent play, Hopelessly Devoted (2015). Inconditionnelles explores the interstices where love and connection abound. 

In Pour rien mais dans le bon sens, Claudia Triozzi brings us a performative experience which pursues the “transmission through the body” approach that she has been exploring since 2011. She was able to further this research as part of a hospital residency made possible by the Festival d'Automne.

Brought to the stage by visual artist Théo Mercier, Skinless is a disenchanted Eden built on a landscape of rubbish. Amidst this XXL end-of-the-world panorama, an out of the ordinary couple loves and tears each other apart under the watchful eye of a tragic observer.

Who is Diyaa Yamout, the Lebanese human rights activist, artist and blogger whose suicide shook the nation? We will never really know and this is not what matters. Indeed, what is far more fascinating here is the profusion of assorted reactions on Facebook, the television, and in the form of SMS and answering machine messages

Drawing upon Collodi's tale, the Cade-MacAskill duo uses theatre to investigate the little- explored realms of queer love and affection. In doing so, they tell the story of gender transition and its repercussions on the couple. The piece itself, The Making of Pinocchio, becomes a burlesque-inspired manifesto for different forms currently under construction.

 Taking the phenomena of stellar degeneration as her starting point, Maud Blandel explores the confused memory of a tragic autobiographical event. Her work L'oeil nu questions our perception of what falls within us and around us, giving rise to bursts of emotion and, at times, humour.

The Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué duo presents two “non-academic conferences” and a concert-performance in collaboration with Rima Khcheich. Rabih Mroué makes frequent use of the former concept in order to create presentations which adopt the various mechanisms of the conference format whilst opening them up to the various possibilities of performance. In doing so, the duo plays upon the ambiguity which is inherent in this form of subversion. Added to this, for the first time, is an artistic proposition featuring poems set to music.

A House of Call, a vast, lavishing, Babylonian imaginary notebook of Heiner Goebbels' travels around the world, is a sum total of sounds, styles, languages, cultures and voices. It brings us the voices of the living and the dead, recorded over the course of just over a century. Its orchestra responds to the grains of these voices, thereby renewing a centuries-old tradition of responsorial art.

Over its forty years of existence, with Tim Etchells at the helm, the company has never stopped reinventing itself. And it continues to do so. Amidst an oscillating form of virtual reality, six performers find themselves deprived of their voices and their entire beings. The whole thing goes beyond all understanding... Welcome to this new world.

Directed by Romeo Castellucci, Gustav Mahler's Resurrection symphony seems to take on all its tragic grandeur. Masterfully conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Italian director magnifies this monumental work in order bring us a funereal “song of the earth” from which nobody emerges unscathed.

This piece is the fruit of the first encounter between Robyn Orlin and the iconic South African company Garage Dance Ensemble. The latter practices dance theatre which is committed to equality and social justice. In the company of performers from the Northern Cape region, she brings us a no-holds-barred performance that questions the origins of social violence.

How can we work on violence? How can we put into perspective, stage and retell it? How can we tear it to pieces? The purpose of this two day-long series of encounters, put together by the philosopher Elsa Dorlin, will be to update what critiques of violence teach us and to make an inventory of the various weapons of violence collected.

This show is about how a life can be invented, understood and told at the same time. And about how Simone de Beauvoir, born in 1908, was both author and chronicler of her existence. What kind of energy, what type of combativity does freedom imply? In Les Forces vives, Animal Architecte brings us a fascinating and astonishing fresco of the writer's journey.

The Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué duo presents two “non-academic conferences” and a concert-performance in collaboration with Rima Khcheich. Rabih Mroué makes frequent use of the former concept in order to create presentations which adopt the various mechanisms of the conference format whilst opening them up to the various possibilities of performance. In doing so, the duo plays upon the ambiguity which is inherent in this form of subversion. Added to this, for the first time, is an artistic proposition featuring poems set to music.

Six voices ring out, bringing with them the captivating stories of six men and women, aged between 30 and 60 years old, and who are currently serving prison sentences. Usually confined to within prison walls, their words find a stage on which to be heard at the Bouffes du Nord theatre.

Starting with the initial premise that a black body is by its very nature exposed to the danger of expropriation, or that of being stolen from itself, Calixto Neto tries to resist against exterior control and the risk of annihilation. In this exercise in ventriloquism, the Brazilian choreographer searches for the words with which to write dance. 

In 1947, the trial of German playwright Bertolt Brecht took place in the United States in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), responsible for combating communist activism. It was here that Brecht wrote a declaration which he was forbidden to read out. The minutes of the trial, as well as this declaration, constitute one of the axes of this exuberant show.

There are no puppets in this large-scale new work by puppeteer Alice Laloy. Instead, we encounter humans which have been transformed into avatars and then thrown into a ring In order to compete in increasingly violent matches. This mise en abyme, at the frontier between wrestling-inspired ritual and video game scenario, invites us to question the limits of a society which simply follows orders.

In this piece, the choreographer Marcelo Evelin, from the north-east region of Brazil, invites us to set foot inside a metaphorical forest and its ecological condition. Through minimalist dance, and guided by the call of the legendary Uirapuru, a rare and endangered bird, six performers embody the promise of discovering what is and what still eludes our senses.

Haribo Kimchi, a hybrid performance combining text, music, video and robotics, embraces South Korean cuisine as part of an investigation into cultural assimilation, together with its conflicts and paradoxes. It enables Jaha Koo to ask questions first raised in his Hamartia trilogy.

In Nina, the Fanny & Alexander company investigates, in a blend of music and performance, the human voice, via the technique of heterodirection. The soprano Claron McFadden embodies the mythical figure of Nina Simone, and conveys the unique energy of this individual who set out to be "the first black pianist".

Thirty years after the genocide in Rwanda, Dorcy Rugamba, actor, author and director, brings to life an extract from this work Hewa Rwanda – Lettre aux absents, published by JC Lattès.

Following on from the Portrait dedicated to her by the Autumn Festival two years ago, Marlene Monteiro Freitas hijacks the match: twenty-five virtuoso performers, each wearing the same number 3 vests, throw the score into disarray, measure themselves against the grotesque and warp the game. This show sees the eccentric choreographer passing on to the Lyon Opera Ballet a jousting match of hybrid times, a carnivalesque fresco in which the human, animal and machine have a tendency to merge.

Sébastien Kheroufi discovered Peter Handke's Par les villages at the onset of his artistic career. It evokes a writer's return to his native village. Amidst the twilight setting in which one universe declines in favour of another, the voices of the “offended and humiliated” break their silence.

The music of Jérôme Combier opens up the way we listen to the details of the world and their subtle mutations. Poetic, and punctuated by mysterious outbursts, his music celebrates a plasticity which in turn shapes its instrumental and electronic elements. Strands, his latest work, sets up relationships between the animal and plant worlds, weaving spider's web-like threads between.

As part of a special invitation by the Festival d'Automne, choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and director Rabih Mroué shared, over the course of ten months, their thoughts, concerns, doubts, and questions regarding politics, art and life. After numerous exchanges by videoconference, the two artists now come together on the site of the former industrial complex, the new home of the Fiminco Foundation. Together, for the duration of a performance, they will be drawing up the plans for a new world for all.

Sur le fil is an attempt to escape from oneself, via an infinite acceptation and a going beyond of the frontiers of the body. The choreographer Nacera Belaza preceeds her emblematic piece with a reduction, for children from the Bobigny neighbourhood and Paris. From adult to child, professional to amateur, what do we see in this gesture?