Boris Charmatz

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.