Bouchra Ouizguen
Nahl
Wednesday september 30
00h
Artistic direction Bouchra Ouizguen. Distribution a group of children. Administration and production Mylène Gaillon.
Production Compagnie O
Coproduction Festival d’Automne à Paris
With the support of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Bouchra Ouizguen is a recipient of the City of Paris’s international residency programme at Les Récollets
With the support of
Event organised as part of the 2026 Mediterranean Season
Bouchra Ouizguen choreographs a swarm of children, brimming with energy.
Nahl—"bee" in Arabic—brings together children, aged between nine and twelve years old, in an experience of dance founded on listening and attentiveness, in which their mobile, reactive presence shifts the intensity of a shared present moment.
The animal world becomes a metaphorical universe, which is open to their imagination and forms of presence. Just like the bee, which goes about its daily life without rebellion and produces something of value which goes beyond its own survival, each child follows their own rhythm, varying between impulses, tiredness and suspension, thereby bringing forth a collective organism in constant transformation. Rolling, jumping, singing, and shouting, before going silent and immobile, they react to the flow and circulation of the different energies. Their interactions, based on their sense of openness, are reversible: they come and go, giving way to fleeting assemblages, and unforeseen group formations. Bouchra Ouizguen favours the immediate experience of a shared moment in time, as ephemeral and intense as it may be. These presences move around freely, thereby shifting our attention towards all that evades the historical narrative.
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