What bridges can be made between Harare, Dakar and Paris? What forms of dialogue and exchange can we imagine between these three cities, their history and present? A proposition made to her by the Festival d’Automne, nora chipaumire’s Carte Blanche —renamed as carte noire—has been drawn up as a form of response to these questions. Formerly based in New York, the  choreographer and dancer has close links with each of these metropoles: in Zimbabwe, the country of her birth and in which she founded nhereraHUB, a place of work and reflection which is open to projects of different kinds; in Senegal, where she spent a long period of time working, notably, with the women of the Toubab Dialaw village; and in Paris where several of her works have been presented, the image of which has given her a love of conversation, in the true sense of the word. 
 

With this musical performance, nora chipaumire revisits and develops, alongside five women belonging to the Lébou community from the village of Toubab Dialaw, in Senegal, the score from her piece NOT waiting...devised in 2023 with the choreographer Germaine Acogny. 

For one week, nora chipaumire leads a knowledge-sharing workshop in which practice becomes a space for research, reserved for professional and pre-professional practitioners.

Inspired by the history of Parisian fashion salons, nora chipaumire reinvents their codes by inviting the fashion house XULY.Bët, a pioneer of fashion based on the reuse of fabrics since the 1990s.

nora chipaumire transforms the OFF—the legendary garage at the Ménagerie de verre—into a vast sound system, the beating heart of her carte noire. A wall of speakers with a multitude of sonic textures becomes a space for listening, sharing, and experimentation, open to all. Vinyl records, dub sets, radio shows, discussions, and performances take place one after another, turning this space into a meeting place where sound opens up new ways of being together. The sound system is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

During her second week in Paris, nora chipaumire invites audiences to a carte noire rendez-vous consisting of an evening of dub. She will be setting up a Zimbabwean shebeen, an unofficial bar tucked away in private homes, a place where people come together in order to invent forms of resistance and insurrection in response to the political powers that be.

nora chipaumire imagine her ideal library laid out horizontally on a dining table, as a space for reflection and knowledge-sharing. A library that supports the struggles of the present and sketches out those of tomorrow. A selection of literary and audio works – drawn from the Syllart Records archives – to gain clarity and sharpen one’s perspective. The Library is open to the public from Monday to Saturday, 12 noon to 11 pm, for the duration of the carte noire.

Part concert part performance, in which voice, gesture and sound collide, #punk draws upon nora chipaumire’s founding years in Zimbabwe, as a means of embodying, in the present, punk energy and rebellion.

The Danish choreographer and dancer Mette Ingvartsen and the Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie have been pursuing their respective creative projects for several years, whilst collaborating remotely. All Around, which premiered at the Festival d’Automne in 2020, is their first joint stage production. 

With Agincourt, Back to Back Theatre takes to the big screen to revisit, with humour and disarming inventiveness, one of the most famous battles in history. A cardboard epic in which fiction reveals the workings of power, war and the narratives surrounding them.

British vocalist, movement artist and composer of Afro-Caribbean origin, Elaine Mitchener manifests, through the intensity of her presence, voice and gestures, the traces, both past and present, of discrimination and colonial wounds, exposed in all their rawness.

Expect artistic sparks to fly, as two of the strongest figures of the contemporary choreography scene – France's Mathilde Monnier and Spain's La Ribot – team up for Gustavia, their portrait of an ever-elusive woman. This enthralling face à face, offers us a bitingly ironic view of our world, thanks to a refreshing dash of both insolence and humor.

Originally from Buenos Aires, the choreographer and performer Diana Szeinblum turns to Argentinian folklore dances and then deconstructs them. A piece which is both introspective and performative, ADENTRO! delves deep into the inner workings of bodily forms shaped by popular imagination and its gestures.

Sphere / Kurah is a spatial triptych in which bodies, voices and gestures permeate one another. Images detach themselves from the body to become traces, light, shimmering presences. In this passage from presence towards fragility, the work is concerned with the conditions of survival.