Bouchra Ouizguen's new performance in Marrakech

Bouchra Ouizguen, a Moroccan dancer-choreographer based in Marrakech, presented her work Portrait au présent at the Autumn Festival, exploring themes of a maternal past and an undefined future. Her performances emphasize free movement, connection, and attention to others, creating an open space for interaction.

Collaboration with an inclusive dance company

In Este Mundo, presented at the National Theatre of Chaillot in collaboration with the inclusive company Dançando com a Diferença from Madeira, directed by Henrique Amoedo, Ouizguen stages six interpreters with non-normative bodies and expressions. The choreography is built from elements and materials explored by each performer, including themes of birds and nests, water and queens, earth and stability, and suspension and angels or sun.

Solo performance with symbolic elements

Ouizguen also presented the solo Qunfudh, meaning "hedgehog" in Arabic, at the MC93. In this piece, she wears a black burnous and a wide straw hat to conceal her face, moving across the stage with heavy warehouse accessories and large wheeled carts loaded with fabric balls. She wraps herself in grey fabric pieces, evoking absent presences, and later in a thick white burnous, which she throws over a cart, transforming it into a bed.

International collaboration on the Mosaic platform

At the MC93 and within the framework of the Mosaic platform, Ouizguen invited choreographers from Morocco, Iran, and Burundi to share their experiences. The Mosaic platform resonates with themes of the evanescence of bodies, the forces of life, the quest for meaning, and the poetic act.

Burundian choreographer's political exploration

In La deuxième danse politique, Josué Mugisha from Burundi explores the disappearance of the author of the foundational text of the piece, posing questions about meaning. Mugisha uses large drums (ingoma in Kirundi), symbols of royal authority and the political and ritual history of the Burundian monarchy. Four young interpreters, both men and women, perform energetic dances that evoke joy, struggle, combat, suffering, reconciliation, and rebirth.