What if a single dance could hold a whole crowd of bodies? That's the idea behind this solo by Zoé Lakhnati, which brings together figures from distant times as well as from today's pop culture. A choreographer since the early 2020s, after dancing with Mette Ingvartsen, Mathilde Monnier and Némo Flouret, she builds her pieces by stacking and clashing all sorts of images. For This is la mort (2024), she drew on Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas, a huge mix of unrelated images whose surprising pairings create new meaning.
With humor and cheek, the show calls up heroes and glorious figures only to knock them down. "They trap us as much as they inspire us," the choreographer explains. "I wanted to make them die before our eyes." First locked inside the flashy armor of a medieval knight, the dancer then moves through costume after costume loaded with meaning — a bodybuilder's body, sequins — turning their clichés inside out. The result is an explosive, inventive quick-change solo, and a joyful reflection on the vanity of all existence.