Héla Fattoumi and Sondos Belhassen share far more than a striking family resemblance. For the length of an encounter open to the unexpected, they appear as two twama — twin sisters, in Arabic — reflecting back to each other an image that is both real and imagined. Two artistic journeys, full of lived stories: the first came to France as a child, became a choreographer and has co-directed France's National Choreographic Centers since 2004, while working with visual artists and designers; the second, based in Tunisia after studying in France, pursues careers as an actress, performer and choreographer all at once.
For more than thirty years, each followed the other's path from a distance. It was in Tunis that Sondos Belhassen first saw Héla Fattoumi explore her complex bond with Tunisia and the place of women, in her solos Wasla (1998) and Manta (2009). Brought together on stage for the first time, these two kindred sisters share memories of their neighborhoods, of parties, of their teenage dreams — but with no trace of nostalgia, the better to recognize themselves in one another as if in a distorting mirror. Together they question the dancing body as it meets age, origins and the marks left by life, letting their dreamed-of twinship come to life.