Festival Parallèle 15, This is la mort

January 30 at 19:30
KLAP Maison pour la danse, Grand studio

Danse
Duration: 45 min

Co-presented with KLAP Maison pour la danse

Evening pass €12 / €20 to see This is la mort by Zoé Lakhnati at 7:30 PM, and Sycomore by Saphir Belkheir at 9:00 PM

The Mnemosyne Atlas, created by art historian Aby Warburg from 1920 onwards, is a vast corpus of images, bringing together paintings, photographs of sculptures or events, and maps of the sky or the world. Pinned side by side, the images extend, revealing lineages and echoes across time, suggesting new ways of reading forms, figures, and symbols, while disrupting the chronology of events. Zoé Lakhnati draws inspiration from this Atlas to stage characters from diverse times and places. Often conquering, heroic, or entertaining, these entities with seemingly unshakable appearances take turns on stage, revealing their failures, defeats, and potential deaths.

This is la mort stages the weight of these capitalist, body-built, victorious bodies as they disintegrate — like a grand “flop.” The body becomes a container of memories, allowing dramatic, tragic, and theatrical images to emerge and vanish. The stage, traditionally a space of glory, is overturned by the decay of these fantasized figures.

Biographie

Zoé Lakhnati is a choreographic artist based in Brussels, graduated from the Conservatoire de Lyon and P.A.R.T.S. She has collaborated with Mette Ingvartsen, Mathilde Monnier, Leïla Ka, Robyn Orlin, Dimitri Chamblas, Georges Labbat, and Némo Flouret. In November 2024, she presented the duo Where the Fuck Am I?, created with Per Anders Kraudy Solli, at La Ménagerie de Verre, where she is an associate artist. Since 2021, she has co-organized the festival De l’impertinence in Sète, together with Dora Pentchev.

Crédits

Distribution

Choreography and performance: Zoé Lakhnati
Choreographic assistance and outside eye: Philomène Jander
Dramaturgy: Antoine Dupuy Larbre
Music creation: Macarena Bielski López
Costume design:Constance Tabourga
Lighting design: Alice Panziera
With the voices of: Celeste Brunnquell and Suzanne de Baecque

Production

Mandragore.

Co-production

Charleroi Danse; Les Halles de Schaerbeek; La Halle Tropisme / IMMERSION programme; Compagnie MM; Ménagerie de Verre; AtelierSi (as part of the Nouveau Grand Tour in Italy with the Institut Français); Réseau Danse Occitanie (with production / creation support); La Maison danse CDCN Uzès Gard Occitanie. Residency supported by the accueil-studio programme, funded by the Ministry of Culture / DRAC Occitanie.

Support

DRAC Occitanie (creation grant); BUDA kunstencentrum; La Briqueterie–CDCN du Val-de-Marne (residency in simple loan); La Ménagerie de Verre (StudioLab programme); De l’Impertinence — Laboratoire artistique et culturel.

As an associate artist

at La Ménagerie de Verre (2024–2026), Zoé Lakhnati is a 2024 laureate of the Fonds régional pour les talents émergents (FoRTE), funded by the Île-de-France Region.

Premiered on

13 December 2024 at Charleroi Danse — La Raffinerie, Brussels.

Parallèle 15 is about forty artists, performances, visual art exhibitions, screenings, readings, meetings, and partys.

Zoé Lakhnati
This is la mort

2025