MILLE ET UNE NUITS - JUNE 2024

MILLE ET UNE NUITS

ONE THOUSAND & ONE NIGHTS

Iranian choreographer Sorour Darabi, based in France since 2013, unfolds his first opera, an immersive performance that gives space to marginalized voices by ancient myths. A piece created by and for committed bodies. 
Mille et Une Nuits revisits the notion of "Night" through the eyes of Scheherazade. The original book, conceived by a heterosexual cis-gender man, has often been criticized for relegating the character of Scheherazade to the status of a narrative instrument, plunging her body, desires and subjectivity into the shadows of the tales, to the benefit of the writer. At the heart of Sorour Darabi's Mille et Une Nuits, night is not just a metaphor for inventing tales, but a space where Scheherazade's true essence can finally blossom, as a queer myth, far from the constraints imposed by a cis-heteronormative world.
The choreographer's observation highlights the conservatism of opera, where bodies of diversity and expressions of unconventional sexuality are absent. Mille et Une Nuits explores an aesthetic of transgender voice. For most transgender people, hormone treatments induce a transformation of the voice, affecting sound placement in the vocal cords. It is this force of fragility and emotional texture that Mille et Une Nuits highlights, far removed from any normative sense of technical perfection, by considering the voice as an affective landscape. An opera for the 21st century, for new aesthetics and perspective, to build another relationship with the world, in the hollow of the ear, the depths of voices, on the expanse of the night.

Choreography, concept, texts and artistic direction 
SOROUR DARABI
Performers, singers, actors and live musicians 
AIMILIOS ARAPOGLOU, LI-YUN HU, FELIPE FARIA, LARA CHANEL, SOROUR DARABI, PABLO ALTAR, FLORIAN LE PRISÉ & ANGE HALLIWELL
Music compositor
PABLO ALTAR & FLORIAN LE PRISÉ
Vocal coach 
HENRY BROWNE
Light designer 
SHALY LOPEZ, DANI PAIVA DE MIRANDA
Set designer 
ALICIA ZATON based on an original idea by Sorour Darabi 
Costume designer
ANOUSHA MOHTASHAMI
Text editor and English-Persian Curator  (POETIC SOCIETIES, Crafted Conseil Remote Residency Program)
AVA ANSARI
Production/tour Manager 
JENNY SUAREZ
Administration/production Manager
MARTIN BUISSON

Exclusive Production DEEPDAWN-Sorour Darabi

TOUR SCHEDULE

June 14 & 15.2024 - Theaterformen festival - Hannover - Germany (pre-premiere)

June 28, 29 & 30.2024 - Festival Montpellier Danse - Montpellier - France (premiere)

September 19th, 20th, 21st & 22nd.2024 - Arsenic- Centre d'art scénique  contemporain  - Lausanne 

October 16th, 17th, 18th & 19th.2024 - Festival d'Automne à Paris  - La Villette, CN D de Pantin - France 

November 8th & 9th.2024 - Tanzquartier Wien - Vienna - Austria 

April 5th & 6th.2025 - Teatros Del Canal - Madrid - Spain

COPRODUCTION
Festival Montpellier Danse, CCN Ballet national de Marseille, Arsenic - Centre d'art scénique contemporain,  La Villette, CND Centre national de la danse, Tanzquartier Wien GmbH, Fonds franco-allemand Transfabrik pour le spectacle vivant, Charleroi danse - Centre chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie - Bruxelles, Festival Theaterformen, Festival d'Automne à Paris.
With the support of Drac Île-de-France - Ministère de la Culture.

SUPPORT OF
La Manutention du Palais de Tokyo, CND Centre national de la danse, Trauma Bar und Kino (Berlin); Tanzhaus Zürich, PACT Zollverein (Essen), KWP Kunstenwerkplaats (Brussels) & POETIC SOCIETIES (Detroit).