Biography

Mehdi Dahkan (Tangier, 1998) is a multi-disciplinary choreographer and performer working between France and Morocco. His practice centers the body as a medium to question socially constructed behaviors and narratives in today’s social landscape.

In 2019, he founded Jil Z, a company dedicated to exploring the intersection of urban and contemporary dance. Through his work, he bridges France and Morocco, examining the similarities and differences between the two continents through dance and performance. His choreographic research investigates how meaning emerges through the manipulation of space, time, and matter, drawing inspiration from the pressing questions of today.

His works include MA’KAN (2019), BNI MAKADA (2020), 2M.2 (2021), ONLY 14 (2023), and SUBJECT TO (2024). He is currently developing a trilogy that explores the unconventional methods of resistance and protest where the body takes center stage.

Artistic project

This project is a choreographic sound performance that reflects on the complex process of adapting to the space in which we and the other coexist, imagining space as a living presence capable of acting and reacting, itself in constant evolution and adaptation.

Three individuals step into a space and confront it as if meeting a fourth presence. Their movements with and within this space initiate a dialogue, where every step, every jump, every shift of weight leaves a trace or a sound. As the performers navigate the terrain, they search for common ground, not only between each other but with the space itself. Gradually, a rhythm emerges from their interactions, and sound becomes the new central element. What begins as isolated actions and explorations within the space transforms into a collective rhythm that binds them to one another.

The performance is about finding a new language through the body. No matter the linguistic or cultural differences, the rhythms and sounds created as our bodies interact with their surroundings are proposed as an alternative, universal language, a way to find synergy with one another and with the space around us.

Format: performance

Size of audience: depending on the space

Specific location: any space with silence

Timing / duration: 40min