Against the backdrop of a polar landscape, Mirages – Les  âmes boréales immerses the audience in the heart of the icy expanses of  the Great North. The piece leads us to drift towards lands as real as  they are fantasized, and questions as much as it makes us dream.

This contemporary tale plays on illusion and uses visual,  choreographic, sonic and sensory means to arouse surprise and  fascination. Sound and video have an important place, and associated  with the movement, reveal the dreamlike and magic of this landscape, and  transfigure the icy nature that conditions the mind and transforms the  body.

Imprint and fusion, the piece is interested in the capacity of  contagion that nature has on the man, to better question by mirror  effect the imprint that the man leaves on the earth.

Source: Christian & François Ben Aïm

More information: cfbenaim.com

A FUTURISTIC FABLE BLENDING DOCUMENTARY-STYLE ELEMENTS WITH FANTASY

Set against the backdrop of a polar landscape, Mirages — Les âmes boréales plunges viewers into the heart of the icy expanses of the far North. The piece casts us adrift towards lands both real and fantastical, firing our imaginations yet asking questions.

This contemporary tale plays on illusion and uses a variety of resources – artistic, choreographic, acoustic and sensory – to thrill and fascinate us. Sound and video play an important part in the piece, and when associated with movement, reveal the dream-like, magical quality of this landscape, transfiguring the glacial wilderness that conditions the mind and transforms the body.

Mark-making and fusion are key, and the piece is interested in the ability nature has to affect/infect human beings, so as to examine, by reflection, the mark they leave on earth.

For more than twenty years, Christian and François BEN AÏM have been building a work rich of poetry and high standards, fraternal bond and singularity.

At the end of a multidisciplinary training combining dance, physical theater and circus, each one follows his path as a performer, then the two brothers meet to create À l’abri du regard des hommes, avant d’aller mourir ailleurs, a hybrid dance-theater piece which marks the beginning of their collaboration in 1997. Twenty pieces will follow which anchor their fieldwork as much as they travel internationally. They draw their inspiration from literary, musical and pictorial sources, and intimately mixing artistic disciplines on the stage : En plein coeur (2006), Valse (2010), The Ogresse on archives and her dog (2011), Lightness of Storms (2014), Burn, rebellious hearts (2017), Mirages — boreal souls (2018), Arise (2019), JESTS (2021).

Marked by an uncompromising energy, summoning the performer to an intimate relationship with movement, the dance of the BEN AÏM brothers offers, beyond a speech, an experience, a "crossing" that the dancer performs in front of our eyes, that he lives each time with the sincerity of a full and entire presence.

With this demanding writing comes an art of composition which gives birth to the stage an imagination borrowing from dreams, from the marvelous of the tale and from invisible realities. Through a subtle effect of empathy, the audience enters an unstable world, where everything is the object of poetic questioning - a world to be experienced together.

Calendar of creations

2021

JESTS

2019

Snapshots - A series femal solos

Arise

2018

Mirages — Boreal souls

2017

Brûlent nos coeurs insoumis (Burn, rebellious hearts)

2016

Peuplé, dépeuplé (Inhabited, uninhabited)

2014

La légèreté des tempêtes

2013

La forêt ébouriffée (The Dense Forest)

L'orée des visages

Karma

2011

L'Ogresse des archives et son chien

2010

Valse en trois temps

Résistance au droit

2008

Louves

Amor fati fati amor

2007

You're a bird, now!

2006

En plein coeur

2004

Carcasses, un oeil pour deux

2003

Ne vous fiez pas au titre, il peut encore changer

2001

Ô my brother !

La Frontera

1999

Un homme en marche

L'enfant du miroir

1998

L'homme rapaillé

1997

A l'abri du regard des hommes, avant d'aller mourir ailleurs

Obsessed with the expression of bodies in motion, Tommy has been  devoting himself to direction since 2007. He was a professional dancer  for 18 years (Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Ballet Preljocaj, ...).