Is a man a wolf to another man? Two brothers, Christian and François Ben Aïm envision their dancers as a pack with a contagious energy, like the heroes and heroines of a Homeric battlefield. 10 interpreters throw themselves onto the stage with all their might, giving in to a furious desire to live. Their arms and legs are powered by instinctive, absurd and ecstatic moves. Out of themselves, do those beings become marionettes, strangers to each other? Or does something as old as the world come back to the surface to carry them away and bring them closer, in some human and mending collective momentum?

And there was light! There is a whole world on the stage: 15 dancers from various origins, whom Hervé Koubi asked – just this once– to dance as if the world were going to cease to exist. This urgency leads to a ballet with prodigious and visibly endless momentum, with interpreters’ vigor seeming to regenerate indefinitely. Figures from hip-hop, circus, capoeira or even breakdance mix with contemporary sounds and music by Steve Reich and Beethoven. Sol Invictus (“undefeated sun” in Latin) addresses the vital, irrepressible and happy need to dance.

5 characters appear on stage, their faces visibly marked by old age. Clumsy and rigid at first, this troupe becomes explosive and joyful when the masks come off, literally. Trained at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York, Sofia Nappi draws on the gaga Israelian technique where, to bring about dancing, the intensity becomes almost animal-like. The energy circulates among the performers, from one to the other in a sensual and intimate impetus based on instinctive listening and letting go. Presented at the Venice Biennale, Ima expresses our desire to reconnect with ourselves and the sweet idea that age is just a number!