AL BADIL | Tunisia
CONTEMPORARY DANCE
Al Badil - The Cultural Alternative is an association created in 2017 by the choreographer Selim Ben Safia.
Al Badil works between Tunis and the rest of the world for the promotion and democratization of art and culture in Tunisia.
It was initiated out of a desire to offer the Tunisian public and artists other cultural and artistic alternatives, thus widening the scope of cultural actions throughout the Tunisian territory.
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Labes
El Botinière
LABES
SYMOPSIS - Labes
Creation 2026 | 4 Dancers + 1 Musician | Durée: 60 min.
Labes, in Arabic, means “everything is fine.” In this piece for four dancers and a musician, choreographer Selim Ben Safia and conceptual artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke explore the antagonistic notions of standstill and resilience. To the sound of a viola da gamba, beyond ruins and denial, an ode to the dance of life.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke conceived the scenography based on her research into the Maghrebian Quarter of Jerusalem, destroyed in 1967. Evoking in its shadows the memory of this vanished neighborhood, the stage becomes a haunted space – a scene of dance and live music, as robust as it is luminous in its fragility. Transparent walls rise upon the stage like specters. This installation, shaped by notions of haunting and disappearance, fed into the choreographic approach and opened a poetic and political space.
Carried by values powerful in their simplicity and commitment – the strength of vulnerability, the virtue of the collective, and art as a possible space for repair – Selim Ben Safia dares a true dance of joy. On stage, five artists from different origins and aesthetic affinities – breakdance, circus, contemporary dance, traditional dance – become both performers and transmitters of this unwavering confidence in the founding benevolence of human connections. Traversed by the energy of Palestinian dakbé and traditional Tunisian rhythms, funeral chants and the universal accents of the viola da gamba, the bodies probe the tension between what freezes, buries itself or cements around us, and the vital impulse that continues to pulse within. A choreographic gesture of resilience.
EL BOTINIÈRE
SYMOPSIS - El Botinière
Creation 2022 | 6 Dancers | 55 min.
El Botinière, the name of a mythical cabaret in the city center of Tunis, is a choreographic piece that shows you the hidden side of Tunisian nightlife.
Through a simple and sober setting, I would like to take you on a journey into a world where joy, sadness, love, hatred, suffering, misery, desires, and life are intertwined.
6 Tunisian dancers will share the stage.
6 dancers, 6 characters, 6 lives, and 6 stories.
Different from each other, each character will take you on his nightlife journey through cabarets and inebriation, but also in a toxic and sordid world covered by a patriarchal and schizophrenic Arab-Muslim society.
El botinière will uncover the inside of the Cabaret: this sacred space soaked with lust where those who do not dare show themselves in broad daylight wander. It will also show different theatrical scenes through a disproportionate and immoderate dance that projects images toward another dimension.