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Creation in Bonlieu - Scène Nationale d'Annecy on March 4th 2008
A journey is often the opportunity to revisit, the moment to take stock of one’s identity or rather one’s identities. Those we have inherited, those we embody in the eyes of others and those we project to ourselves, that we try to emancipate. Whether national, economic, ethnic, minority, cultural, sexual, psychological or affective, a journey brings into question all of these layers of identity, which form new configurations throughout our movements. The different faces we have often result
from a negotiation between the legacy of the past and the identity that is being constructed in the present. It is during these movements that the feeling of being a FOREIGNER appears. Our assumed differences and our poor understanding of elsewhere create a place where we can rethink our perceptions. This crossroads of thought is the axis around which I have constructed this choreographic project.
During a recent journey to Vietnam and to Cambodgia, I discovered a new way to explore this feeling of being a foreigner. In a discussion about the violence of the conflicts that have torn these countries apart, I remembered the pages of my father’s military papers; my father, who was made to crush this Indochina of earlier times. As the discussion progressed, because of my French nationality, I realized that I was considered the son of a colonialist, even though what linked my father to Indochina was the legacy of another colonisation, that to his country, Algeria. Once again during
this conversation, it struck me that the upheavals and the devastation caused by the violence of armed conflict should lead us to reflect upon the image of the foreigner in many areas of th world.
In what way does the violence of armed conflict make us foreign? What sensitivity is born out of this violence?
These are the questions addressed in this itinerant project; a project that will trace the steps of a journey made more than 50 years ago.

Rachid Ouramdane
Credits:
Conception and performance : Rachid Ouramdane
Music : Alexandre Meyer
Video: Aldo Lee
Lights : Pierre Leblanc
Costume and make up: La Bourette
Set : Sylvain Giraudeau
Realisation assistant : Erell Melscoët

Stage management and sound : Sylvain Giraudeau
Video management : Jacques Hoepffner
Lighting management : Stéphane Graillot

Production L’A.
Coproduction
Théâtre de la ville à Paris
Bonlieu, scène nationale d’Annecy
Biennale de la danse de Lyon
With the help of Le Fanal, scène nationale de Saint-Nazaire for the residency of création
With the support of Cultures France, Wonderful district à Hô-chi-minh – Vietnam, de L’Ambassade de France au Vietnam – L’Espace, Centre culturel à Hanoï et le service de coopération et d’action culturelle à Hô-Chi-Minh and the Théâtre de Gennevilliers.