I remember when I was a child in the peaceful obscurity of my room, I would lose myself in the meanders of my imagination.
Every night, when the lights went out, the still wallpaper would come to life, revealing a hidden world, a doorway to the unknown. By magic my room became the theatre for an enchanted voyage, where the real and imaginary worlds melted into one bewitching murmur.
As my dreams led me on, I escaped into fantastic worlds, met enigmatic creatures, danced with graceful fairies, and explored magical forests. Every motif on the wallpaper opened a door to a realm of fantasies, an irresistible pull into adventures. The nighttime hours became suspended moments in time, ephemeral souvenirs captured by the dreams’ embrace.
The various monsters rhythmed a dreamlike ballet, setting the tempo for this dance between reality and illusion. The frontier between the tangible and the imaginary gradually disappeared, leaving space for a flood of intense feelings and emotions.
The Whisper of Dreams is an invitation to plunge into the dreamlike universe of my childhood, to explore the hidden corners of my imagination, to dance with the stars and to capture the magic of each instant, for children and adults alike.
The Whisper of Dreams combines several choreographies and embraces various forms. The work thus finds its strength on large stages as well as in more unusual or smaller venues. It can also be readily adapted for wider audiences creating wonder and magic, evoking powerfully poetic images.
It is a new approach, a challenge requiring me to be true to my deepest inner self.
For this new adventure, I called upon a quartet of dancers, men and women, the superb illustrations created by Jessie Désolée which breathe life into a poetic world of creatures, full of imaginary monsters, fantastic plants, and animals, as well as the video artist Yves Kuperberg to bring to life this plunge into make-believe.
Altogether, soaring with the lyrics and music written by the composer, Régis Baillet (Diaphane).
Rosa Montero would say that «childhood is place we never return to, but which is, in reality, one we never leave».
Kader Attou
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«The Whisper of Dreams calls upon our ability to go beyond what we are, allowing invention, imagination, suggestions arouse our emotions… Kader wants to reawaken the murmur of dreams that have never left us». Agnès Izrine
illustration : Jessie Désolée
Artistic director & Choreographer: Kader Attou
Scenography: Kader Attou
Music: Régis Baillet
Lighting: Cécile Giovansili-Vissière
Video: Yves Kuperberg
Accessories: Oliver Borne
Illustration : Jessie Désolée
Dancers : Margaux Senechault, Ioulia Plotnikova, Artem Orlov, Kevin Mischel
Producer: Compagnie Accrorap
Coproducers: Scènes et Cinés, scène conventionnée Arts en territoire, Maison des Arts de Créteil
Supported by Département des Bouches-du-Rhône – Centre départemental de créations en résidence
Accompanied creation residency La Fabrique Mimont-Cannes
Télérama
For this poetically entitled work, the hip-hop choreographer, Kader Attou, plunges into his childhood memories to reveal the child he once was, he who caught butterflies to collect the powder on their wings and then covered these with cardboard ones he had made.
From this childhood story, where the fantasy of flying is haloed with fragility, Attou extracts the substance for a new creation, performed by five dancers and visually illustrated by Jessie Désolée. An astonishing exploration by this artist who continues to believe in the suggestive powers of hip-hop to portray the most delicate of universes.
Rosita Boisseau
ResMusica
The first creation for young audiences signed by Kader Attou, The Whisper of Dreams deploys never ending visual metamorphoses and choreography with great fluidity on the main stage at the MAC. And the gestures and movements by the choreographer, of un unforgettable delicatesse, once again making miracles.
It is in the dark that this choreographic meander begins, one proposed for young audiences from the age of 5. A darkness ideal for the emergence of the imaginary, of dreams, nightmares, fantastical visions. By going back in time to his own childhood, Kader Attou invites us to follow the wooded paths of our imagination, to open doors to new possibilities and infinite landscapes, to wander down paths contrary to serious thinking, to see in the obscurity that which hides in the hollows. In this darkness appears a pair of eyes, then two, then three, then a flurry of gazes drawn across a background of melodious whispers. Who hasn’t already, in the loneliness of their childhood bedroom, has the feeling of being watched? Who hasn’t stared at the patterns on the wallpaper until these motifs begin to dance in our heads ready to create magic? And there on this stage bordered with a screen of transparent netting which relegates the performers to be ephemeral chimaera, floating apparitions in a world that obeys different rules, the bodies are possessed by the madness of dancing, and here then the flowered wallpaper transforms itself. Here the space becomes limitless and undulates like the bodies in movement, woken with a start and no longer walking straight, a pair of legs over here, the rest of the body over there, tightrope walkers in their sleep moving through another reality. The other side of the day, the other side of our wakefulness? Here we are in the world of dreams where everything is in perpetual metamorphosis.
By working with the illustrator, Jessie Désolée, and the video artist, Yves Kuperberg, for the animation of the drawings, Kader Attou inscribes his dance in a powerful visual universe which draws us to drift between the depths of the ocean and the starry cosmos, to encounter clocklike mechanisms of a dream machine, moving through forests of wolves, swimming in the clouds. For the soundtrack, Régis Baillet composes a score just as moving and atmospheric as the aesthetic environment, a mixture of acoustic instruments and electronic music, of heady melodies and catchy tunes, it clothes yet does not burden the weightless movements of the four remarkable dancers, all of such grace, suppleness and fluidity.
Once again, the choreographer Kader Attou has not displayed power or exercised his virtuosity. His hip-hop has the delicatesse of the pillow feathers escaping from childhood games, it reveals and honours the elasticity of bodies, the amplitude of movements, from breaks to undulations. Never compliant, his dance draws upon contemporary and even classical dance, to better escape the shrines of knowledge and to nourish his own sensitive DNA. It is far from the imagery of battles and urban culture, here we play ball with the moon, roll up in a thick eiderdown, the duos are tender and the quartets playful. And the disco-ball scatters thousands of stars to crown the delicatesse of the ensemble.
Marie Plantin
2023
6, 7 November
Istres, L’Usine (Théâtre de l’Olivier - Scènes et Cinés « hors les murs »)
12, 13 November
Blagnac, Odyssud
20, 21, 22 November
Vitry-sur-Seine, Théâtre Jean Vilar
30 November
Thonon-les-Bains, MAL - Maison des Arts du Léman
3, 4, 5 December
Choisy-Le-Roi, Théâtre & cinéma de Choisy-le-roi
12, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22 December
Créteil, MAC - Maison des Arts et de la Culture
2024
19 January
Saint-Jean-de-Védas, Théâtre de Chai du Terral
10, 11 March
Corbeil-Essonnes, Théâtre de Corbeil-Essonnes
22, 23 March
Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, Espace Gérard Philipe
10, 11 April
Agen, Théâtre Municipal Ducorneau
26, 27, 28 April
Sceaux, Les Gémeaux
14 May
Chartres, Théâtre de Chartres
25 May
Florac Trois Rivières, La Genette Verte
5 October
Bourgoin-Jallieu, Théâtre Jean-Vilar
8, 9 October
Amiens, Maison de la Culture, Scène Nationale
12, 14 October
Saint-Priest, Théâtre Théo Argence, Festival Karavel
23 October
Saumur, Le Dôme
5, 6, 7 November
Clermont-Ferrand, Festival Trans’urbaines
25, 26 November
Argenteuil, Le Figuier Blanc
30, 1, 2 November
Namur, Théâtre de Namur
18, 19, 20 December
Miramas, Théâtre de la Colonne
2025
16, 17 February
Aubusson, Scène nationale, Théâtre Jean Lurçat
14, 15 March
Maisons-Alfort, Théâtre Claude Debussy
18 March
Chevilly-Larue, Théâtre André Malraux
21 March
Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, Espace Marcel Carné
23 March
Saint-Maur, Théâtre de Saint-Maur
25 March
Le Vésinet, Théâtre du Vésinet
27, 28 March
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Théâtre des Sablons
31 March
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Théâtre des Sablons
16 April
Belgique, Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts
Cie Accrorap
Direction Kader Attou
Creation 2023
Premières: 6 & 7 November
Usine, Istres (Théâtre de l’Olivier – Scènes et Cinés « extra muros »)
A production for all audiences over the age of 5
with 4 dancers
Dates
2024
25, 26 November
Argenteuil, Le Figuier Blanc
30, 1, 2 November
Namur, Théâtre de Namur
18, 19, 20 December
Miramas, Théâtre de la Colonne
2025
16, 17 February
Aubusson, Scène nationale, Théâtre Jean Lurçat
14, 15 March
Maisons-Alfort, Théâtre Claude Debussy
18 March
Chevilly-Larue, Théâtre André Malraux
21 March
Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, Espace Marcel Carné
23 March
Saint-Maur, Théâtre de Saint-Maur
25 March
Le Vésinet, Théâtre du Vésinet
27, 28 March
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Théâtre des Sablons
31 March
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Théâtre des Sablons
16 April
Belgique, Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts
