Presented by Luminato Festival in partnership with Fall for Dance North and TO Live, Compagnie Hervé KOUBI’s What the Day Owes to the Night/Ce que le jour doit à la nuit is a riveting work of extraordinary physical and poetic force — a meditation through movement that leaves an indelible impression. Inspired by choreographer Hervé Koubi’s discovery of his Algerian roots in his twenties, the piece borrows its title from Yasmina Khadra’s novel about a boy caught between European and Algerian worlds. That sense of cultural duality runs through the work, shaping a hypnotic, athletic, and emotionally cathartic experience. The work has been touring for twelve years, and Compagnie Hervé KOUBI presented a twenty-minute version of the work at Fall for Dance North in 2018.
Performed by twelve male street dancers from Algeria and Burkina Faso, the piece blends capoeira, hip-hop, martial arts, and contemporary movement into a powerful fusion. Their choreography draws from what feels like primitive impulse — a visceral response to the driving, eclectic musical score, which combines Sufi music, traditional Algerian sounds, Bach, and the Kronos Quartet.
At the show’s opening, blackness slowly gives way to a crepuscular half-light, in which a single blob-like shape appears center-stage. As we realize this is a single entwined mass of humanity, the dancers, they begin sinuously unfolding themselves into their individual identities . . . whereupon they begin to propel and suspend themselves mid-air: flipping, spinning, and gliding with fearless precision. In one repeated motif, certain of the dancers spin … and spin … and spin on their heads – less an acrobatic feat than a serene ritual that feels both ancient and elemental.
Costumes by Guillaume Gabriel — simple white culottes with a split skirt — show us the extraordinary power of their physiques while enhancing the swirling motion of the choreography and conjuring a full-blown spiritual ceremony. The dancers’ bodies create living architecture as they move through clouds of atmospheric haze, shifting from warrior strength one moment to spiritual grace the next. Their movements seem inspired as much by Islamic design as by natural forces: a spiraling dust storm, a tidal wave, a flock of birds in motion. And their flow – between structures and movements, up and down, into and out of different groupings, around and across the stage – is elegant, eloquent . . . and simply extraordinary.
Though the choreography is undeniably spectacular, there is a sense of deep theatrical magic here — but it is rooted in connection, not display. In one unforgettable moment, the dancers form a human sculpture. One man climbs the others like a mountain, reaches upward, and leans backward into the air, and falls. For a breathless second, he appears to float before being gently caught and lowered. The audience gasps . . . before erupting in applause.
Highly recommended, What the Day Owes to the Night is a mesmerizing display of strength, control, athleticism, and grace that is at once the story of one man’s heritage and a shared human story. Drawing from the rich cultural history of the Mediterranean basin — and the marriage of Eastern and Western traditions — Koubi has crafted a work of dance that transcends borders, immerses and astonishes.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
