Choreographer Hervé Koubi takes you on his personal journey of origin, culture, and connection. For five years, he traveled back and forth between France and Algeria, along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In a powerful way, he presents a vision deeply rooted in the often-forgotten layers of the vast and inevitable history of this maritime region, connecting it to the world of today. Les nuits barbares ou les premiers matins du monde is a performance about the power of encounter, fading boundaries, and stories that come together.
What does it mean to come from somewhere? How do you relate to a country that feels like home, but one you have never fully known? In his working notes, Koubi writes about his years of traveling back and forth between France and Algeria, along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea—a sea that for centuries has been a crossroads of cultures, religions, and peoples. A sea that has long connected cultures and carried stories. Les Nuits Barbares is an ode to this shared history.
In Les nuits barbares ou les premiers matins du monde, the ‘barbarians’ are not portrayed as strangers, but rather as bearers of beauty, refined features, and rich knowledge. Koubi challenges prevailing ideas that lump everything together. With his performance, he invites the audience to reconsider what ‘the other’ means. It is not a plea to rewrite history, but an invitation to empathy and connection in the present—a call to see beyond “them and us,” to see brothers, ancestors, free people (Amazigh), mirrors of ourselves.
At a time when differences are often emphasized and strangers viewed with suspicion, Les nuits barbares ou les premiers matins du monde offers an alternative narrative. A story that sheds light on a shared origin and shows that our diversity is precisely what unites us. Hervé Koubi finds the answer in commonalities: cultures and religions that touch and enrich one another.
"I choose to focus my gaze on what seems most beautiful to me: the blending of cultures, religions, the sacred through history, so that they may help me draw—and even better, reveal—the foundations of a common geography upon which we stand today, from one end of the world to the other, often without realizing it."- Hervé Koubi.
About Compagnie Hervé Koubi
The physically powerful dancers reveal a raw vulnerability that moves the audience. In their movements, they embody a humanity that transcends cultures—embodying a shared history and a common fate. They give form to how tradition and innovation go hand in hand. In every leap, turn, and touch, ancient influences seamlessly merge with modern forms of expression, creating a dance that both honors the past and embraces the future. From classical music by Mozart and Fauré to traditional Algerian sounds—everything comes together on stage.
The company consists of fourteen exceptionally talented dancers, autodidacts or those trained on the streets. Each brings a unique identity and impulse, with raw, unmistakably non-academic yet highly precise movements combining hip-hop, capoeira, and contemporary dance. Choreographer Koubi unites this diverse group—known for their exhilarating head and hand spins and spectacular somersaults—into a cohesive whole. Despite their varied backgrounds, they dance with shared intensity, purposefulness, and a striking softness in their gestures.
This performance is made possible thanks to Fonds Internationale Dans (FIND). Amare, Holland Dance Festival, and Nederlands Dans Theater have joined forces in this fund with the goal of bringing groundbreaking international dance productions to the Netherlands and presenting them at Amare to promote The Hague as the dance city of the Netherlands.
