Dawri is an ancestral refrain that means “turn” in Tunisian Arabic. Hummed by grandmothers, Dawri becomes the epicenter of an uprising, a cycle that closes only to begin anew—being born, exulting, resisting, letting go, dying.
At the heart of this circularity: presence. To oneself. To one another.
Supporting, containing. Being there.
Flamenco is the matrix of La Otra Orilla—here, it is distilled to the bone. Rhythm lives in the breath, in the echo from one performer to another. For twenty years, Myriam Allard (Quebec) and Hedi Graja (Tunis) have been building their own language, filled with humanity. Dawri carves this furrow further, deeper.
Five performers and one singer are in constant dialogue. They anchor themselves, hold space for one another, gather, dance. And they turn. Again. Without ever stopping.
Two formidable grandmothers hold the memory of this creation: one from Tunisia, the other from Constantinople. Through them, the Mediterranean infuses the DNA of the show, just as it does for Hedi Graja and Myriam Allard.
The pomegranate, an ancient fruit of the Mediterranean, inhabits the entire work: bursting, raw, fertile, it is the organic matter of the set design and the movement. The performers are bound together like the seeds of a single fruit, tearing apart, opening up, each containing the whole.
The music is born from the street: sounds captured in Tunis, raw fragments of daily life, become a beating heart answered by the flamenco singing and the Dawri refrain. A third voice blends in, a 1940s recording of Allard’s grandmother singing a Purcell aria. Foreign languages speaking to one another, breaths intertwining. The cycle continues.
Artistic direction Myriam Allard, Hedi Graja
Choreography Myriam Allard
Set Hedi Graja
Rehearsal direction Annie Gagnon, Lucie Vigneault
Music Miguel Medina
Lights Tristan-Olivier Breiding
Costumes Margarita Brodie
Technical Manager Maxime Moranville
Quai 5160 (Montreal, Canada)
Al Badil (Tunis, Tunisia)
Théâtre El Hamra (Tunis, Tunisia)
Carrefour culturel de Notre-Dame-des-Prairies (Town of Notre-Dame-des-Prairies)
Pôle Territoire Danse
Espace le vrai monde (Montreal, Canada)
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Conseil des arts du Canada
Conseil des arts de Montréal
Rodrigo Alvarenga
Nindy Banks
Wejdane Ben Chaabane
Nour Ben Soltane
Kalliane Brémault
Ameni Chatti
Inès Chiha
Deborah Dawson
Anne-Flore de Rochambeau
Ahmed Dorbez
Ja James Britton Johnson
Marahem Khadhra
Marien Luévano
Lucy M May
Mohammed Mejri
Mathilde Mercier-Beloin
Marianne Murphy
Ernesto Quesada Pérez
Hdaya Rima
Geneviève Robitaille
Elie-Anne Ross
Anna Sanchez
Jules Talavera
Aymen Trabelsi
