Saphir Belkheir uses a fictitious family tree to get to the bottom of his French-Algerian ancestry. He discovers that some personalities have been erased from it and comes across a colonial, patriarchal legacy that renders existences on the fringes of the norm invisible.
Saphir Belkheir draws his strength from a history inhabited by imaginary ancestors and nourished by queer experiences. He also explores his way of dancing and what can be read from his gestures. The sycomore is a fig tree that grows several new branches when a single one is cut off. The regrowing branches of the Sycomore become projections into the future to (re)create an infinite number of connections. Sycomore promises an intimate and immersive experience, combining dance, video, sound and text to trace or evoke individual and future traces.
CONCEPT & PERFORMANCE Saphir Belkheir | OUTSIDE EYE Morgane Brien-Hamdane | LIGHT DESIGN My-riam Bertin | MUSICAL CREATION AND LIVE MUSIC Nour Aït Sadi | SHORT FILM: DIRECTOR Saphir Belk-heir | WITH Saphir Belkheir and Maëlice Joyce Denis | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Makoto C. Friedmann | EDITING & COLORING Tomè-Manon Cotte | DIRECTOR ASSISTANCE Mélodie Preux | LIGHTING DESIGN Alice Brunnquell | PRODUCTION MC93 Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, in the framework of Common Stories, a Creative Europe program funded by the European Union | COPRODUCTION Alkantara Lisbon, africologneFESTIVAL, Riksteatern Stockholm, in the framework of Common Stories, a Creative Europe program funded by the European Union I Fonds Transfabrik – Franco-German Fund for the Performing Arts| SUPPORT CommonMOB | SUPPORT FOR RESIDENCES RheinEnergieStif-tung Kultur und Parallèle – International Emerging Artistic Practices | RESIDENCES ICI-CCN de Montpel-lier I La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne I Point Éphémère I Les Ateliers Médicis I Théâtre Joliette, Scène Conventionnée d’intérêt national ” Art et Création ” pour la diversité des écritures contemporaines (Marseille)
Saphir Belkheir was a resident artist at CommonLAB 2023 as part of the EU-funded Common Stories project (2023-25). africologne is part of this international project together with five other partners. Common Stories consists of six complementary formats that focus on questions of identity and cultural diversity in changing European societies over three years. In CommonLAB, eight European-based artists are supported each year to create stories that are all too rarely told on European stages. CommonPROD offers the funded artists various forms of support for the further development of their own artistic practice. In addition to the joint residencies of a total of eight weeks in four different countries, this also includes individual residencies, co-productions or the assumption of production management for project realization.