Theatrical Dance of Egypt When the power and beauty of traditions meet contemporary expression and creativity

Performances, videos & DVD 

Danses en fête
April 19 - 29, 2024
VASTITUDES

Danses en fête
Cascades & Ondoyances
April 22 & 23, 2023

Danses en fête
Egypte mon amour
April 23 & 24, 2022

 

L'âme en 3D, November 9 - 10 - 11, 2018

 

 

 

L'âme en 3D, 18-19 November 2016

  

  

 

Gala Victoires du Sport - Theater Wolubilis - Bruxelles - 30 November 2014 

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"Au fil du Nil: le feu gitan et l'âme nubienne" - Espace Tarab

23 November 2014 - Brussels

 "Histoires de danse" - Espace Tarab - October 13 2013

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 « Voce del cielo », hommage to Oum Kalthoum

Florence

4 May & 5 May 2013, Teatro Le Laudi

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"Histoires de danse" - Espace Tarab - Brussels - 3 February 2013

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"Dream of an Egyptian night"
The legend of the goddess Hathor

La Ferme du Biéreau
Avenue du Jardin Botanique
1348 Louvain-La-Neuve

17 November 2012

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« …When the goddess Hathor, incarnated by Béatrice Grognard comes on stage as a bloodthristy lioness, she electrifies the whole theatre with her incredible sensuality… The solist’s dancing bewitches the public of the amphitheatre… Her deep-rooted dancing touches our innermost feelings and beasty instincts… »

« Characteristic for this performance is its central archetype, feminity, exalted through a search for beauty in the movement… This creation respects the tradition, blending it with very innovative elements that make this performance fascinating… »

« The sober and minimalist stage design, perfectly in line with the whole performance, is supported by the constant showing of images, sculptures, paintings, bas-reliefs that enables the bedazzled public to remember past wonders… Meanwhile, the shadows of an ancient dance lull the bodies into a divine charm… »


"Dream of an Egyptian night" / Paris

31 March 2012
1 April 2012

Théâtre La Reine Blanche
2bis Passage Ruelle
75018 Paris

Festival Poussière du monde 2012 / Geneva

"Quand le feu aime l'eau"

Dance, music and song from Upper Egypt
with
The Musicians of the Nile, Raïs Mohamed Morad and Béatrice Grognard

26 May 2012, Geneva
17.00 & 21.00

 

 

Performances by Tarab Company

1. « Dream of an Egyptian night » The legend of the Goddess Hathor

A theatrical and contemporary dance show by Beatrice Grognard & Tarab Company

2010 - Timing : 1.25’
Choreography – Stage production – Costumes : Béatrice Grognard
DVD available - 25 € + 8 € post charges

A contemporary dance show which takes its inspiration from the Egypt of the pharoahs and the goddess Hathor…

A celebration of the powerful femininity of the sun which is a mysterious expression of the beauty of the world and the magic beyond…

The legend of the goddess Hathor has enabled Beatrice Grognard and her dancers to plunge into the dazzling artistic and intellectual richness of Egypt of the pharaohs. Thanks to its musical excerpts drawn from numerous Egyptian repertoires and to the projection of paintings, sculptures, objects and antique sites, Dream of an Egyptian Night aims to celebrate an art of thousand years combining both ancient Egyptian spirituality and sensual pleasure and to reflect Beatrice Grognard’s fifteen years of research and creating performances.

 

2. « Al wegdann » (« With all my essence »)

Sufi music, song and dance of Egypt

With Sheikh Ahmed Al Tuni & His musicians and Béatrice Grognard & Tarab company

2008 - Timing : 1.30’
Choreography – Stage production – Costumes : Béatrice Grognard
DVD available - 25 € + 8 Post charges

Choreographer and dancer Béatrice Grognard, surrounded by 7 dancers of her Tarab dance company, and the charismatic Sufi singer Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tûni unite for an artistically audacious performance, as Sheikh Tuni’s repertoire has never before been transposed into female dance drama.

Béatrice Grognard’s art is characterized by a flamboyant theatrical expression and danced emotions, sometimes interior, deep and delicate, sometimes powerful and close to trance.

Ahmad al-Tûni is one of Egypt’s last great Sufi singers. His voice rises and intensifies, leading to Sufi trance, an ancient ritual for all. Open, creative, expressing a large range of emotional behaviors, Ahmad al-Tûni sings, mimes his poetry with expression ; his nervous body balances to the music and emphasizes the rhythmic fierceness of the dûff, the riqq and the tabla of Egypt.

Al-Tûni’s lyrical and voluptuous chanting and Béatrice’s intense and majestic dancing join to celebrate divine and human love, ecstatic joy, desire, sweet or bitter passion, the sufferance of being separated, the fear of absence and the feeling of surrendering of the body.

Both evoke tarab or emotional ecstasy.

To read more : some testimonies

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“ What a discovery! Moving Sheikh Al Tûni: its strong and major voice which contrasts with its frail stature…Its wobbling if attaching… The musicians attractive and were also enthusiastic and fascinated by the power of the dance… Splendid costumes…Divine dance in a perfect connection with the voice and the words of Sheikh Tuni… That curled sometimes an almost magic anticipation…”

“It was the swirl, the splendid mixture voice/gesture, the incarnation of enthusiasm. The result: deeply moving… “That stuck”, that turned, that vibrated…”

“Splendid spectacle! It was in turn upsetting, intense, impetuous…. What a capacity of improvisation of the dance with the voice of Sheikh Tuni! Which connection with the musicians, deeply invested in the follow-up of the dance and an obvious joy… Which inventiveness, which anthem with the Life mixed with the surging crossings with the suffering…”

“So much emotion, so much fire! Such an amount of power, so much accuracy in the waltz of the movements, the bewitching dances… That of daring originality in this explosive meeting of the dance of Beatrice Grognard and the song of Sheikh Tuni. An unexpected, improbable meeting and, with final, a challenge more than successful…. ”

“Al Wegdann”: a contrasted universe of softness and passion which leaves an inexpressible emotion…

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3. « Mousaferoun » (« Travellers »)

Performance of music, song and dance from Upper Egypt

With The Musicians of the Nile and Béatrice Grognard & Tarab company

2007 - Timing : 1.30’
Choreography – Stage production – Costumes : Béatrice Grognard
DVD available : 25 € + 8 € Post charges

In “Mousaferoun”,Béatrice Grognard,accompanied by 5 of her dancers, is reunited with the renowned « Musiciens of the Nile » of Luxor. Majestic and revered, the « Musicians of the Nile » owe their origins to a caste of professional musicians linked to gypsy clans who settled in Egypt in the XI century. They are the virtuosos of instruments such as the inventive rababa, violin made of horsehair, coconut and fish skin, the arghûl, a bewitching double-piped clarinet made of reed, the mizmâr, wood from Upper Egypt with incisive sounds and the invigorating saïdi drums, the duff and tabla, percussion instruments.

A unique artistic complicity unites the dancer and choreographer, Béatrice Grognard, with the “Musicians of the Nil”, who are delighted to see their secular music glorified by the polished movements, the dramatic expression and emotion which is at times internal, and then trance-link characterising the dance of this artist.

A show of dance and of music from Upper Egypt, revealing a unique meeting of East and West, where the traditional and modern, instinct and technique, melancholy, humour and intense joy, all blend together in harmony.

A constant dialogue between the dancer, musicians and singers, an abundance of brilliant colours and captivating rhythms.

 

 

Performances of the Tarab School

Besides her career as a dancer and choreographer and her professional performances, Béatrice also creates performances for the Tarab school. By doing so, she offers her students, regardless of their age, morphology or experience the opportunity to experiment scenic work. However, these performances are also created with a lot of care and professionalism, constantly aiming at developing each dancer’s talents.
Whether intimate such as « Dance stories » or more ambitious such as « Zaman el fan el gamil » and « Fulgurances », these performances have always been greatly appreciated by a public eager to discover an innovative universe and its specific stagecraft, costumes and choreographies.

1. « Zaman el fan el gamil » (« The Golden Age of the Art »)

This performance takes us to a journey through the first half of the twentieth century and the following two decades.

At that time, the Egyptian film industry was very productive and many talented actors became renowned. Men and women, directors, producers and actors, but also composers, writers, poets, singers and dancers mixed their arts, shaping together brilliant films full of innovative images and sounds, thereby winning over a vast and diversified audience.

In " Zaman el fan el gamil ", Béatrice Grognard, accompanied by fifty dancers, meets a real challenge: enabling Egyptian dances to regain respectability, restoring their freshness and elegance so as to create emotion among the audience, to generate a common pleasure stemming from the many sensational colours, the mesmerizing rhythms and the apparently natural yet skilfully elaborated movements.

Béatrice Grognard develops her choreographies on music exclusively found in traditional repertoires, with pure sounds that have been preserved from any disrespectful mixing.

Driving the audience to this golden age she loves so much, Béatrice however avoids the trap of nostalgia and of a desperately past approach.

By alternating the dances and film extracts, Béatrice Grognard gives the performance a particular rhythm, travelling from one period to the other and boldly exploring the future.

 

2. « Fulgurances »

When two personalities and two exceptional Egyptian voices meet: Abdel Halim Hafez and Ahmed Adaweya.

With "Fulgurances", Béatrice Grognard brings on stage 50 dancers evolving on the singing and the music of two major interpreters of the Egyptian song: Abdel Halim Hafez who offered innovative, very personal work, contributing to the rise of a new kind of Arabic classical music and Ahmed Adaweya, a brilliant performer of popular music who gave the art of the " baladi song " another dimension. Two very different voices, two men of opposite horizons, two contrasting artistic universes.
So far the splendour of Abdel Halim and Adaweya has remainded intact and continues to mark the spirits.

The word " Fulgurances" pays tribute to their talent and suggests the strength of their memory.

"Fulgurances" also calls upon the short-lived beauty of the dance, the fleeting shine, the instant brightness, the perpetual bubbling of the movement which appears and dies immediately. Then, the birth of another movement. In the infinity. Without regret.