FIQ! - Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger

Groupe Acrobatique de Tangers (Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe)

At the roots of the Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe is an inspired woman: Sanae El Kamouni, who gathered a group of Moroccan acrobats in 2013 for a project featuring new contemporary acrobatic creations. Convinced that a new history could be invented with these artists, she asked director Aurélien Bory to join her in Tangiers and create the first contemporary Moroccan acrobatics show. Several shows were created – TAOUB (Aurélien Bory- 2004), Chouf Ouchouf (Zimmermann & de Perrot-2009), Azimut (Aurélien Bory 2013), and Halka (collective creation of the Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe with the participation of Abdeliazide Senhadji – 2016).

The Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe puts popular culture at the heart of its project, a militant and democratic culture, accessible to all. Questioning, conserving, and giving value to Moroccan acrobatics are its priorities. It bases its operations on the constant search for links between ancestral art and contemporary creation, and a territory and its population. In this double-dialectic that characterizes it, tradition and contemporary creation and Moroccan and French, The Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe brings us face to face with extraordinary world subjects of today and takes its place in the ranks of the most innovative quests in contemporary acrobatics.

Maroussia Diaz Verbeke

Circographer/director and tightrope acrobat (sometimes walking on the ceiling). Climbing trees – looking for something to do – doing her own show without realizing it in the smallest circus tent in the world, practicing in the biggest attic in the Cote D’Azur – dropping out of mathematics to go to circus school (ENACR) – hesitating between the highwire and slack rope, mixing the two – persevering at the CNAC (National Acrobatics School), creating the show Notes On The Circus with the Ivan Mosjoukine Collective with passion, dramaturgist for Vide (Vaccuum) co-written with Fragan Gehlker and Alexis Auffray – reads, interviews, meets, films those that she discovers, maintains a connection with the circus – hitchhikes across the Atlantic on a sailboat, arrives in Brazil by chance, and connects – invents a third circus and the notion of circography – creates CIRCUS REMIX solo – currently on tour – works with the ‘Instrumento de Ver’ company in Brazilia – and prefers, above all, to find out why the circus is a language in itself.

Hassan Hajjaj

Hassan Hajjaj joined the Tangiers Acrobatic Troupe and circographer Maroussia Diaz Verbeke to develop the visual universe of the show FIQ ! (Wake up !) through scenography and costumes. In FIQ ! (Wake Up ! Hassan Hajjaj conjugates elements of Moroccan culture in an explosion of colors, allowing a juggling of the traditional and the non-conventional, oriental influences and occidental inspiration, pop art and styling to create a coloured and hybrid universe. This alliance between pop and kitch, full of connecting humor, as the show seeks to blend traditional heritage and modern, urban spirit, through creating dialogue, with finesse, between the past and the contemporary era, the orient and the occident, the imagery of ordinary folk and scintillating luxury.