An explosion of movement. A place where light always triumphs.

Tickets

Venue

Main stage, Barnhusgatan 12-14

Duration

75 minutes

19 Nov

19:00

20 Nov

19:00

21 Nov

19:00

Imagine an explosion of movement. A vibrant playground where hip hop meets acrobatics, gravity is challenged and light always prevails. With the Sol Invictus French-Algerian choreographer Hervé Koubi has created a show that has mesmerised audiences around the world. In November, it will reach our big stage.

Koubi has brought together battlemasters, street dancers and artists with unique dance techniques from the Amazon to Siberia. The seventeen dancers spin, fly and sweep across the stage in a constant flow; as if they were moving in their own universe where the boundaries of the body cease to exist. Breakdancing, capoeira and aerial acrobatics in a hypnotic symbiosis. At times they spend more time on their heads than on their feet. The next second, someone is thrown through the air, or whirls the stage around in gymnastic back flips. Breathtaking, breathtaking, and in the next moment concentrated stillness and inner beauty.

In a world that can feel dark and uncertain, Hervé Koubi reminds us of the eternal power of community, hope and love. Sol Invictus is a performance that defies fear, celebrates life and invites us to seek the light.

Sol Invictus (The Invincible Sun) refers not only to the Roman sun god but also to the ritual held during the annual Roman Midwinter Festival - a ceremony celebrating the end of the darkest days and the coming of brighter times. "That celebration, that hopefulness is at the heart of Sol Invictus." says Hervé Koubi.

What's left? Love!
SOL INVICTUS or how to make fun of death while dancing.

Hervé Koubi on Sol Invictus

" For a life filled with the knowledge of happiness... to dance... together - Sol invictus would be like a rebirth for me. To rediscover a vital impetus. To rediscover the childhood of oneself and of everything. For me Dancing and loving are the same.  

With SOL INVICTUS I want to talk about light, love, mutual help, solidarity, binds, those binds that unites us to life.
I call to the stage a whole world and its smiles, a liberated spelling in the service of a choreographic writing that goes beyond borders, aesthetics, languages, styles. 

I want a dance that laughs, a dance that comes from the heart, from the mouth, from the hips, from the feet on a burning floor.  

I want to make the stage a playground of all possibilities. 

There is an emergency to unite and inspire hope. 

So there will be circle dances and spirals. Those spirals that raise every one of us thanks to each other, thanks to the Other.

All this for a rite, a rite that will be reinvented at each performance to celebrate that we are alive. A rite to marvel at the living. A rite to live together, to silence the bombs and open the door to a humanity aware that it is urgent to take care of the living. "
Hervé Koubi 

Trailer
Hervé Koubi Photo: Véronique Chochon
Photo: Véronique Chochon

About Hervé Koubi 

Hervé Koubi trained at the École de Danse, where he studied under Rosella Hightower, among others. In 2000, he decided to develop his own choreographic work and create his own pieces. From the beginning, he was particularly interested in traditions - both oral and physical - and how they are passed down through generations. For him, dance is more than just movement; it is a way of bringing people together, creating community and building bridges between different cultures and backgrounds. This passion for history, memories and heritage led him to Algeria in 2009, where he began exploring his own roots. While travelling, he became fascinated by urban dance and the expressions that emerged on the streets. Since then, he has seen the different techniques of dance as an open experimental space, where traditional boundaries and aesthetic norms can be challenged and transcended.

Koube has also run a number of projects in collaboration with local communities, using dance to strengthen community and social cohesion.

In 2015, Hervé Koubi was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his achievements in dance and choreography.

Tickets

Share the event:

After-call 20/11

Company co-founder Guillaume Gabriel talks to Kenneth Kvarnström (choreographer and artistic director of Kuopio tanssii ja soi/ Kuopio Dance Festival) on the Main Stage.

What for other dancers might be show-off steps are integrated into a poetic vision, a different way of being. The dancers also tumble slowly, as in capoeira, showing fluid control rather than momentum and daring.

-The New York Times

Herve Koubi creates something magical that touches a lot of senses, one of them: the joy of dancing. Dare I say that Sol Invictus is one of the top five productions touring the world right now...

-Kenneth Kvarnström