An intimate, honest and simplistic story about the hardship of pursuing careers, restriction and the longing to see family, following an exploratory, contemporary narrative through dance and dialect
The Power (Of) The Fragile, performed at Sadler’s Well, created and performed by Mohamed Toukabri, performed alongside Mimouna (Latifa) Khamessi, intimately welcomes us into the world of sorrow, longing and dreaming: a story of a mother and son reuniting once again after years apart.
In this dream-like performance, we are introduced to Mohamed, a dancer born in Tunis, who moved to Belgium to pursue a career in dance, and his mother, Latifa, a wonderful woman who fought for her individualism, dreaming of being a dancer, only to marry and stay in Tunisia. This production took on a delightful blend of narrative, audio, and thought-provoking dance which I believed to form a new type of poem, a poem about love, loss, and hope.
To begin with, it took a while to warm up to the setting of the scene, which was Mohamed showing Latifa around the stage, explaining the full run down of stage left and right, backstage, and even ticket prices depending on where the audience sat. But a short while later, we began to fall in love with the dynamic duo and see for ourselves their beautiful relationship opening up to the audience. With the addition of impressive acrobatic skills from both performers, it was clear to see a story unravel which was appearing to produce a tear-jerking effect from within the auditorium.
The real exploratory elements of the contemporary dance truly came into play once Latifa began to narrate and tell us clearly how her life became to be what it is now. Short interludes of Mohamed leaning and lying on Latifa showed the imbalance of absence and attendance within their story, after Mohamed left to dance in Paris at the age of fifteen, applying for a visa became harder and harder for Latifa and the simple telling of this story, kept it earnest and heartfelt. But of course, this show had its moments of laughter, plenty of them. Both Mohamed and Latifa were light and kind-hearted characters which the audience absolutely adored. Overall, this show was a complete joy to watch.
The Power (Of) The Fragile is an intimate, honest and simplistic story about the hardship of pursuing careers, restriction and the longing to see family, following an exploratory, contemporary narrative through dance and dialect. Ultimately, The Power (Of) The Fragile, is an exciting and fresh performance everyone must see.