The title is often the first window into a show. What does your title have to say?
Mohamed El Khatib: This title is a manifesto in itself. It opens up a range of possibilities. It is obviously an ambivalent title: there is nothing natural about placing these two entities side by side. Israel and Mohamed. For us, it’s the result of chance; they are simply our first names. But from the outside, there is undeniably a religious and geopolitical weight to it, and therefore an expectation, even a promise, that cannot be resolved through blissful ecumenism. For us, it is also through these two names, chosen by our fathers, that our first encounter took place. It is a fruitful combination that opens up unsuspected horizons, into which also fits the question of our Andalusian and Arab roots. We have inherited a shared history that is rich, both culturally and intellectually. Arabic-speaking peoples were present in Andalusia for several centuries, and that trace is indelible.
What connects you, and led you to work together?
Israel Galván: All our work stems from our encounter, from sharing our respective worlds, and from the common ground we discovered through conversations that began in December 2023 in Paris. At the start of our exchanges, I happened to be recovering from a torn cruciate ligament, a typical footballer’s injury. The question of the body and its rehabilitation became intertwined with our meeting.
M. E. K.: The paradox of our connection lies in the rupture of our ligaments. I also tore the ligaments in both my knees, first the right, then the left. We no longer have ligaments, but our encounter allows us to create new ones together. My relationship with the body is shaped by playing football, a high-intensity physical practice that requires discipline and care for the body. What I see in great footballers, I also see in great dancers, and I see it in Israel. Football and flamenco are both popular practices with their own folklore and the ability to forge deep connections between people. They are true cultures, popular and vibrant, that foster strong social diversity as well as moments of celebration and intense joy.
I. G.: I’m happy to share the stage with a former footballer. When we perform the show, I’ll be able to say that I’m going to play and perhaps, for a brief moment, finally allow myself to feel like a footballer.
You said conversations are at the heart of your collaboration. What are those conversations made of?
I. G.: Our conversations are beneficial for me because speaking requires a lot of effort. I see our exchanges as a kind of documentary dance. I’m discovering spoken dance. We share subtle and intimate things, especially childhood memories. For example, my father wanted me to dance, while I dreamed of becoming a footballer. Mohamed’s father wanted him to be a footballer, but he ended up devoting himself to theatre. I eventually agreed to dance, but in the way that I chose. Talking with Mohamed brings back those little family stories that have shaped my journey as a dancer. These are stories that stay within us, in the body’s archive, and in my case, they express themselves through dance. Thanks to Mohamed’s presence, I’ve become aware that my body can remain silent but can also make a lot of noise. I now realize that I am making noise. For the first time, I’m aware that with my name, in the current context, my dance becomes a real percussion that can be perceived as aggressive, it can be a bomb. The tip and heel strikes of my zapateo become like little wars.
M. E. K.: Kafka also came up in our conversations; Letter to His Father, of course, but also A Report to an Academy and The Metamorphosis, which Israel directed. The notion of the parable has fueled our reflections, as has the idea of the two prodigal sons that we are... This dual portrait, on either side of the Mediterranean, will ultimately not result in a dance piece or a play, but rather in a public sketch of a micro-history of two lives, different yet strangely intertwined. In the background, a familial religious heritage, rooted in the Bible for one and the Qur’an for the other, nourishes our stories, which both share the experience of having been shaped in the shadow of omnipresent father figures. For me, having dedicated almost my entire body of work to my mother, even recently going so far as to build her a Grand Palais, it was time to turn my attention to the father.
I. G.: The question we faced was how to make these issues speak to each other by placing them within a cultural history. Despite different traditions and religions, in both flamenco and Arabic music there is a joy in rhythm, a rhythmic trance that forms another possible shared language.
Your life experiences are at the heart of your conversations. What role does documentary material play?
M. E. K.: There is an ambivalence between dance and the idea of documentary: how can these two languages meet? Archives are generally considered to be written or video materials, but Israel and I have tried to reactivate the archives of our own lives on stage. The memory of a choreography is an archive. How can we make this idea felt? How can we put a story into motion by taking it out of its family mausoleum? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. Finally, it must also be said that our fathers took up a great deal of space in our discussions. The audience will quickly understand why...
I. G.: For me, it’s a paradigm shift. I dance things I used to do when I was three or four years old. For this piece, what I had forgotten, my father reminded me of. This is what forms the basis of this documentary dance. With Mohamed, I’ve learned to weave connections between my own memories but also to intertwine them with his. It is these “new ligaments” that hold them together.
How do you envision the encounter with the space of the Cloître des Carmes?
M. E. K.: We wanted a place imbued with religiosity that would lead us to a double transgression of the law and the father: to do theatre, and to do it in a cloister. It is probably the best place to settle scores with “our father”… That it would serve as the setting for the dialogue between Israel and Mohamed seemed like a beautiful idea to revisit our Judeo-Islamo-Christian heritage. Fortunately, this cloister was founded by an order of mendicants, which should reassure my father. I haven’t told him yet that I’m going to perform in a cloister; apart from turning my back on Israel and performing facing Mecca, I don’t know what else he might expect from me…
Interview conducted by Victoria Mariani in February 2025