NÔT

Once betrayed, the sultan swears to have every new wife executed the following morning. To stop the cycle, Scheherazade marries him and tells a story every night, always leaving its ending unfinished by morning to postpone her fate. In One Thousand and One Nights, a masterpiece of Arabic literature, Marlene Monteiro Freitas sees an act of survival. Rooted in oral tradition, these tales retain the energy of stories that constantly circulate and are always reinvented. The Cape Verdean choreographer translates this flow of words – interwoven, contradictory, unceasing – into movement, turning the stage into a space where vice and virtue, the great and the small, and desire and its shadow all collide. In the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes, NÔT adds one more night to infinity. 

 ترى مارلين مونتيرو فريتاس في قصص شهرزاد ذوات النهاية المتأخرة، امتحان بقاء. مترجمةً دفق الكلام بالحركات، تضيف مصممة الرقصات ليلةً إلى اللانهاية. 

Interview with Marlene Monteiro Freitas

Choreography Marlene Monteiro Freitas
Choreography assistance Francisco Rolo
With Ben Green, Henri “Cookie” Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Mariana Tembe, Marie Albert, Miguel Filipe, Rui Paixão, Tomás Moital
Set design Yannick Fouassier, Marlene Monteiro Freitas
Lights and technical direction Yannick Fouassier
Costumes Marlene Monteiro Freitas, Marisa Escaleira 
Sound Rui Antunes
Stage management Ana Luísa Novais
Special stage prop Cláudio Silva
Set design internship Emma Ait-Kaci
Artistic consultancy João Figueira, Martin Valdés-Stauber
Production P.OR.K
Diffusion Key Performance

Production
P.OR.K

Co-production
Festival d’Avignon, Berliner Festspiele, International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg), Culturgest – Lisbon, MC2: Maison de la Culture de Grenoble – National Stage, Le Quartz – National Stage of Brest, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand – National Stage, Maison de la danse – Pôle européen de création, La Villette – Paris, La Comédie de Genève & La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, Onassis STEGI (Athens), Teatro Municipal do Porto, Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), PACT Zollverein (Essen).

Distribution
Key Performance

Residency support
O Espaço do Tempo (Montemor-o-Novo), Alkantara (Lisbon), OPART, E.P.E. / Estúdios Victor Córdon (Lisbon), Onassis AiR (Athens), MC2: Maison de la Culture de Grenoble – National Stage, International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg), La FabricA of the Festival d’Avignon.

Institutional support
Dançando com a Diferença (Funchal).

With the support of
Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Ammodo Art, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation – Delegation in France.

Acknowledgements
Carlos Duarte, MC2 Grenoble workshops.

The dramaturgical research around NÔT was supported by Onassis AiR in 2025.

Recording in partnership with France Télévisions.

The mutual insurance companies and AXA Group are major patrons of the 2025 edition of the Festival d’Avignon.