A solo performed by Héla Fattoumi and co-created with Éric Lamoureux, MANTA offers a point of view on one of most compelling questions being asked in French society today, the wearing of the Muslim veil.
Choosing a radical position, the two choreographers chose to work with the experience of wearing the niqab (which covers the face except for the eyes — as well as the body). Using interspersed sections of pulsating rhythms, the sequences of this new work, which premiered at the 2009 Montpellier Dance Festival, highlight and translate with immense clarity the suffocating of the female body. The tension ranges between the intimate and the universal and is absolutely palpable for the spectator.
Treating the fabric as a true diktat imposed by religion and men, Héla Fattoumi, an emancipated dancer of Tunisian origins, frees herself from that fabric, leaving space for the urgent, resounding expression of a free voice and body.