Returning to the Romaeuropa Festival, (LA)HORDE—the French collective leading the Ballet National de Marseille—reasserts dance within the imagination of Generation Z through an audacious vocabulary suspended between pop culture and research. In this new creation, conceived against the flow of time, dance seeks to return to a moment preceding catastrophe, before erosion, confronting the monstrous figures inhabiting our collective narratives, as well as the silences and gestures of surrender.
Following Room with a View and Age of Content (from which Romaeuropa presented excerpts last year with Chronicles), this new work takes shape as a collective introspection, a descent beneath the surface of everyday gestures and structures of power, interrogating our relationship with inheritance and transformation.
(LA)HORDE is a French artistic collective founded in 2013 by Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, and Arthur Harel. Since 2019, it has directed the Ballet National de Marseille, transforming it into a global platform for the most radical and inclusive forms of contemporary dance. Their interdisciplinary practice integrates choreography, film, installation, and digital arts, questioning the role of the body in the digital age.
In 2017, TO DA BONE introduced the concept of “post-Internet dance,” exploring online subcultures such as jumpstyle and voguing as forms of collective expression, establishing the company on the international scene. Their most acclaimed works—Room With A View (2020, with Rone), Age of Content (2023), and Deep Stream (2024, Musée du Louvre)—address themes such as climate collapse, surveillance, and digital over-saturation. These creations have toured major venues in Paris, New York, London, Lisbon, and Kyoto, consistently selling out and receiving wide international recognition.
(LA)HORDE has collaborated with Madonna (Celebration Tour), Sam Smith, and Ivo van Hove (in I Want Absolute Beauty with Sandra Hüller and music by PJ Harvey), and has created choreography for luxury fashion houses such as Chanel, Hermès, and Burberry. The collective has been featured on the covers of The New York Times Arts, M Le Magazine du Monde, Pin-Up, Interlope, and other publications, reflecting the strong cultural and transversal impact of its work.
A performance for 12 dancers
Concept and direction: (LA)HORDE — Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, Arthur Harel
Choreography: (LA)HORDE in collaboration with the dancers and ballet masters of the Ballet national de Marseille
Artistic assistant: Nadia El Hakim
Artistic collaborators (choreography): Valentina Pace, Jacquelyn Elder, Angel Martinez Hernandez, Julien Monty
External consultant: Alain Damasio
Set design: Julien Peissel
Technical design: Hervé Cherblanc
Technical consultants: Rémi d’Apolito, Julien Parra, Sébastien Mathé
Original music: Pierre Aviat
Lighting design: Eric Wurtz in collaboration with Gaspard Juan
Costumes: Salomé Poloudenny, assisted by Sandra Pomponio and Agathe Palthey
Intimacy coordination: Julie De Bohan – ICIE
Acrobatic consultancy: Nin Khelifa
Set construction: workshops of the Comédie de Genève, Sud Side les ateliers
Scenic decoration: Osman El Hakim, Sandrine Boutin, Myriam Valet, Cristian Zurita
Special effects workshop: CLSFX Atelier 69
General stage management: Rémi d’Apolito
With the dancers of the Ballet national de Marseille
Cast (alternating): Nina Auerbach, Isaïa Badaoui, Alida Bergakker, Arno Brys, Isla Clarke, Pierpaolo Cosentino, Titouan Crozier, João De Castro Franca, Nathan Gombert, Jonatan Myhre Jorgensen, Yoshiko Kinoshita, Dana Pajarillaga, Kevin Pajarillaga, Aya Sato, Gabriella Sibeko, Eden Solomon, Elena Valls Garcia, Luca Völkel, Layne Paradis Willis, Lung Ssu Yen
Special thanks to the permanent and intermittent teams of the Ballet national de Marseille
Production: Ballet national de Marseille
Co-production
La Comédie de Genève
Théâtre de la Ville-Paris – Chaillot Théâtre national de la Danse
Charleroi Danse, Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie
Sadler’s Wells, London
Agora Cité internationale de la danse — Centre chorégraphique national Montpellier Occitanie
Festspielhaus St. Pölten (Austria)
Maison de la Danse de Lyon
La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, scène nationale
Théâtre de Lorient, Centre dramatique national
TAP Scène nationale de Grand Poitiers
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam
Théâtre des Salins, Scène nationale de Martigues
International Summerfestival Kampnagel, Hamburg
Teatro Municipal do Porto
The Ballet national de Marseille is supported by the French Ministry of Culture / Directorate General for Artistic Creation, DRAC PACA, the City of Marseille, and the Fondation BNP Paribas.
