Festival theatre, Edinburgh The choreographer combines a homophobic killing from 2012 with a remembrance for his father in an often rapturous show about healing
Ihsane review – Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui leads us from brutal tragedy to euphoric harmony
Festival theatre, Edinburgh The choreographer combines a homophobic killing from 2012 with a remembrance for his father in an often rapturous show about healing In 2019 at the Edinburgh international festival, the Swiss...
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Festival theatre, Edinburgh The choreographer combines a homophobic killing from 2012 with a remembrance for his father in an often rapturous show about healing In 2019 at the Edinburgh international festival, the Swiss director Milo Rau staged an intense theatrical investigation, La Reprise: Histoire(s) du Theatre (I), recreating a homophobic killing in...
Key points
- Festival theatre, Edinburgh The choreographer combines a homophobic killing from 2012 with a remembrance for his father in an often rapturous show about healing In 2019 at the Edinburgh...
- The murder of Ihsane Jarfi, seven years earlier, had made headlines and the news disturbed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who was just a little older, also gay and had a Belgian mother...
- Cherkaoui now arrives at the same festival with his own act of remembrance, every bit as engrossing as Rau’s, yet more expansive.
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This story is part of the Dance coverage. The original reporting source identified by the page is The Guardian. Publication date: August 19, 2026 at 06:28.
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In 2019 at the Edinburgh international festival, the Swiss director Milo Rau staged an intense theatrical investigation, La Reprise: Histoire(s) du Theatre (I), recreating a homophobic killing in Belgium. The murder of Ihsane Jarfi, seven years earlier, had made headlines and the news disturbed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who was just a little older, also gay and had a Belgian mother and Moroccan father like Jarfi.
Cherkaoui now arrives at the same festival with his own act of remembrance, every bit as engrossing as Rau’s, yet more expansive. It pays tribute, too, to the choreographer’s father who died 30 years ago and whose past is interwoven with Jarfi’s death. If that raises any qualms, Cherkaoui’s larger point is about the interconnectedness of all lives and his characters morph into each other. He takes his cue from the victim’s first name, which essentially means “benevolence”, and counters the production’s disturbing flashes of violence with a floating lightness, whether in breakdance or traditional forms, and by presenting ideals of harmonious joy and kindness.
Source: The Guardian
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