nº93 / MEHDI DAHKAN & MOHAMED BOURIRI / KMS RESISTANCE / PARIS
- Zoltan Alexander
- Jun 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 9
KMs of Resistance is a dance and sound performance by two extraordinary Moroccan dancers, using only their breath and bodies. It is a subtle confrontation of direct speech that is more and more silenced today by political regimes.
Review by Zoltan Alexander
BREATH TIGHT WHEN SPEECH IS SILENCED Mehdi Dahkan and Mohamed Bouriri breathe resistance
Breathing to fight
Breathing to resist
Breathing to conquer
Breathing to love
Breathing to feel you
Breathing when you suffer
Breathing to heal
Breathing when you want to talk
Breathing when you cannot talk
Breathing to breathe
Making you breathe
Making me breathe
Making me resistant
PHOTO / "KMs Resistance" by Mehdi Dahkan with Mohamed Bouriri / Photos © Courtesy of Camille Blake
KMs of Resistance is a sound performance and a choreographic masterpiece. Mehdi Dahkan’s performance with co-dancer Mohamed Bouriri explores the act of breathing, expressing resistance in a collective action. It draws inspiration from a millennia-old Aïta, a Moroccan oral tradition of protest against censorship, historically used to transmit messages and resistance during the French Protectorate in Morocco. Put it into a contemporary context, Dahkan’s choreography offers a subtle confrontation of today’s urgent issues, where direct speech is silenced and censored by political regimes.
Two extraordinary dancers, Mehdi Dahkan, originally from Tanger (Morocco), and Mohamed Bouriri, from Marrakesh (Morocco), deliver a concept and energy we have not seen for a very, very long time.
PHOTO / "KMs Resistance" by Mehdi Dahkan with Mohamed Bouriri / Photos © Courtesy of Camille Blake
Walking into the theatre, Mehdi Dahkan, is already on stage, slowly moving in circles, in a circle drawn with chalk. He is breathing heavily. The spectators take their places not just in the auditorium, but on the stage as well, sitting close around him. A second dancer, Mohamed Bouriri joins him, and both get into frantic breathing that becomes so utterly exhausting and suffocating that it changes our way of breathing. Or our way of thinking? It is impossible to escape them and not be under their influence. It is also rare that dancers during their performance control the breathing of the audience.
By placing breath at the centre as the essential sonic material of resistance, the work creates a form of protest without words. Breathing becomes a symbolic reminder of what unites us at the most fundamental level: our need for air, our fragility in life, our interdependence, and our crucial survival.
PHOTO / "KMs Resistance" by Mehdi Dahkan with Mohamed Bouriri / Photos © Courtesy of Cie Jil Z
It is about two individuals in two different circles who try to find a common ground. The dancers create meticulously synchronised and choreographed rhythmic sequences using only their breath and bodies. No words, no music. They engage their bodies in a frantic exploration: to rediscover breathing, a power of rebellion. Their skin-close breathing touches each other’s body and mind. One breathes in, the other breathes out, which gradually develops into a heavy breath-fight. The performance becomes extremely physical, and literally breathtaking.
PHOTO / "KMs Resistance" by Mehdi Dahkan with Mohamed Bouriri / Photos © Courtesy of Cie Jil Z
Halfway through, some random members from the audience are encouraged by subtle gestures of the dancers to make some breathing sounds. First, they breathe with the dancers, then the game changes and the audience start making the dancers move and breathe in a random improvisation. The interaction is perfect, as practically the entire theatre breathes together with the dancers and with each other. It is a fine mixture of obedience and control, with spontaneous movements based on the instructions of the audience and the dancers in perfect harmony.
Mehdi Dahkan and Mohamed Bouriri with their company Cie Jil Z, are currently touring the world: France, Italy, Spain, and will soon be performing at Robert Wilson’s much-celebrated Watermill Center in the state of New York.
INDEX
COVER
“KMs of Resistance” by Mehdi Dahkan and Mohamed Bouriri
Photo © Courtesy of Camille Blake
Cover design © ZOLTAN+MEDIA Paris
PERFORMANCE
“KMs of Resistance” by Mehdi Dahkan and Mohamed Bouriri
Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles Paris
Atelier De Paris / JUNE Projects / Paris (France)
12 June 2026
Le Happening / Lyon (France)
21 June 2026
The Watermill Center / New York (USA)
24 July 2026
PHOTOGRAPHERS
© Camille Blake
© Atelier de Paris CDCN
VIDEO
© Zoltan Alexander ZOLTAN+MEDIA Paris
© Atelier de Paris CDCN
VISUALS & WEBDESIGN
© Zoltan Alexander ZOLTAN+MEDIA Paris
WEB LINKS
MEHDI DAHKAN / CIE JIL Z
ATELIER DE PARIS CDCN
