My choreographic work Le Souk is a deeply personal reflection on my travels to Aourir, on the Moroccan coast, with four friends from my hometown, Chamonix. The piece encapsulates the connections we formed, the immersive experiences we shared, and the transformation of our identities through movement, art, and music. This essay explores the process of creating the choreography, blending memories, artistic research, and practical experimentation. Through Le Souk, I sought to recreate the feeling of being caught in a perpetual 24-hour loop, oscillating between chaos and calm, connection and isolation. The title Le Souk has a dual meaning: it refers to the Moroccan markets, but also plays on the French phrase “Ta chambre c’est le souk” — “Your room is a mess.” This notion of beautiful chaos perfectly encapsulates the piece’s essence. It is a fragmented exploration of memory and identity, where each layer of sound, movement, and visual art interweaves to form an immersive, ever-shifting artistic world. Our time in Morocco was a sensory overload—the chaotic markets, the relentless waves, and the dusty air that seemed to coat everything. We stayed at Banana Beach Surf School, where our days were spent surfing, horseback riding, and exploring rock pools. The ocean became a recurring metaphor for both struggle and peace: the pressure of diving under waves, the exhilaration of standing on a board, and the serenity of floating far out at sea. The markets, or souks, were labyrinthine and overwhelming, filled with repetition and endless discovery. Throughout the trip, I kept a sketchbook to document our experiences—sugar packets, film from my broken camera, beads, feathers, postcards, and Polaroids. These fragments of our journey became the foundation for both the artwork and choreography, representing layers of memory and emotion. Back in London, I began crafting a multimedia canvas that depicted the house where we stayed (fig. below). The first layer consisted of twine, wool, and feathers, echoing the omnipresent Moroccan dust—like glitter, it was trapped in our belongings. I then smeared plaster over this base, carving textures with an oyster card (cut into zigzags), gradually giving shape to the structure of the house. Additional objects—chess pieces from the market, coins (dirhams), and fabric scraps—were layered into the piece, incorporating this process directly influenced my choreography. I wanted the dancers to embody a similar accumulation, with each gesture adding another layer of organized mess and chaos. Inspired by British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s Dirty White Trash (Art Works for Change, n.d.), their pile of trash reminded me of the streets in Morocco, where trash piles often accumulated in the absence of bins. One day, when my friend asked a local boy where to dispose of a banana peel, he took it to a nearby trash pile and simply tossed it on top. This piece of art helped shape the characters of my choreography—fragmented, chaotic, and constantly shifting. In the studio, I conducted a series of improvisation and drawing exercises. I began with three-minute movement improvisations, followed by three minutes of sketching with charcoal and oil pastels. Later in the process, I set a creative task for the dancers: they created their own monsters or alter egos, naming them and identifying characteristics such as facial expressions, movement qualities, and sonic elements. This exercise mirrored the process of shedding and discovering new identities while traveling. In Morocco, we felt as though we left behind our everyday selves, allowing new versions of ourselves to emerge. These monsters became an integral part of the piece, inspired by my workshops with the Beaver Dam Company and their shapeshifting monster in All I Need (Equilibre Nuithonie, 2021), which mirrored the ocean's ebb and flow. I also integrated movements inspired by our daily activities—swimming, clapping rhythms, holding hands, dancing together, hugging, swaying, “la bise” (French greetings), rolling in the sand, gazing at the stars, screaming, laughing, running, and galloping on horses. The physicality of these moments transformed into choreographic motifs, influenced by Hofesh Shechter’s storytelling practice. I was deeply inspired by his piece and sound score in Theatre of Dreams (hofeshshechterco, 2024). Music played a crucial role in setting the emotional tone of the piece. I collaborated with Gabriel Emery-Rowbotham, a third-year BAMPI student at Trinity Laban, to create a layered sound score that reflected the complexity of the choreography. The score incorporated rhythms, samples, ambient sounds, and an extract of We’ll Meet Again by The Ink Spots—a bittersweet anchor amidst the chaos. Gabriel suggested incorporating live DJing during the performance to add more layers and presence, allowing the music to breathe and evolve with the dancers in real-time. Rehearsals were a constant process of experimentation and adjustment. I filmed each session to review the material outside the studio, but I soon realized the piece lacked threedimensionality when viewed through a screen. I had to set the camera aside and engage directly with the live process, working in the presence of memory rather than through video. We also explored pressure and resistance through partner work, using contact to counter movements and understand how resistance affects movement. However, the faster the movements became, the more we lost this quality. We had to revisit the exercise repeatedly to maintain the essence of resistance. We faced challenges with pacing and depth. At times, the dance felt stuck in the background, requiring choreographic adjustments to bring certain moments forward. The dancers’ input was invaluable in feeding the creative flow. Costume and lighting choices were key to amplifying the piece's emotional tone. I envisioned layered clothing—sheer fabrics, skirts over trousers—to blur silhouettes and reflect the complexity of identity. This choice was inspired by the bittersweet tension we felt as Western women in Morocco, contrasting our bikinis with the local women’s more conservative beach attire. Lighting shifted from cool blue hues to intense reds, with moments of warmth in between. A spotlight would illuminate one dancer lip-syncing to We’ll Meet Again, adding a theatrical rupture to the otherwise abstract performance. Smoke would evoke the Moroccan dust and sandstorms, immersing the audience in the sensory landscape of the trip. Le Souk became more than just a choreography—it evolved into a living archive of our Moroccan experience. The piece encapsulates the bittersweet nature of travel: the longing, the discovery, and the inevitable return to reality. To conclude, Le Souk embodies the power of collaboration, the transformative nature of travel, and the boundless potential of interdisciplinary art-making. It is a work that continues to evolve, much like the selves we discover when we step beyond the boundaries of our everyday lives. Bibliography Equilibre Nuithonie. (2021, December 6). ALL I NEED – Beaver Dam Company / Edouard Hue [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjh-z__m85k hofeshshechterco. (2024, September 9). Theatre of Dreams (Official Trailer) [Video]. ` YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4N0tAbDxPY Tim Noble and Sue Webster – Art Works for change. (n.d.). Art Works for Change. https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/tim-noble-and-sue-webster/