Beauty, simplicity and poetry. Three concepts that fairly sum up the work of Lebanese collective Kahraba, which astounded and touched the hearts of young and old alike in its appearance at this festival with its piece Géologie d’une fable (Geology of a Fable). The Collectif Kahraba was created in 2007 with the conviction that art is a path towards dialogue and opening. Today it is made up of a network of actors, writers, stage directors, photographers, puppeteers and dancers set on poetically questioning the world in which we live and, of course, evolving.

Songe d’une forêt oubliée (Song of a Forgotten Forest) is a miniature piece to watch up close, which is why the company recommends an audience of at most 35 people at each show. Objects and puppets, sound and image, submerge viewers into a wordless dream. There is a little girl on a bit of wood, like a shipwreck survivor drug into the abyss by a storm that she knows nothing about. She is sleeping. Dreaming. And a forest takes her dream and the girl crosses the forest that protects her. But the forest is not empty, because no dream ever is. There are presences that delicately place the pieces she needs to awaken. And it shall have to be an awakening that is also a solace, solace for a wounded life, because no life is free from injury.

Regardless of our age, which doesn’t matter here, the piece encourages us to participate in this inner voyage and trust in the performance itself. There is no story to follow, no outcome to wait for. Just keeping the happy moment of lucidity in which you feel that something has been placed inside.