Trained pharmacist pivots to interpretive dance in a response to his ancestry

By Heather Longley

For years, Hervé Koubi moved through life with the intention of bringing pride to his family name, going to college and earning a degree in pharmacy. But there were things he could not let go of — his desire to dance and to make sense of that same family name.

“Hervé is a very French name … and Koubi is not French,” Compagnie Hervé Koubi Executive Director Guillaume Gabriel said in a Center for the Performing Arts virtual visit.

Over time, Koubi trained in ballet, and was persistent in wanting to know the family history, something that was never spoken of. He insisted to his father that he explain the name discrepancy. Finally, when in his mid-20s, the elder Koubi relented and revealed a secret family ancestry to son Hervé.

“He thought that he had roots in France, but actually, no … he was from Africa,” Gabriel said. “So, Hervé, who thought that his great-grandparents were coming from Brittany, were placed in France and went back with the kind of colonization in the 19th century; and then came back to France again with the events of independency in Algeria. So, it was a big shock for him.”

Compagnie Hervé Koubi dancers will translate the choreographer’s personal journey in “What the Day Owes to the Night” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, in Eisenhower Auditorium. Visit Compagnie Hervé Koubi online for more information about the performance and a free, related Joyfull community event.

‘Not an easy story’

“[In France,] We really divide in our world north of Mediterranean, which is Europe, and south of Mediterranean, which is Africa,” Gabriel said. “But if you look at the geography, really, this Mediterranean Sea is just like a big lake.”

Gabriel said that in spite of having fought on the side of France during the Algerian War, Koubi’s parents were not welcomed back among their former fellow Frenchmen with open arms.

“It was not the case,” Gabriel said. “They were coming from the south side of the Mediterranean basin, so they were the eternal aliens.”

So they raised Koubi in a hyper-French environment—speaking only French, doing extended academic studies and studying ballet in the classical tradition, Gabriel said.

In spite of the desire for total separation, France still needed access to Algeria, and Algerians still revered access to European culture and economy.

“‘What the Day Owes to the Night’ could be also seen as what love has to hate, of what loves goes to war, because it’s not a clear story, the story between France and Algeria. Algeria used to be a part of France, and they decided to split in 1962,” Gabriel said. “And they say, this is France, and this is Algeria. And Algeria built their identity on hate toward France, and it’s difficult because a lot of Algerians dream to come to France. It’s not an easy story between France and Algeria.”

“Every war is hard, is awful, but in the end, Algeria and France are still linked,” Koubi said in an interview on The Afikra Podcast.

Forgetting history, finding a brotherhood

“I think his parents totally erased the past,” Gabriel said. “They said, OK forget your history and now become French. It’s as if you want to put a square in a circle. It doesn’t match.”

As part of his personal and artistic journey, Koubi and company traveled to Algeria to discover and understand his roots. He auditioned and trained street dancers, many self-taught in the martial arts, capoeira and hip-hop disciplines.

“When he met those dancers, he really found some connections,” Gabriel said.

Ancestral energy, intergenerationality and the roles they might play

“I’ll say more like we ‘pass dance [on]’ instead of just create something out of nothing,” Gabriel said of Compangie Hervé Koubi. “Of course, we are in the kind of choreographic world, but I don’t believe in the spontaneous generation. It’s just that there is a big story …, and we can’t look in front of us without thinking of what has been behind. … We didn’t create anything, we just integrate and make it ours in a different way.”

With an evolving cast of dancers to interpret each performance, “it’s also interesting to see how a piece can move in history,” Gabriel said.

Of the nearly 300 dancers to audition, only one woman responded to the casting call. But Gabriel said a good dancer will be able to explore all corners of oneself, including “their fragility and to find within themselves their part of femininity. It doesn’t mean that they [act as part of] the women on stage.”

The dancers’ singularity aside, “When the end comes, the fraternal feeling that suffuses the work is amplified as they link hands together in a chain, stomping their feet, with one dancer breaking into spoken Arabic. In a final moment of stillness, they once again raise their arms to the sky,” wrote a reviewer for Dance Australia. “This is an extraordinary work, performed by a stupendously athletic group of dancers who together create moments of great beauty.”

Watch a preview of “What the Day Owes to the Night.” Visit Compagnie Hervé Koubi online for more information about the event.

Heather Longley is a communications specialist at the Center for the Performing Arts.