CommonPROD premieres in November!
Three projects coproduced by Common Stories partners will premiere in November in Portugal and Belgium.
Copacabana in the 1970s, while the disco is in full swing, the hearts of Latin and African-American immigrants — whole or broken — pulsed in a looping hope for a happy ending.
A few decades later, the world is at war. Miss Universe takes refuge in a bunker that was, at the height of Brazilian fascism, a gay disco frequented by her uncle. Combining materials from the archive of her uncle Ricardo Wagner with fiction, and inspired by Richard Wagner’s concept of the total artwork, Diego Bragà offers with the hyperpop opera We at the Nightclub Suffer Together and through a transfeminist lens a glimpse of a beautiful future ahead.
An Alkantara production, co-produced by afriCOLOGNE, as part of Common Stories, a Creative Europe programme financed by the European Union. With support of OPART, E.P.E./Estúdios Victor Córdon and TalentLAB 2025.
Diego Bragà is a CommonLAB artist 2024.
→ Premiere on 14 and 15 November at Espaço do Tempo (XL Box) / Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal
In Cadences créoles, dix mille fois dédoublées, Inés Sybille Vooduness and Malvin Montero glide through questions inspired by the Marassa Jumeaux, the divine twins in Vodou iconography. Using a unique and extremely physical vocabulary mixing Angolan Kuduro, Jamaican Dancehall and Dominican Dembow, dancers forge a new set of images — a metallic, spiralling, sticky, playful, and dangerous poetics. Through syncretism, code blurring and webs of diasporic connections, this union reterritorializes a singular, protective, and strategic spirituality.
An Alkantara production, co-produced by the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles and the MC93 - Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, as part of Common Stories, a Creative Europe programme financed by the European Union. Inés Sybille Vooduness is a CommonLAB artist 2024.
→ Premiere on 14 and 15 November at Espaço do Tempo (Oficina Magina) / Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal
In Cis-tem Error, the Lebanese queer artist Nadim Bahsoun proposes an immersive experience that takes you behind the stage through corridors, stairs and hidden rooms. In these dark places, an intimate ritual unfolds full of stories, smells, tastes, song and dance. Bahsoun tells us about his search for safety, about war and colonial traumas and about the indomitability of his grandmother Amina, a woman who rebuilt her house with her own hands after it was burnt down by the French army.
Co-produced by the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles and Riksteatern, as part of Common Stories, a Creative Europe programme financed by the European Union.
Nadim Bahsoun is a CommonLAB artist 2024.
→ Premiere on 9 and 10 November at Budascoop, as part of the Next Festival, Kortrijk, Belgium
Cis-tem Error will be shown at the Rencontres à l’échelle in Marseille in June 2026 and at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles in December 2026
CommonMOB tours in November!
By offering mobility grants, CommonMOB enhances the visibility of iconic performances that question notions of diversity. Three projects will be shown in November, between Bobigny, Brussels and Lisbon.
Silence, ça tourne by Chrystèle Khodr and Nadim Deaibes
Based on the true story of Eva Ståhl, a Swedish nurse and survivor of the massacre at the Palestinian camp of Tel Al Zaatar, Silence, ça tourne is a reflection on the traces left by witnesses to history’s great upheavals.
→ 18-22 November at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussels
→ 26-30 November at the MC93, Bobigny
umuko by Dorothée Munyaneza
Invoking the umuko, the healing tree, the ancestral tree, the guardian of stories, Dorothée Munyaneza invites four young artists, poets, dancers, musicians, from the Rwandese scene who navigate between the legacy of the past, the precariousness of everyday life, and a future that belongs to them.
→ 14-15 November at Culturgest, as part of the Alkantara Festival, Lisbon
Galactic Crush II: Into the Cold by Stephanie Kayal and Abed Kobeissy
With a subtle dark humour, Brussels-based Lebanese choreographer Stephanie Kayal and musician Abed Kobeissy recount this interstellar journey towards unknown icy lands, where memories of home and family lead to a possible forgiveness for the world’s failures.
Galactic Crush II is a CommonPROD project, supported by the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles and Alkantara, as part of Common Stories, a Creative Europe programme financed by the European Union.
→ 22-23 November at Alkantara, Lisbon
CommonLAB 2025 is over!
On 23 October, the CommonLAB programmes ended up at the MC93 with a public presentation of the 8 artists: Bruno Brandolino, Eslam Elnebishy, Keli Freitas, Xirley Harthey Ubilla, Sepideh Khodarahmi, Maria Mercedes Flores Mujica, Emmanuel Ndefo and Massandje Sanogo.
In images, some highlights of this very special day…
Decenter the Stage
Looking back ON Common Stories
Three days of reflection to look back over the three years of Common Stories.
On December 11, two round tables will gather members of the Good Practices Factory groups, as well as local professionals to reflect around possible strategies for sustainable transformation towards diversity. La Riposte, a lively and incisive performance by Laurence Rosier on how to say no, stand up and fight back, will close the day.
December 12 will start with a workshop for Good Practices Factory members by Anusha Tyson, Development officer at the Riksteatern, followed in the afternoon by round tables gathering 2023, 2024 and 2025 CommonLAB artists, as well Brussel-based artists and activists.
These round tables are prepared and will be moderated by Joëlle Sambi, associate artist to Théâtre National, and Sylvia Botella, dramaturg at the Théâtre National.
In the evening, a public conversation will bring together Mame-Fatou Niang, artist and associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, co-director of the documentary film Mariannes Noires, Hortense Archambault, director of the MC93, as well as artists Pankaj Tiwari (CommonLAB 2024) and Emmanuel Ndefo (CommonLAB 2025).
Finally, on 13 December, members of the Common Stories board will have their final brainstorming session around what’s next…
A programme devised by Safia Kessas, journalist, film director and member of the Advisory Committee, in dialogue with the Théâtre National team.
→ 11-13 December at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Common Stories has been initiated by the Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, MC93 I Bobigny (France), in partnership with the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles I Brussels (Belgium), Alkantara, Culturgest I Lisbon (Portugal), africologneFESTIVAL I Cologne (Germany), Riksteatern I Stockholm (Sweden), in association with TR Warszawa I Warsaw (Poland) and in 2025 with Orient Productions (Cairo, Egypt) and Les Récréâtrales (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso).