• Photo: Mario Del Curto

  • Photo: Mario Del Curto

Chouf Ouchouf

Chouf Ouchouf: the Medina, the old quarter, where it’s ten to a house, and a hundred to the narrowest street. Shout or you won’t be heard; push to the front or never be seen. Life and colour lie round every corner, animals and cigarette hawkers fill the squares. The city is unruly and chaotic, but that’s of no matter – beneath the clamour and fights of the market are the whispers of its other life. Dusk falls like a shutter, and then the night. Silently the walls open, and amid the maze-like streets and along the rooftops figures move on secret agendas.

Returning to the UK with Chouf Ouchouf  a show about what they know best – their home – the Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger collaborate with Swiss artists Zimmermann and de Perrot to capture the danger, joy and urgency of life in Tanger. Those who saw the Groupe’s last production, Taoub,  will find them more mature, stronger, and yet with the same rough charm, the same rich language of vernacular acrobatics that has been passed from generation to generation. With Chouf Ouchouf  they move through a set that floats apart and reassembles to present the many faces of a bewildering and exciting landscape, taking in the old and the nearly new in search of the city’s beating heart.

Press

  • '…as simple as it is ingenious. That's the essence of this lovely show: creating magic out of nothing but human wit, daring and imagination.'

    Judith Mackrell, The Guardian

  • 'The show is not just a succession of acrobatic meaningless, it is rather a cascade of arts scenes seamlessly designed to plunge the audience directly into the atmosphere of life in Tangier, a city that have been able to mix modernity and authenticity.'

    Le Matin

  • 'There is something vital, deeply happy and alive, modest as well in each of these performers'

    Le Monde

  • Co-Producers

    Chouf Ouchouf  toured the UK in May and June 2011 to these venues – Scotland’s Eden Court and macrobert Arts Centre, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall Southbank Centre, Hall for Cornwall, Southampton’s Nuffield Theatre, Brighton Dome and Theatre Royal Norwich.

    Zimmermann and de Perrot, co-production: Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, Migros Culture Percentage, Le Volcan, scène nationale du Havre, Equinoxe, Scène nationale de Châteauroux, Espace Jean Legendre – Théâtre de Compiègne, MC2: Grenoble, Association Scènes du Maroc