• Photo: Samadoss Maïtoul

  • Photo: Samadoss Maïtoul

Taroo in Portsmouth

Company Zid / Said Mouhssine
Moroccan

Taroo  is a Parkour and circus show telling the everyday story of what happens in streets across the world. With a fusion of acrobatics, Chinese pole and urban street moves, this show is not all that it seems. Performed and created by Moroccan circus artist Said Mouhssine – a free runner, stage director, actor and stuntman – expect Mouhssine’s distinctive brand of circus comedy and Parkour movement.

A London version of Taroo  was developed in partnership with the Babylon Migrants Project and performed in multiple public squares and neighbourhoods in London and beyond through summer 2023.

The Portsmouth version was in collaboration with Funk Format. Local young people from the Solent area added an exciting new live element enhancing the show’s experience.

This project marked the start of an ambitious three-year program led by Crying Out Loud, focusing on strengthening community connections and shared cultural understanding through creativity. We will support and present diverse forms of theatre, including visual and site-specific performances, in the Solent area, nationally and internationally.

Taroo has support from Institut Français Maroc, La Cascade Pôle National des Arts du Cirque Ardèche-Rhône Alpes, Le Prunier Sauvage, Compagnie Cabas, Cirkeole, La Passerelle, scène nationale de Gap, Ecole de cirque nationale Shems’y Maroc and Mlles F.

  • Company Biography

    Zid  translates as ‘move forward’ in the Moroccan dialect Darija.

    Company Zid, comprised of circus artist Said Mouhssine, combines circus and Parkour to create shows often inspired by the daily life of unemployed Moroccan youth, who may not envision a bright future. Moving forward is universal for every struggling youngster in the world and Company Zid has the strong urge to bear witness to their struggle but also to their creativity and constant ingenuity in finding solutions to keep moving. To try, miss, try again, not give up, bounce back and simply to live.

    With a Parkour background, Said is committed to spread its core values: to overcome walls, to push your limits, to jump and to move on.

    Said is a free runner, a stage director, an actor and stunt performer with a specialism in Chinese Pole. Since the beginning of his career, he has been developing circus arts and Parkour in Morocco. He began with acrobatics on the beach and started Parkour on the streets of Casablanca. With his friends, he created the first Moroccan Parkour Association in 2007 and went to the Moroccan National Circus School “Shems’y” in Salé for three years.

    Said is also a Chinese pole teacher in Balthazar’s circus school in Montpellier and le Salto in Ales and Metz.