The company MPTA will present two shows:
WE ARE LIKE THOSE TOADS  . . .
ALI 

October 28, 19:00 h. | Boris Hristov House of Culture – Plovdiv

WE ARE LIKE THOSE TOADS . . .
Concept: Ali Thabet, Hèdi Thabet 
Director of music: Sofyann Ben Youssef 
Of and with: Artemis Stavridis, Mathurin Bolze, Hèdi Thabet
Musicians: Stefanos Filos, Ioannis Niarchos, Nidhal Yahyaoui, Sofyann Ben Youssef 
Sound: Jérôme Fèvre 
Light design: Ana Samoilovich
Duration: 32 min
Producers: Ali Thabet, Hèdi Thabet and la Compagnie Mpta 
Co-producers: Célestins - Théâtre de Lyon, Théâtre du Rond-Point - Paris
With the support of: Théâtre National - Bruxelles, La Cascade – PNC Rhône-Alpes and Bois de l'Aune – Communauté du Pays d’Aix

ALI
Director: Mathurin Bolze, Hèdi Thabet 
Musicians: Ioannis Niarchos, Stefanos Filos
Sound:  Jérome Fêvre 
Light design: Ana Samoilovich
With the support of: La Brèche, Pôle National des Arts du Cirque de Basse-Normandie,le Studio Lucien -  Lyon, Les Nouvelles Subsistances - Lyon. 
Duration: 22 min
Photography: © Manon Valentin

About the shows:
WE ARE LIKE THOSE TOADS . . . and ALI are two shows that will be performed in one night. They are the result of the artistic collaboration between Hedi Thabet, Ali Thabet, Mathurin Bolze, Artemis Stavridi, and Sofyann Ben Youssef. NOUS SOMMES PAREILS À CES CRAPAUDS . . . is Ali Thabet and Hedi Thabet’s latest show, in which the choreographers explore the topic of love, marriage, and man-woman relationships in their complexity and many aspects. Two men and a woman embark on the journey of love with all its uncertainties, doubts, and ambiguities. The three characters on stage interact with each other in all possible ways and the initial image of the married couple undergoes many transformations and modifications as a result of the third man’s intervention. The difference in the performers’ bodies adds another layer to the sense of instability and vulnerability of the couple, love, and life situations. Also on stage is a band which creates the musical atmosphere, accompanying the dance in real time. The vocal performances of songs from the rebetiko repertoire – the music of Greek refugees from the beginning of the 20th Century – and Tunisian folk motifs, evoke the southern air of idle, familial, traditional, and communal experience. The Greek songs, performed in Arabian voices, convey the characters’ suffering, longing, joy, and the happiness or unhappiness that love brings.
The second show, ALI, was created in 2008 by Mathurin Bolze and Hedi Thabet. It explores the issues of otherness and difference and society’s ways of perceiving them. The duo begins their dance, using a chair and a lamp, to the accompaniment of Greek folk music. Two characters different in their physical potential meet and communicate beyond words. It is a meeting in which the single body splits into two, or the two bodies merge into a Siamese whole; two identities either project themselves onto each other or produce a new third human reality.
Although the two shows were created five years apart, they are inextricably bound up as two parts of one whole due to the shared theme of otherness, difference, ambiguity, duality and desire. Rebetiko – the music of the Greek Diaspora from Asia Minor that emerged at the beginning of the 20th Century – also contributes to the thematic interaction between the two pieces.

About the company:
The work of the French company LES MAINS, LES PIEDS ET LA TÉTE AUSSI, established in 2011, combines dance elements with circus techniques. Their pieces are poetical, emotional, highly visual, and extremely skilful in their circus and acrobatic vocabulary. But the circus skills have not been used as an end in themselves - they are the medium for socially and emotionally charged stories whose depth and brilliant performance enchant and move the audience. The co-founder and artistic director of the MPTA Company is director, choreographer, acrobat and dancer Mathurin Bolze. Before MPTA was established, Bolze had worked for various contemporary circus companies. During his work for MPTA, Bolze has produced many dance pieces such as La cabane aux fenêtres (2001), Fenêtres (2002), Tangentes (2005), Ali (2008) together with Hedi Thabet, Du goudron et des plumes (2010), utoPistes (2011) together with collective XY, and A bas bruit (2012). 
Hedi Thabet is an acrobat and a dancer who, at the age of eight, began to study in a circus school in Brussels, where he was mainly engaged in juggling and acrobatics. When he was seventeen, he decided to leave school and devote himself to juggling. Having been diagnosed with bone cancer, he lost his leg and gradually focused on acting techniques and movement. Apart from being a performer in MPTA, he is also the company’s artistic adviser. Ali Thabet is a choreographer, a dancer and an actor. He has worked together with Josef Nadj, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, etc. In 2012, together with his brother Hedi, Ali developed Rayahzone – a show for three performers and five musicians, playing Tunisian Sufi music. In 2013, both of them presented the Nous sommes pareils à ces crapauds qui dans l'austère nuit des marais s' appellent et ne se voient pas, ployant à leur cri d'amour toute la fatalité de l' univers ... (verses from French poet René Char’s poetry collection Fureur et mystère (1948)).