Developed during a residency at the Ballet national de Marseille, Blossom, by Sandrine Lescourant also known as Musafa extends the spirit of collective celebration and the simple joy of coming into bloom to the widest possible audience.

Since the premiere of Blossom in Cavaillon on 7 February, Sandrine Lescourant has come to appreciate just how far the work has travelled. Combining choreography, live singing, and live music, the piece marks the culmination of a long artistic journey.

“It has taken us ten years to reach a point where we can speak about love together, because it places us in a state of extreme vulnerability. Speaking about love is not the easy option. On the contrary, it is a search for simplicity.”

The piece begins with a question addressed directly to the audience at once simple and profound:

“What makes you blossom?”

“That question opens the door to answers as varied as God, the pleasure of a warm shower, family, or friendship each in its deepest sense. In the end, what they all seem to share is the experience of connection, of sharing. That is the common thread, the emotional chord we keep returning to. Helping people discover that is what drives me. And so is discovering what makes others blossom…”

An invitation to the art of blooming and flourishing, Blossom brings together six non-professional participants many from communities traditionally considered underserved or excluded from cultural institutions with six professional dancer-musicians. Half of the residency sessions took place in places such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals, including Les Baumettes prison in Marseille.

While the residency at the Ballet national de Marseille gave the piece greater technical solidity, its most profound transformation was human. The encounters at Les Baumettes prison with extraordinary individuals became the heart of the project.

“That was the most important part. Like the former inmate who came to the premiere in Cavaillon to speak about the transformative power of art in every environment.”

This is not Sandrine Lescourant’s first collaboration with the Ballet national de Marseille. In 2021, she transmitted Lazarus adapted from Oona Doherty’s solo to the dancers of the company.

“I loved bringing together people from different backgrounds around this solo. Coming from hip-hop myself, it felt incredibly powerful to make something that speaks to the suffering of the streets resonate within an institution. And Lazarus, on a spiritual level, is also about rebirth and resurrection…”

With Blossom, Sandrine Lescourant creates a bridge between the company’s many artistic worlds hip-hop, soul, Afro, electronic music, gospel… But the work is also an exploration of the space between bodies. Through dance, it uncovers layers of emotion.

“The non-professional dancers carry within them a deeply instinctive, almost primal joy that resonates with extraordinary force. I wanted to bring everyone together around the same heartfelt intention to imagine invisible threads connecting us all to a shared heart.”

Each performance of Blossom begins long before the curtain rises, with three preparatory sessions involving the non-professional participants. Then comes the performance itself: the warm-up, the gradual exchange of glances, the emergence of a shared vibration carried by the sound of the drums. The dramaturgy unfolds in successive layers of resistance, crossed collectively, moving between moments of intense energy and quieter passages. Everything is directed towards a process of blossoming. And in the end, the performance opens into a great collective dance celebration.

Participatory, evolving, and never the same twice, Blossom brought no fewer than thirty people to the stage for its premiere. Each performance becomes a meeting place where individual stories are allowed to blossom.

“Bodies tell extraordinary stories. Bodies speak. They struggle. The way someone walks, the way they look at another person, the way they settle into space, the way they respond to a sound… all of it speaks.”

“I want to create a performance that always remains open one that keeps moving and embraces life.”

BLOSSOM
Sandrine Lescourant – Cie Kilaï

Re-creation

3–4 July 2025
Théâtre de la Sucrière, Marseille

Presented as part of the Festival de Marseille