By linking the creation of Avant la nuit with a reimagining of the fantastical narrative of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird, Edouard Hue presents a diptych in which parenthood becomes the prism through which to reflect on our era, its transformations and the intergenerational conflicts that shape it.

Avant la nuit immerses us in the intimacy of bedtime, that timeless moment between wakefulness and sleep in which the deeper dynamics of family life emerge. Two parents and ten children portrayed by adult performers: the ordinary gestures of care and upbringing become choreographic material, revealing both the tenderness and fragility of the family unit and its rituals.

With The Firebird, performed to Stravinsky’s complete score, the performance shifts into a symbolic and menacing universe. Drawn into the world of Kashchei, antagonist of the original ballet and a figure both fascinating and unsettling, the children gradually lose themselves within a space governed by conformity and manipulation, while their parents struggle to free them.

From the safety of the family cocoon to exposure to the wider world, from the desire to protect children to the necessity of allowing them to discover reality for themselves, the Geneva-based choreographer examines, through this double bill created at Comédie de Genève, the tensions at the heart of contemporary society.