Selma & Sofiane Ouissi

“Here(s)” (2011)

“We are two distinct persons, but we really make one artist. We have forever lived with this feeling of wholeness, completeness and achievement, only possible when we are two”.

Selma and Sofiane Ouissi currently live in two different cities: Paris and Tunis. This geographical separation has forced them to find creative means to keep rehearsing together every day. The answer came through one of today’s most fascinating yet simple communication tools: Skype. With the help of Yacine Sebti, they created a poetic interactive video dance performance. The duo invites the audience to enter a world that transcends the nature of performing arts itself: the physical presence of the performer, his/her (a)live interaction with the one sharing the stage and the spectator. The screen turns into a peephole, and the entire performance raises questions about the essence of presence, distance, proximity, isolation, immediacy, mobility, the use of new technologies in the arts and voyeurism. But isn’t this separation at the center of the dramaturgy of this choreography? Does it not reflect the virtual nature of today’s relationships?

Brother and sister, Sofiane and Selma Ouissi have been performing together since the beginning of their careers. Graduates of the Tunis National Academy for Music and Dance and the Dance National Center of Tunis, and holders of the Diplôme d’Etat d’Enseignement de la Danse (France), they are considered as main figures of the Arab contemporary dance scene.

The duo has performed with major Tunisian and international theater directors and choreographers (Fadhel Jaziri, Hichem Rostom, Martino Muller, Cie de Michèle Anne de Mey…) in world class venues and performing arts platforms (Théatre de la Ville de Paris, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Tanzquartier Wien, Danse à Aix, Bouffes du Nord in Paris, Festival de Carthage). Their own creations include “STOP... BOOM” (2004) and “Waçl” (2007), among other performances and have been staged across the region and Europe.

In 2007, Selma and Sofiane Ouissi created "Dream City", a multidisciplinary festival in Tunis. In 2010 they launched the artistic and urban magazine “ZAT”, among other cultural projects and pedagogical activities in the fields of movement, dance and new circus.

Software, digital and video artist Yacine Sebti has been developing programs and software using Max/MSP, Jitter or SoftVNS since an early age. First aiming to create useful tools, he gradually showed growing interest in the possibilities of interaction between the performer, the spectator and the machine.

Artistic collaborations include: Marcio Ambrosio (animator), Pascal Base (experimental filmmaker), Tom Heene (video artist), Jaouad Essounani (theatre director)