Les Mains de ma Mère

Intergenerational musical theatre in partnership with Le Fil et la Guinde Production: Compagnie Ratibus

Ratiba Mokri invited her daughter Nico Mokri to create this show together. Les Mains de ma mère (My Mother's Hands) is a story of filiation and transmission. Three women: one who tells the story of her mother, accompanied by her daughter who plays live music composed from the text about her grandmother. In this show, Ratiba Mokri tells stories about her mother. She speaks of her through her hands, which are the main characters in the narrative. She recounts her life, her country of origin which she had to flee during the Algerian war, her life as a woman who raised 10 children, her beauty secrets, the sensuality of her gestures when making couscous. Les Mains de ma mère is also the story of a woman, 1m50 tall, who, despite a life full of pitfalls, managed to see life with strength and philosophy. A mother who passed on values to her children despite her illiteracy. Les Mains de ma mère is a poetic, funny, and tender text.

Genesis of the writing

Ratiba Mokri wrote this text at her mother's bedside in palliative care, where she passed away a few days later. “I was sitting there, by her side, I was looking at her and particularly at her magnificent hands, and the words came. She offered me her hands as final inspiring caresses. It was a very intense and profound moment for me to accompany my little mother to the afterlife. She was in the early stages of a semi-coma, and before she left us, I read this text to her.”

Music

Nico Mokri's musical compositions are based on North African sounds, without falling into the illustration of clichés of a culture she knows little about. They also incorporate noises and prerecorded sounds. The music is played live, with very different shades and colours, the aim of which is to create a parallel writing to resonate with the energy and emotion of the text, rather than images of another country. Nico composed the music upstream of the show with various poetic instruments.