Elias D’hollander – Magec / The Desert is the second instal- ment in your new trilogy. How does it relate to Atlas / The Mountain, the first instalment?

Radouan Mriziga – Both parts deal with the same re- search on landscape—the mountain, the desert, and the sea—as a repository and producer of knowledge; it’s an ex- ploration of how to interact with one’s environment through words, movement, and aesthetics. Both parts also share the same artistic choice, which is to base the creative process on rhythm. In Magec / The Desert, DJ and producer Deena will perform live and recorded music, as well as music cre- ated by the dancers’ rhythms. The spatiality of the perfor- mance also echoes the landscape, as we descend from the mountains into the desert, halfway between the mountains and the sea.

How is the rhythm of the desert different from that of the mountains? What kinds of rhythms did you find there?

I wouldn’t say there’s a specific rhythm, but yes, they are different. It’s more the absorption or echo of sound that defines the rhythm of the landscape. In particular, it’s about whether you can hear water or not. The piece is inspired by deserts stretching from the Atlantic to Persia and India. The musicality of these spaces has an obvious quality of sus- pension that differs completely from the faster musicality of the mountains. Due to their different relationship to time and space, these landscapes are home to different animals, plants, and human activity, all of which generate certain sounds and rhythms. The sounds and instruments used to reproduce them also differ.

In this new trilogy, you wanted to approach landscapes through the relationship with the animals that inhabit them. How did you go about it?

For Magec / The Desert, each of us in the group chose animals with which we felt a physical, spiritual, or visual connection. It is by drawing on the desire to see through the eyes of these animals that we construct material, solos, and a physical state. I love this complexity. It is impossible to know the animal’s perspective, but a little knowledge of animal anatomy and a lot of imagination create a sense of trust in this opaque space. And we realise that this adds something to our movement.

You are also interested in sundials, an element that can be very specifically linked to the desert. How did this idea come to you?

Some deserts are among the sunniest places on the planet, which raises the question of shadow management. First and foremost, shadow is an ecosystem that makes life possible. But the interaction between the sun and shadow has also become a way of measuring time. I wanted to ex- periment with the presence of the sundial on stage using lighting and scenography. Because of the significant chang- es in light in the desert, you become more aware of it than in the city. Even the difference between the heat of the day and the chill of the night is physical. The sun dictates where to walk and where to stop, and is replaced at night by the moon. These elements have always fed the imagination, the poetry and the writing that come from the desert. In this sense, the inhabitants of the desert are also those of the sky, in a poetic relationship. The vastness and openness of the desert requires establishing a relationship with the sky in order to define space on Earth. This is why I like the writer Ibrahim El-Koni. He says that the desert is a spiritual space. The only references that exist there are not even ‘here’.

I imagine that this ‘here’ is of a different quality than the Earth we walk on in the city. The instability of the sand, which leads to liquid, or to air?

In a sense, but the desert is a mixture of landscapes. The colours are very similar: there are endless dunes, with a series of variations that are almost meditative. And then suddenly, rocky mountains appear with a very different texture. What they have in common is the lack of water. The way the desert constantly flirts with death is sublime. Without water, there is no life. Once again, this is what Ibrahim El-Koni says: the desert is a mirage between life and death. The organisation of life and movement in the desert is magical.

And yet, the architecture of oases brings water to the desert in an equally magical way?

It’s a question of appearance, a concept I love and have been working on for some time. You walk through an arid landscape filled with sand and rocky mountains. And then suddenly there’s a small green plant. And you don’t know if it’s real or if it’s a mirage. It is amazing to see the power of life and the ecosystem. The tiny gesture of this veryfragile plant in the middle of a place that, I think, is also the essence of life.

What relationship do you and the performers have with the desert?

I come from an Amazigh culture, influenced not only by Arab history and culture, but also by the sub-Saharan culture that crossed the desert to get here. In the Sahara, the Amazigh-Tuaregs have preserved the Amazigh language in writing. There are so many beautiful things about this relationship with the desert—its animals, its landscapes, the way the desert gave birth to all these civilisations. In this sense, the desert is a guardian of Amazigh culture; a space for the exchange of knowledge. Marrakech, for ex- ample, is a gateway to the desert. It is where knowledge from sub-Saharan Africa reached the Tuaregs and the North African desert, before spreading northwards. We—Sofiane, Bilal, Hichem, Feteh, Deena, Natan, Robin, and myself—do not come directly from the desert, but have cultural ties to it, either through our origins or ancestral connections. Thus, in the group’s imagination, there is a space where we find ourselves in the desert.

Conversation conducted by Elias D’hollander, March 2025

Elias D’hollander is a doctoral researcher at Ghent University, where he is affiliated with the research group Studies in Performing Arts and Media (S:PAM). His research project studies the ecologies of architec- ture and choreography in the work of choreographers Radouan Mriziga, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and Trisha Brown, as well as in architecture practices.