In her dreams, the Black Venus travels through the night, visiting museums around the world. She collects body parts to gather on her ship, fragments of the Black women that Art history has buried before our eyes—sometimes anonymised, sometimes dismembered to become ornaments. Award-winning director and screenwriter Alice Diop discovered the text she had been waiting for in Robin Coste Lewis’ Voyage of the Sable Venus.

True to her cinematographic work, which gives voice to the ordinary experiences of invisible characters, she now becomes the storyteller. For her first theatrical performance, Diop gives us access to her “inner chamber”, allowing herself to be permeated by the text. Seated at her desk, she begins reading the text aloud, recounting her own ghosts as the Black Venus navigates our unconscious.

From start to finish, the journey of the Black Venus both highlights and heals the traumas of Black women. It bandages the bodies cast aside by History and invites us to think about how the violence of History has shaped our innermost selves. The audience can choose to prolong this performance by viewing Diop’s short film Fragments for Venus, thereby offering a look, both documentary and poetic, at a text of incandescent beauty.

"A hypnotic performance." Kilian Orain, 2025, Télérama
"A powerful entry into the world of theatre" Inès Boittiaux, 2025, Beaux Arts