11 June 2022 - Morocco
Casablanca / Institut Français
16 to 19 July 2022 - France
Festival d'Avignon
21-22 March 2023 - France
Blois / Halle aux Grains sn
24-26-27-28 March 2023 - France
Saint-Nazaire / Athénor
30 March 2023 - France
Choisy-le-Roy / Théâtre
4 April 2023 - France
Amiens / Centre Jacques Tati
5-8 April 2023 - France
Vandoeuvre / CCAM sn
12 May 2023 - France
Orléans / scène nationale
16 May 2023 - Switzerland
La Chaux-de-Fonds / TPR
24 May 2023 - France
Nantes - Maison de la Poésie, Grand T
Dodo ya Momo do
bilingual performance (Arabic / English) by Soukaina Habiballah
The entire cycle of poems is performed by the poetess in both languages
sound: Zouheir Atbane from a collection of collected Moroccan lullabies in the duverses languages of Morocco
stage direction : Henri jules Julien
In Dodo ya Momo do, Soukaina Habiballah interweaves the voices of a grandmother and her granddaughter who speak to each other through the absence of the mother, and two haunting themes: the grandmother's post-colonial trauma and the granddaughter's post-partum depression.
On stage, Soukaina intertwines the Arabic and English versions of the cycle of poems: as if the two voices were alternating in her own body, her own psyche as a poetess. As if the two women of the poems were living in her.
The performance benefits from a sound environment created by Zouheir Atbane and based on Moroccan lullabies collected from very old women in all corners and languages of Morocco contrasting with the exceptional softness and striking presence of Soukaina's voice.



Dodo ya Momo do
for years
says the granddaughter
I got it wrong
I see you taking
out your teeth
to plunge them every
night in water
I alone
drowned
tried to cry out but
the bubbles streaming from
my mouth were powerless to help
who are you in this story?
grandmother or wolf?
the trail of claw prints in my mind
leads me straight into your hands
who are you in this story?
grandmother or wolf?
no
it was not winter
only your words combined
with spray from your blank
mouth like a blizzard
chilling my bones
I looked for an escape
but the only one I found
led straight to nightmares
I went in
heedless
I went in
shivering
and came out soaked
I will never understand why
it brought you such distress
because it warmed my nights
you wanted cold as tombs?
who are you in this story?
who are you in this story?