“I grew up near the ocean, fascinated, scrutinizing its foam without being able to penetrate its mysteries. What would have I sacrificed, what would have I learned, if a fatal pact had opened the abyss to me? It is in this ocean both familiar and imaginary that mermaids and humans stage their destiny.” Martin Harriague

Drawing on the changing features of legendary mermaids, Martin Harriague superimposes and twists myths to tell us about what is close to his heart. The ocean first, fascinating, threatening and threatened, with which he has maintained an intimacy since childhood. Between humor and seriousness, his choreographic odyssey reveals a humanity embarked by the sirens of “progress” in an adventure that it does not control. Under the gaze of Man, shipwreck is imminent, as on the stormy sea that threatens Ulysses and his sailors, joining here the exalted dance of the famous Corelli’s Folia. The tumult of the storm will reveal the space between two worlds, carried by the ambiguity of the sirens, resplendent and capricious, ingenuous or cruel.
“The world of mermaids, I imagine it dark, bewitching, sometimes frightening, like the seabed that I had the chance to observe several times in Australia and Indonesia, and their hydras undulating in the chiaroscuro”, admits the choreographer. But from these multiple temptations emerges one day the dream creature, unique, which will make a Prince of man. Deprived of the clear sound of her voice and her fins by a sorceress who wants “the most beautiful thing”… what does it matter? The tottering mermaid, now lover and muse, will learn other ways to unveil her soul and celebrate her happiness. The creativity of earthlings would be infinite…