Mais les homards du Titanic, eux, sont encore vivants !
NEW CREATION 2026
Premieres at Spot, Sion (Switzerland): April 16, 17, 18 & 19, 2026
End of residency work in progress presented at Subs Lyon, (France) on November 14, 2025
But the lobsters on the Titanic are still alive!
This multidisciplinary musical performance explores the phenomenon of history repeating itself and human apathy in the face of a world in decline, freely inspired by Drexciya’s empowering Afrofuturist myth.
The show summons the spirits of an underwater people born of African women thrown into the sea or who threw themselves into it during the transatlantic slave trade. In these mythical abysses, pain becomes power, loss turns into rebirth.
A looper, a double bass, a harp, a violin—classical instruments that pull on the strings, mirroring a world in the midst of shipwreck.
The music saturates, voices rise, bodies resist. Three artists twist history, stitch wounds back together, and summon an Afrofuturist utopia to save the world—circus, memory, chaos: a ritual to break apathy.
Note on intent
n an interview, James Baldwin said he was horrified by the general apathy and death of the heart he witnessed in his country. This sentence resonates with me more strongly than ever since my trips to Palestine and Lebanon. Humans repeat the same horrors over and over again. The world is on fire, it is boiling. Wars are a reality for many people, less tangible here for the most privileged among us. Yet everything is closely linked to our lifestyle and comfort, built on the profits of colonies, exploitation, and white supremacy.
The general apathy frightens me, the latent indifference despairs me, and above all, the repetition of the same horrors haunts me. Everything is connected. Everything is linked. We are caught in a vicious circle. A hellish loop, an endless cycle. This creation is an exploration of the syndrome of apathy in the face of the chaos of the world, which only repeats itself eternally, and how we navigate through it all as humans.
I feel like the violinists on the sinking Titanic, playing their last notes until their last breath as the ship goes down. Powerless in the face of our declining civilization, which seems incapable of turning the tide for a better tomorrow. What’s the point? Let’s play the violin!
My only consolation is knowing that the lobsters on the Titanic are still alive. Perhaps they are swimming with the mermaids of Drexciya and afrofuturism will save us?
Estelle Samira Borel
Distribution
Directed by: Estelle Samira Borel
Performers: Antonio Raspanti, Estelle Samira Borel & Makeda Monnet.
Original composition & artistic collaboration: Makeda Monnet & Antonio Raspanti
Outside eyes: Zorybel Garcia
Dramaturgy: Noemi Michel
Artistic collaborations: Thierry Epiney, Bast Hippocrate
Sound design: Rachel Morand
Lighting design: Myriam Adjallé
Stage and general technical direction: Bastien Alvarez
Costumes: Merendys Martine
Set design: Sherazade Dermé assisted by Floriane Benetti
Administration: Laura Perez Suarez
Loop tightwire design: Yohan Ruchet
Loop tightwire engineering: Hervé Cherblanc
Loop tightwire construction: Romain Giard
Support
SSA-PRO Cirque Writing Grant 2025
Valais Canton Professional Theater Grant 2025
City of Sion
Corodis Artists’ Fair Selection 2025
Cirqu’Araau Project Presentation Selection 2025
Artcena Circa Project Presentation Selection 2025
Partners
SPOT Sion
Zirkusquartier Zürich
Les Subsistances Lyon
Théâtre Les Alambics
