Noah and the Flood are very ancient myths. They are notably in the Bible, the Quran, and in the legends of large civilization from the Middle East.
To stage Noah's biblical story, Thierry Malandain uses a religious music called la Messa di Gloria, written in 1820 by the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini. As soon as the show begins, violence is there: Cain kills his brother Abel, whose blood stains the wall red, and thus rushes the world into misfortune. Then, God, annoyed by men's crimes, decides to punish them by flooding the Earth with its waters. However, he spares the most virtuous of them, Noah, and orders him to build an ark to find shelter with his family, and a male and a female of every animal species.
Men and women invoke God, spine bent under fate's weight and hands up towards the sky. But around them, waters rise up, portrayed by three transparent stage curtains which are gradually closing up the space. With the help of his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and his wife, Emzara, Noah builds the boat to shelter everyone from the flood.
Then they take board for a forty-day group trip. Passengers begin a fertility dance, for which Thierry Malandain found inspiration in very ancient rites. They invoke Adam and Eve, History's first couple, so that new humanity was born from their union. This humanity will be harmonious and united, just like the masculine black crow and the feminine white dove, which have to fly together above seas to bring back the first signs of water dropping.
Finally comes the recession, while light switches to a spring green shade. Naked, as it is at the beginning of the world, the 22 dancers disembark on an as-new land. They push their past far away and celebrate a new start. Unfortunately, they didn't learn from their past mistake, as shown in the last scene, with the eternal comeback of the original fratricidal crime.
Today, from climate change and oceans level rising to refugee crises, life on Earth is threatened by men's madness. This pessimistic ending is, therefore, a very topical message.
