Where and how can we still dance in a world riven by divisions, conflicts and displacement? To bring *Les Cosmopolites* to a close, historian Patrick Boucheron engages in a dialogue with Salia Sanou.
Straddling historical thought and choreographic experience, this conversation will explore dance as a space for connection and healing. Salia Sanou will discuss, in particular, the workshops held in refugee camps across Africa, which have informed some of her creations and her reflections on dance as a shared practice. As mentor to the Dance Lab throughout the festival, he will also reflect on this experience of knowledge-sharing and research carried out with the artists in residence. This in-depth interview thus invites us to bring the festival to a close with a moment of thoughtful reflection, where dance and thought engage in dialogue to explore what, despite the world’s divisions, continues to connect us.
Patrick Boucheron
Born in 1965 in Paris, Patrick Boucheron is a historian and has been a professor at the Collège de France since 2015 (holding the Chair of the History of Power in Western Europe, 13th–16th centuries). He studied and taught the history of the Middle Ages at the École normale supérieure de Fontenay–Saint-Cloud and at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. His field of research is medieval Italy – its cities, princes and artists – as well as the writing of history today. Patrick Boucheron is the author, amongst other works, of *Léonard et Machiavel* (Verdier, 2008), *Conjurer la peur* (Seuil, 2013) and *La Trace et L’Aura* (Seuil, 2019). He edited *Histoire mondiale de la France* (Seuil, 2017 and 2025) and has just published *Peste noire* (Seuil, 2026), a fascinating work that revolutionises our understanding of the Black Death. He also produces the series *Quand l’histoire fait dates* on Arte and the programme *Allons-y voir!* on France Culture.
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As part of the *Les Cosmopolites* festival: Artistic encounters and debates on ideas without borders, from 18 to 24 May 26. Les Cosmopolites invite you to discover artists from here and elsewhere whose journeys tell stories of intertwined identities, unexpected turns, surprising ancestors, forced departures, journeys, exile, of languages learnt and forgotten, of marginalised lives, or quite simply of dreams of something else and of curiosity.
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In partnership with Mixt and Le Lieu Unique, as part of Solstice, the Angers–Nantes International Centre for Production and Distribution, currently in its preparatory phase.
