A philosopher shares with a child and an adult the vast enigma of life. Returning to the origins of the world, the trio sets out together to reinvent it.

The collaboration between Jolente De Keersmaeker and the French choreographer Jérôme Bel began in 2021 with Dance for an Actress (Jolente De Keersmaeker), in which Jérôme asked Jolente not to draw inspiration from the theatrical repertoire, as she usually does, but rather from the history of modern dance, exploring what happens when an actress uses her own imagination to interpret a dance.

For their second collaboration, Jolente and Jérôme teamed up with the French art historian and author Estelle Zhong Mengual. Together, they created Recommencer ce monde (Recreating This World) in 2024, based on the work of the contemporary French philosopher Baptiste Morizot. The show premiered on October 4, 2024, at Le Quartz theater in Brest and was presented by the Festival d’Automne in Paris at the Théâtre du Fil de l’Eau in Pantin in 2024; at the Théâtre Bonlieu in Annecy; and finally at the MC93 in Bobigny as part of the Festival d’Automne in Paris in 2025.

What does it mean to be a living being? To try to unravel this mystery, a philosopher, a child, and an adult embark on a journey. The stage is empty. Yet the philosopher and the child constantly see mysterious animals, unexplored landscapes, and new opportunities to think together. For them, the world is, at every moment, inhabited by other forms of life besides our own. They never forget the others: wolves, bacteria, olive trees, polar bears… And their curiosity is too great not to follow in their footsteps. But for the adult who accompanies them, the stage is indeed empty, and animals have long ceased to populate his thoughts and dreams. Is all this really serious? Intrigued and skeptical, he gently enters the world of this woman and this child: a world that has not been corrupted by the belief that we humans are the only actors on Earth, surrounded by a mere backdrop of objects. Through the combined power of theater and philosophy, this performance explores our place in the living world and asks how we can begin to rebuild it.

Baptiste Morizot is a philosopher, writer, and lecturer at the University of Aix-Marseille. In his work, he explores the relationship between humanity and the natural world, both within us and beyond.

He is the author of numerous books that have achieved significant critical and popular success in France. His work aims to develop a philosophical anthropology that redefines humanity as a living being among other living beings. His approach is distinctive in that his ideas emerge from real-world experiences: from the problems and situations encountered by people in various contexts. His thinking is thus grounded in concrete practices and takes the form of philosophical field research. Animal tracking, coexistence with wolves, forest protection, agro-ecological practices, and more recently, the poor health of rivers in Europe, are all starting points for his books.