Babel, by Mourad Merzouki: a dance performance at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, extended runs – our review

Nearly fully unveiled, Babel is the latest show by Mourad Merzouki set to enchant audiences at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche. Performances will take place every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening, from September 4 to December 31, 2025, followed by a repeat from September 3 to December 31, 2026. Following successful productions like Au Bonheur des Dames and Entre Chiens et Louves, this iconic department store once again offers a stunning new show that’s sure to make the rafters shake!

As the last customers slip away and the windows darken, the décor lights up... The stage is set for an extraordinary show that makes shelves dance and imaginations fly. Ten performers - circus artists and dancers - wander through a vertiginous scenography, carried by a poetic breath and an energy to decorate the racks. Babel is a spellbinding tour de piste, where bodies tell the story of a utopia in motion: that of a world that unites rather than divides, where differences become a collective force.

At the helm is Mourad Merzouki, choreographer and figurehead of the contemporary hip-hop movement, known for his creations combining dance, circus, martial arts, visual arts and music. With his company Käfig, founded in 1996, he has produced a string of hit shows(Pixel, Vertikal, Folia, Zéphyr, Phénix, Beauséjour), with a total audience of over two million.

• To be read
• Top picks for the week of June 15–21, 2026 in Paris and Île-de-France

Our opinion:

Forget everything you thought you knew about The Tower of Babel. For Mourad Merzouki, it doesn't reach the clouds... it plunges downward. And what a descent! Set against the dreamlike backdrop imagined at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche, this famous biblical myth is transformed into a poetic, breathtaking odyssey where dance and circus arts come together to build a better world — together.

Centered on stage stands a , serving as the very backbone of the show. Constantly shifting, this structure unfolds throughout the performance, revealing rigging and launching platforms for the performers. Designed as a 360° stage, it immerses the audience in the action, with viewers spread across the three levels of the department store.

Around this inverted Babel, ten dancer-acrobats orbit, spin, leap, and intertwine in an aerial choreography of raw beauty, balancing gravity and lightness. Without words, they collaboratively build what legend never finished: a Babel where diversity becomes a shared language.

The story is kept minimalist to spotlight the power of gesture. Whether seated on the ground floor, the first, or the second level, the audience becomes a partner in this journey between sky and earth, immersing themselves in a profoundly human, vertiginous experience.

Music by Marc Debard, an intricate blend of classical and electronic sounds, heightens the dramatic tension while amplifying the poetry in motion.

With Babel, Mourad Merzouki celebrates an ideal: a world united through movement. Between sky and earth, this performance is a hymn to the beauty of collective effort, where art gathers rather than divides.