The influential Ballet Suédois shot to fame in the Europe of the early 1920’s with their avant-garde productions. In 1923 they staged La création du monde, a 'fantaisie négrico-cubiste' about the creation of the world according to African and Afro-American mythologies. The work was reconstituted by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, famed for their reconstructions of the great ballets of the early 20th century.

Invited by the Ballet de Lorraine, Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula transformed the original piece into a work that accommodates both the original Western version and his 'African response'. Fabrizio Cassol, who previously arranged music by Monteverdi and Bach for Alain Platel, has written the music.

La création du monde is a new piece based on the short ballet of the same title, scored by Darius Milhaud and written by Blaise Cendrars, which was performed in Paris in 1922 and 1923. The original piece was presented as a 'negro-cubist fantasy' and recounts the creation of the world according to African mythologies. The work was performed by the Ballets Suédois and choreographed by Jean Börlin. The costumes and sets were created by the famous artist Fernand Léger.

La création du monde was conceived in a time when Europe with Paris as its cultural centre was getting acquainted with the African-inspired work of Pablo Picasso and jazz from America. Shortly before starting the score for this ballet, Milhaud had visited New York, seen the clubs in Harlem and talked to the musicians. He returned full of enthusiasm, instantly using these new influences in his next work, La création du monde.

The Ballets Suédois were the Swedish counterpart of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The company was led by Swedish artistic director Rolf de Maré and was based in Paris. The Ballets Suédois did not have a long life, but in their time, between 1920 and 1925, they were a very influential company, which not only played in Paris but in many other big European and American cities. The Ballets were an exponent of a new artistic aesthetic after World War I. They combined various art forms such as dance, theatre, painting, poetry and music with acrobatics, circus, film and mime. This combination of high and low art is also featured in La création du monde.

The original ballet by Milhaud et al was reconstructed in 2001 by choreographer Millicent Hodson and art historian / set designer Kenneth Archer for an exhibition dedicated to the works of Fernand Léger and African art. Both Hodson and Archer have also been involved with this performance by Faustin Linyekula.

For his version of La création du monde, Linyekula has used the original version in its totality and added his non-Western commentary

He is placing the piece in 1923, in Africa: not the idealised and exotic Africa of Milhaud and Cendrars, but in that very real Africa, some of whose sons were in fact sent to the front lines at the Chemin des Dames. The wild dances in the round were quite far away... Linyekula opposes the fantastic creations of Cendrars and bodies of flesh and blood.How were the people faring in the Congo in 1923?And elsewhere on the continent?And how did the greatest intellectuels manage to ignore so vigorously what washappening under the yolk of their own country?