Black Sheep

This show is based on Paul Molina’s technical mastery of freestyle soccer, coupled with a circus performance based on acrobatics.
Paul gives free rein to his explosiveness, characteristic of a sport where everything happens in a fraction of a second. Freestyle soccer draws some of its techniques from the circus, but differs from classic juggling. In this creation, the circus pushes the level of body control to its paroxysm and mixes it with freestyle soccer with a level of ball control pushed to the extreme. An exchange, a discussion between two worlds that have a lot to say to each other.

Paul Molina

A young sportsman who dreams of being an artist. Like many youngsters, he started out on the soccer pitch, before slowly but surely slipping into what was to become his passion: freestyle soccer. This art of juggling combines multiple artistic, sporting and acrobatic disciplines, with a soccer as its only tool.

Obsessed by this new material, he greedily explored the endless perspectives opened up by this art form, which he now seeks to transpose into the world of performance.

A graduate of a prestigious business school, he decided to distance himself from this milieu and take the risk of throwing himself body and soul into this new artistic adventure, armed with his ball with which he tries to defend the discipline so dear to him.

It’s a discipline he’s had to take a fresh, “artist’s” look at, in order to break out of the competitive pattern in which a “drop” (i.e. the moment the ball hits the ground after a miss) is synonymous with intolerable ultimate failure.

He had to revisit this notion of failure, to be able to describe a sport where the success of a gesture is only possible on the condition of tirelessly repeating the same movement and hearing the echo of that ball hitting the ground, over and over again.

Paul Molina takes the risk of seeing this ball drop by leaving the forecourt of Équinoxe, where his apprenticeship began and has continued for the past 4 years, to share his passion from another angle, that of art.

Art is also about telling a story, and Paul will try to explain what this discipline, which has become more than a passion over time, now means to him, taking on the role of catalyst and regulator of his diabetes. Freestyle soccer: a new discipline, a bridge between different worlds based on movement, combining flashes and frozen moments, which Pablito brings together in two shows: a solo dance choreographed by Mélodie Joinville, and a performance directed by Wilmer Marquez in which circus meets freestyle soccer.

Wilmer Marquez

Colombian by birth, he spent eighteen years forming a duo of acrobatic portés, and co-founded Cie El Nucleo after completing his training at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque in 2011. He created the duo shows Sans Arrêt and Quien Soy? in 2013.

In 2017 Wilmer directed the show Somos, then in 2019 the show Nawak, both currently on tour. He has taken part in many of David Bobée’s plays: Romeo and Juliet, Warm and Dios Provéera, for which he is assistant director.

In 2020, he was invited by the Orchestre Régional de Normandie to stage the new creation Caravanserail (SPRING 2021 festival premiere). In the same festival, but with his new company, Cie Bêstîa, created in 2020, he directed Barrières, which premiered on March 26, 2021 at the CDN de Rouen with ten acrobats on stage (co-produced by Équinoxe – Scène nationale de Châteauroux).

In 2020, he became an associate artist at Équinoxe – Scène nationale de Châteauroux, directed by Jérôme Montchal, who asked him to take an outside look at the show Ziguilé (Cie Très d’Union), which enjoyed great success and numerous tour dates in 2022 and 2023. Alongside his work with Cie El Nucleo and Cie Bêstîa, Wilmer has joined the XY collective on the Les Voyages project since 2018.