UNIVERSITY PARK — For many years, medically trained dance artist Herve Koubi questioned his last name, a surname of non-French origin. Finally, in his mid-20s, his father relented and revealed a secret ancestry.

The dancers of Compagnie Herve Koubi will translate the choreographer’s journey in “What the Day Owes to the Night,” a semi-autobiographical account of a buried ancestry in a nod to universal origin stories, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Tickets are $48 for an adult; $15 for those 18 and younger; and $10 for a University Park student and are available for purchase online. The Arts Ticket Center is the only authorized outlet for individual tickets for events presented by the Center for the Performing Arts.

Avoid the $4-per-ticket online service fee by calling 814-863-0255; or buying in person from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays at Eisenhower Auditorium.

Visit Compagnie Herve Koubi online for more information about the performance and a free community Joyfull event.

“Herve, who thought that his great-grandparents were coming from Brittany, were placed in France and went back (to Africa) with the kind of colonization in the 19th century and then came back to France again with the events of independency in Algeria,” Compagnie Herve Koubi Executive Director Guillaume Gabriel said in a Center for the Performing Arts visit. “So, it was a big shock for him.”

“What the Day Owes to the Night” explores his journey between a perceived comfort zone of French privilege and a destination that revealed a rich and complicated personal family history.

The performance is a collaborative response to Koubi’s journey to Algeria to discover his roots. There, he worked with a group of male street dancers in disciplines including martial arts, capoeira and hip-hop.

The wide-ranging story of “What the Day Owes to the Night” is also present in the soundtrack, which includes traditional Arabic, Sufi trance and European classical music.