For a few seconds you maybe really were yourself

Dance and choreography: Adva Zakai
Advice: Marijke Hoogenboom
Research assistants: Katja Dreyer, David Hendrickx
Light: Peter Castelijn
Production: DWA/Dans Werkplaats Amsterdam, Melkweg , October 2005

When I laugh it looks like this

Dance and choreography :Adva Zakai
Advice: Shila Anaraki, Andrea Bozic
Light: Mijke van der Drift
Production: DWA/Dans Werkplaats Amsterdam, Melkweg Amsterdam, October 2006

For a few seconds you maybe really were yourself (2005) and When I laugh it looks like this (2006) are a part of a series of works that deal with the search for physical representation of changes in self-perception and body-image in different contexts. In her explorations of "human camouflage", Zakai explores the tension between the seemingly contradicting needs of the self: on one hand, the need to conserve ones’ individuality and on the other, the need to blend into the accepted definitions of the human landscape. She attempts to lose and redo her physical form and plays with controlled and spontaneous unfolding of movements wherein the stage becomes an imaginary landscape of basic actions, situations and feelings. The relations between seeing, seeming, believing and being are thecommon threads of the two solos.

For a few seconds you maybe really were yourself

Dance and choreography: Adva Zakai
Advice: Marijke Hoogenboom
Research assistants: Katja Dreyer, David Hendrickx
Light: Peter Castelijn
Production: DWA/Dans Werkplaats Amsterdam, Melkweg , October 2005

When I laugh it looks like this

Dance and choreography :Adva Zakai
Advice: Shila Anaraki, Andrea Bozic
Light: Mijke van der Drift
Production: DWA/Dans Werkplaats Amsterdam, Melkweg Amsterdam, October 2006

For a few seconds you maybe really were yourself (2005) and When I laugh it looks like this (2006) are a part of a series of works that deal with the search for physical representation of changes in self-perception and body-image in different contexts. In her explorations of "human camouflage", Zakai explores the tension between the seemingly contradicting needs of the self: on one hand, the need to conserve ones’ individuality and on the other, the need to blend into the accepted definitions of the human landscape. She attempts to lose and redo her physical form and plays with controlled and spontaneous unfolding of movements wherein the stage becomes an imaginary landscape of basic actions, situations and feelings. The relations between seeing, seeming, believing and being are thecommon threads of the two solos.

Dance and choreography: Pichet Klunchun
Video editor: Puttpong Wongsawang
Translation: Associate Professor Pornrat Damrhung
Original interview clip: TheatreWorks Singapoure
Premiere: Bangkok 2005

I Am a Demon is an innovative performance by Pichet Klunchun that highlights the essence of
traditional Khon dancing for audiences of contemporary dance. It explores different facets and
searches for the wisdom that is hidden behind the dance structures and movements of the “Demon”
character, one of the four characters in classical Thai Khon dance. It presents the commanding
styles as well as applying scientific theories to show the vitality of what lies behind each portrayal.
This is meant to take the audience to the core of the movements and convey their actual meanings
as Klunchun combines the language of classical Thai dance with a contemporary sensibility, while
retaining the heart of the tradition.

Concept and Choreography: Aydın Teker
With: Serap Meriç, Emre Olcay, Ayşe Orhon, Şebnem Yüksel
Sound design: Manuel Mota, Margarida Garcia
Light design: Jiv Wagner
Costume: Ayşegül Alev
Shoes: Ahmet İnceel
Premier: 18.11.2005, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Berlin
Co-production: Bimeras (İstanbul), Alkantara (Lizbon) and Spielzeiteuropa | Berliner Festspiele (Berlin)

Aydın Teker’s 2005 creation aKabı which has been presented and acclaimed at many international
festivals and venues is the product of an intense movement research, a thorough exploration of the
relations between body-artifice-architecture, and months of uncompromising work discipline. In this
piece, the boundaries of the body extend beyond that of the skin through the employment of
especially designed shoes which become part of the perceptive and experiential extensions of the
body and carry our imagination to unexpected journeys.

Scenography and costume: Sallahdyn Khatir
Technical direction: Erik Houllier
Assistant: Boris Charmatz
Communications: Laura Beurdeley and Angèle Le Grand
Direction: Sandra Neuveut
Production assistant: Cécile Tonizzo
Production: Edna
Co-production:Tanz im August (Berlin); Centre national de la danse (Pantin); Festival d’Automne – (Paris) ; Réseau des Centres de Développement Chorégraphique; Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté.
Support: Cinémathèque de la Danse (Paris), Théâtre de la Cité internationale (Paris), and Chaufferie (Saint-Denis)
Thanks: Anne Abeille, Catherine Bazin, Laura Beurdeley, Annie Bozzini, Marie Collin, Sophie Couineau, Merce Cunningham, Christian Dumais-Lvowski, Julie Georges, Gilles Grand, Philippe Ivernel, Dalila Khatir, Sophie Laly, Isabelle Launay, Catherine Legrand, Françoise Malfroid, Cécile Mathieu, Deborah Menrath, Bénédicte Pesle, Claire Rousier, Guillaume Sintes, Jeannie Steele, Robert Swinston, Sébastien Thiery, Thibault Vancraenenbroek, Claire Verlet, Anne Wuilleret.
Premiere : Visitations was created on the 12th of August 2005 for the Festival Tanz im August – Internationales Tanzfest Berlin.

Specters of the milestones of modern dance become alive in Julia Cima’s interpretative
appropriations of their movement language. In these series of solos resurrecting choreographers
like Dominique Baguet, Isadora Duncan, Valeska Gert, Merce Cunningham, Vaslav Nijinsky and
Tatsumi Hijikata, Cima performs several historical ref(v)erences: She shows how texts, gestures and
movements are historically constituted and how understanding is based on being part of a
particular tradition. The work also depicts simultaneously that each reconstruction is inevitably an
interpretive reading, thus a new work bearing the touches of its appropriator; and that each
production is, in a way, a reproduction. In other words, the work hints at how history does not
belong to us, but we belong to history.

Concept and Choreography: Aydın Teker
With: Serap Meriç, Emre Olcay, Ayşe Orhon, Şebnem Yüksel
Sound design: Manuel Mota, Margarida Garcia
Light design: Jiv Wagner
Costume: Ayşegül Alev
Shoes: Ahmet İnceel
Premier: 18.11.2005, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Berlin
Co-production: Bimeras (İstanbul), Alkantara (Lizbon) and Spielzeiteuropa | Berliner Festspiele (Berlin)

Aydın Teker’s 2005 creation aKabı which has been presented and acclaimed at many international
festivals and venues is the product of an intense movement research, a thorough exploration of the
relations between body-artifice-architecture, and months of uncompromising work discipline. In this
piece, the boundaries of the body extend beyond that of the skin through the employment of
especially designed shoes which become part of the perceptive and experiential extensions of the
body and carry our imagination to unexpected journeys.

Scenography and costume: Sallahdyn Khatir
Technical direction: Erik Houllier
Assistant: Boris Charmatz
Communications: Laura Beurdeley and Angèle Le Grand
Direction: Sandra Neuveut
Production assistant: Cécile Tonizzo
Production: Edna
Co-production:Tanz im August (Berlin); Centre national de la danse (Pantin); Festival d’Automne – (Paris) ; Réseau des Centres de Développement Chorégraphique; Centre Chorégraphique Nationalde Franche-Comté.
Support: Cinémathèque de la Danse (Paris), Théâtre de la Cité internationale (Paris), and Chaufferie (Saint-Denis)
Thanks: Anne Abeille, Catherine Bazin, Laura Beurdeley, Annie Bozzini, Marie Collin, Sophie Couineau, Merce Cunningham, Christian Dumais-Lvowski, Julie Georges, Gilles Grand, Philippe Ivernel, Dalila Khatir, Sophie Laly, Isabelle Launay, Catherine Legrand, Françoise Malfroid, Cécile Mathieu, Deborah Menrath, Bénédicte Pesle, Claire Rousier, Guillaume Sintes, Jeannie Steele,Robert Swinston, Sébastien Thiery, Thibault Vancraenenbroek, Claire Verlet, Anne Wuilleret.
Premiere : Visitations was created on the 12th of August 2005 for the Festival Tanz im August – Internationales Tanzfest Berlin.

Specters of the milestones of modern dance become alive in Julia Cima’s interpretative
appropriations of their movement language. In these series of solos resurrecting choreographers
like Dominique Baguet, Isadora Duncan, Valeska Gert, Merce Cunningham, Vaslav Nijinsky and
Tatsumi Hijikata, Cima performs several historical ref(v)erences: She shows how texts, gestures and
movements are historically constituted and how understanding is based on being part of a
particular tradition. The work also depicts simultaneously that each reconstruction is inevitably an
interpretive reading, thus a new work bearing the touches of its appropriator; and that each
production is, in a way, a reproduction. In other words, the work hints at how history does not
belong to us, but we belong to history.

Ibrahim Qurashi

AOI: Afraid of I //

Concept and choreography: Ibrahim Quraishi
Performance: Diegonante
Voice & Guitar: Divalastik
Costumes: Aziz
Lighting: Stephen Arnhold
Production: Cie. Faim de Siècle
Special thanks to: SNDO School for New Dance
Development Amsterdam,
The Masters Program in Choreography of
New Media Dance Unlimited Amsterdam

World Premiere!

Afraid of I, is a performative analysis of the structures that influence how we see the performer, his
codes and the dance. It is a solo for a male performer on the last remains of cowboy-ism.

Watching a performing man executing the codes of a lost profession… Watching the iconography of a male icon in his coded sphere… Men in uniform engaged with violence, (however), cannot afford to be constricted (wıth these codes) or spend time, drifting elaborately. The willingness to live on the edge requires the eagerness to cultivate for its own sake an erotic enhancing acuity, a new physicality (of neighbouring death). “If only there would be fighting again, If I only could face
dangers now, If only I could risk my life, could fight forever, it would be an eternal relief.” What if the endless violence, the cows and horses disappear? What is left of the codes when other norms of violence take over? What is left of the melancholy songs and those legendary lonely nights? Farewell cowboys, the world doesn't need you anymore. Let’s dance! (IQ)

Ibrahim Qurashi

AOI: Afraid of I //

Concept and choreography: Ibrahim Quraishi
Performance: Diegonante
Voice & Guitar: Divalastik
Costumes: Aziz
Lighting: Stephen Arnhold
Production: Cie. Faim de Siècle
Special thanks to: SNDO School for New Dance
Development Amsterdam,
The Masters Program in Choreography of
New Media Dance Unlimited Amsterdam

World Premiere!

Afraid of I, is a performative analysis of the structures that influence how we see the performer, his
codes and the dance. It is a solo for a male performer on the last remains of cowboy-ism.

Watching a performing man executing the codes of a lost profession… Watching the iconography
of a male icon in his coded sphere… Men in uniform engaged with violence, (however), cannot
afford to be constricted (wıth these codes) or spend time, drifting elaborately. The willingness to live
on the edge requires the eagerness to cultivate for its own sake an erotic enhancing acuity, a new
physicality (of neighbouring death). “If only there would be fighting again, If I only could face
dangers now, If only I could risk my life, could fight forever, it would be an eternal relief.” What if the
endless violence, the cows and horses disappear? What is left of the codes when other norms of
violence take over? What is left of the melancholy songs and those legendary lonely nights?
Farewell cowboys, the world doesn't need you anymore. Let’s dance! (IQ)

Jéôme Bel

Shirtologie

Premier: Centro Cultural de Belem (Lisbon), 1997
Dancer: Frédéric Seguette
Production: Centro Cultural de Belem (Lisbon),
Victoria (Ghent), R.B. Jerome Bel (Paris)
Support: R.B. Jerome Bel is supported by the Direction
regionale des affaires culturelles d’Ile-de-France
(French Ministry of Culture and Communication)
and by Cultures France (French Ministry for Foreign Affairs) for its international tours
Producer: Sandro Grando

A given language is a social institution, which does not depend on individuals ; it is a normative
reserve out of which individuals draw their speech, in other words, it is “ a virtual system which only
actualises itself within and through speech ”. Speech is an individual act, “ the actualised
expression of the function of language ”, THE LANGUAGE being a generic term which
encompasses given languages and speech. It appears most useful to distinguish between two
analogical realities within the notion of clothing : the first one is an essentially social and institutional
reality, not depending on individuals and operating like a systematic, normative reserve, out of
which the individuals draw their own outfits ; we suggest calling this reality THE COSTUME, which in
Saussure corresponds to a given language ; and a second individual reality, which is a real act of “
clothing ” by which individuals, in endorsing it, actualise the general institution of the costume ; we
suggest calling this second reality CLOTHES, which in Saussure corresponds to speech. Costume
and clothes form a generic whole, which we suggest calling from now on CLOTHING.

Roland Barthes in Annales, "Histoire et sociologie du vêtement", July-September 1957

Dance and choreography: Ziya Azazi
Music: Uwe Felchle (part 1) Mercan Dede (part 2)
Costume: Ischiko

In this internationally acclaimed work, Ziya Azazi re-interprets the traditional sufi dance and transforms it
in relation to his personal history while maintaining its mentally and physically challenging vertiginous
trance. This work is the integration of the solo Dervish in Progress (premiere 2004, Barcelona) and
Azab (premiere 2005, Sao Paulo/Brazil) into a full-length performance.

Concept and direction: Ivana Müller
Collaboration: Bill Aitchison, Nils de Coster
Co-production: Künstlerhaus Mouson Turm Frankfurt and Gasthuis Theater Amsterdam
Premiere: Plateaux Festival 2003
Participants: Prof. F. Siemsen (physicist - D), Prof. Bojana Kunst (philosopher – SLO), Prof. W.A.
Wagenaar (psychologist – NL), Dr.Christian Röder (psychiatrist – D), Alexandra Thiel (trampoline
instructor -D) and I.M’s 50 friends.

How Heavy Are My Thoughts is the third part in the trilogy of solos based on themes of innocence
(Indivisible View, 1999), heroism (Lovely Performance, 2002) and knowledge (How Heavy Are My
Thoughts).The project is based on the fascination with the language expression “heavy thoughts”, a
metaphor relating a physical, bodily quality of the adjective “heavy” to the mental concept of the noun
“thoughts”. In most of the literature it is stated that the weight of an adult human brain varies between
1,300 –1,500 g, depending on age and gender. The weight of a human head is between 4 and 6 kg.
But those statistics were made on the account of a single measurement per person. Is it possible that
our head weights differently depending on our mental, physical, emotional or physiological state?

Choreography and dance: Eszter Salamon
Production: Le Kwatt, in situ productions 2001
Organization: Alexandra Wellensiek
Support: TanzWerkstatt-Berlin, Podewil-Berlin and Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung
und Kultur- Berlin, Centre Choréographique National de Montpellier
Thanks: Sylvie Guiresse, Brenda Edwards

This a-gendered body without face and without behind, performs a series of movements which are
seemingly unlimited to organic body matters. It is a kind of multidimensional flexible whiteness,
distinct from the white surface where it came from only by its agile bendings, that display an
astonishing reversibility of the body's front and back. Revealing gradually its many skins, there is no
other truth than different moving entities. [...] It is strange beings such as a sci-fi bubble or this hairy
vibrating membrane, which triggers some fleshy-colored twitching extremities on the surface or this
image of a nude body on a duvet-cloud, faceless angel or soap advertisement, an image, whose
gaze back to us weighs a whole history of perceiving gender.

Petra Sabisch

in English,with Turkish simultaneous translation

Concept & performance: Tarek Halaby
Co-production: P.A.R.T.S.
Thanks to: Jan Ritsema, Sandra Iché, Rabia Aghrib, my uncles Jean and Samir Halaby, Dr.
Mahmoud Ashour and the many other Palestinians who shared their personal experiences with me
and further educated me about the history of the Palestinian situation. Lastly, a big thanks to my
family and friends for their love, support, and interest in this project.

This work, title of which resembles an academic paper, is the outcome of Palestinian-American
artist Tarek Halaby’s research that seeks the points of divergence and convergence of personal
and collective histories within the process of dance creation. Constructing this work as an
unfinished product, as an ongoing and unresolved situation just like the Palestinian problem,
Halaby finds out about the difficulty of translating an historical and social problem to the level of
physical body with the aid of available languages of dance, and distances himself from personal
affectations via humor. He thus highlights the ironies and paradoxes of creating works of
deliberately political content.

By and with: Xavier Le Roy
From a collaboration: Laurent Goldring
Music: Diana Ross
Production: in situ productions, Le Kwatt (1998)
Co-production: Substanz-Cottbus, TIF Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Fonds Darstellende Künste
e.v. aus Mitteln des Bundesministeriums des Innern.
Support: TanzWerkstatt-Berlin, Podewil-Berlin, the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft,
Forschung und Kultur.

The brightly lit performing area gives no clues to "how to read" and the mechanical-man
beginning is offset with a return to ordinary task-like activity: walk, sit, turn off tape machine. By
the time you're into the contortions with the dress, we're given this extraordinary hybrid
creature which confronts us with a multiplicity of interpretations. We must sit with our attention
riveted, waiting for the next stirring. Like watching a spider or snail. Your timing in this piece is
exquisite: no pandering to short attention spans here. Yvonne Rainer (e-mail 22.12.1999)

By and with: Xavier Le Roy
From a collaboration: Laurent Goldring
Music: Diana Ross
Production: in situ productions, Le Kwatt (1998)
Co-production: Substanz-Cottbus, TIF Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Fonds Darstellende Künste
e.v. aus Mitteln des Bundesministeriums des Innern.
Support: TanzWerkstatt-Berlin, Podewil-Berlin, the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft,
Forschung und Kultur.

The brightly lit performing area gives no clues to "how to read" and the mechanical-man
beginning is offset with a return to ordinary task-like activity: walk, sit, turn off tape machine. By
the time you're into the contortions with the dress, we're given this extraordinary hybrid
creature which confronts us with a multiplicity of interpretations. We must sit with our attention
riveted, waiting for the next stirring. Like watching a spider or snail. Your timing in this piece is
exquisite: no pandering to short attention spans here. Yvonne Rainer (e-mail 22.12.1999)

Dance: Tadashi Endo
Music: Osamu Goto, Kronos-Quartett, Peter Tschaikowski
Light Design: Tadashi Endo
Costume: Tadashi Endo
Photos: Reinhold Frunder

When we decided to have one Butoh performance in our Festival, it was somehow evident for us
that this would be from Tadashi Endo. And it was the request of this Butoh master to show the new
version of his piece titled after his birth year, on his 60th birthyear. Butoh emerged after World
War II in Japan as an experimental dance form which carries the traces of Japanese performing
arts traditions such as No and Kabuki as well as German Expessionistic Dance, and performance
art of 1960s. While Butoh is not characterized by a particular movement vocabulary or a technique
thus being open to individual interpretation, experimentation, and articulation with other dance
vocabularies, with its blurring of the boundaries between inside and outside, object and subject, the
body in Butoh is counterposed to what might be called the “positive” or the “classical body”.

Choreography, stage and light design: Rui Horta
Dancer: Anton Skrzypiciel
Music: Koen Brandt, Christophe Séchet, Elliot Sharp, Norbert Zacharias, Nuno Rebêlo
Text: Fernando Pessoa
Additional texts: Rui Horta, Anton Skrzypiciel
Dramaturgic assistant: Patricia Portela
International tour management: CAMPAI www.campai.be
Premiere: 9 January 2004

[…] the true landscapes are those that we ourselves create, because, since we are their gods, we see
them as they really are, that is exactly as they were created. I’m not interested in nor can I truly see
any of the seven zones of the world; I travel the eighth zone, which is my own. Someone who has
sailed every sea has merely sailed through the monotony of himself. I have sailed more seas than
anyone. I have seen more mountains than exist on earth. I have passed through more cities than ever
built and the great rivers of impossible worlds have flowed, absolute, beneath my contemplative gaze.
If I were to travel, I would find only a feeble copy of what I have already seen without traveling […]
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Bones & Oceans, the only full-length solo performance Rui Horta choreographed, is a poetic and
dynamic creation for one of his closest interpreters Anton Skrzypiciel. Their complicity, maturity and
shared passion for the ocean results in this 2004 revisiting of one of the last pieces he created in
Germany in the 90s. A lonely duo for a man and a metal dog with a little help from Fernando Pessoa.
A piece as powerful today as it was 10 years ago.

Samir Joubran: Oud, voice
Adnan Joubran: Oud
Wissam Joubran: Oud

 “Scholars and past masters of traditional maqam, the brothers allow themselves freedom in their
subtle re-exploration of this awesome tradition (...) Introducing eloquent silences that seem to
underscore the messages of the past. (...) playing with closed eyelids is not for them a way of
shutting out the present but of digging into it more deeply. (...) True, this is Arab music, but what is
being played out here is Palestine. And there is no need for speeches. The force of the music, the
life that it conveys, the dignity that it displays have a rare eloquence.”

ETIENNE BOURS - RÉPERTOIRE

Choreography, stage and light design: Rui Horta
Dancer: Anton Skrzypiciel
Music: Koen Brandt, Christophe Séchet, Elliot Sharp, Norbert Zacharias, Nuno Rebêlo
Text: Fernando Pessoa
Additional texts: Rui Horta, Anton Skrzypiciel
Dramaturgic assistant: Patricia Portela
International tour management: CAMPAI www.campai.be
Premiere: 9 January 2004

[…] the true landscapes are those that we ourselves create, because, since we are their gods, we see
them as they really are, that is exactly as they were created. I’m not interested in nor can I truly see
any of the seven zones of the world; I travel the eighth zone, which is my own. Someone who has
sailed every sea has merely sailed through the monotony of himself. I have sailed more seas than
anyone. I have seen more mountains than exist on earth. I have passed through more cities than ever
built and the great rivers of impossible worlds have flowed, absolute, beneath my contemplative gaze.
If I were to travel, I would find only a feeble copy of what I have already seen without traveling […]

Concept and performance: Vera Mantero
Props: Teresa Montalvão
Characterisation: Carlota Lagido/ Ana Araújo
Original Light Design: João Paulo Xavier
Light adaptation and operation: Bruno Gaspar
Executive Production: Forum Dança
Supports: Casa da Juventude de Almada, Re.Al / Amascultura
Production: Culturgest ( Lisbon) in Homage to Josephine Baker (1996)

This piece was created as homage to Josephine Baker, who is an African American cabaret artist,
singer and a dancer, became famous in France in the first half of the 20 th century. It is one of the
most important pieces of the last fifteen years. In this context the piece constitutes a dual historical
reference point for the Istanbul audience: in its content, it not only refers to the history of the dancing
body, but also constitutes one of the building blocks of contemporary dance history in itself. This very
important piece of Vera Mantero, which can’t be ignored by any researcher-writer working in
contemporary dance field, carries inexhaustable multidimensional meaning - emotion threads and
political references.

Olympia

15’

Concept and performance: Vera Mantero
Original light design: João Paulo Xavier
Light adaptation and operation: Bruno Gaspar
Text: Jean Dubuffet
Music: excerpts of Bakma Pygmy music, Cameroon
Thanks: Ana Mantero and Miguel Ângelo Cabral (props)

This time, Vera Mantero comes forth with another familiar woman (anti)hero from history of art, as
Olympia holding a copy of Jean Dubuffet’s Suffocating Culture in her hand. Manet’s Olympia, of the
impressionist period, was shocking not for her nakedness but for rejecting to be the object of the gaze
and returning it as it is to the audience. Mantero comments on the micro-gestures that make this
historical and physical posture of Olympia possible.

Perhaps she could dance first and think afterwards

15’

Concept and performance: Vera Mantero
Set: André Lepecki
Original light design:João Paulo Xavier
Light Adaptation and operation: Bruno Gaspar
Music: Thelonious Monk "Ruby, My Dear"ı.
Costume: Vera Mantero,
Production: Pós d’Arte, 1991
Financial support: Instituto da Juventude and other supports: Companhia de Dança de Lisboa,
created by commission of the Klapstuk Festival 91 on the occasion of Europalia Portugal.

This improvized solo improvised solo was rewarded at Mudanças in1994 and Rencontres
Choréographiques in 1996. Mantero researches why she dances; why she needs to feel that she has
to dance; through dancing what can be said and what can not be said. This is one of her works in
which she implies that movement comes before language, thought, end even before the beginning.

The body is the soil; my body is my land

Dance and choreography: Mustafa Kaplan, Filiz Sizanli
Costume: Petra
Co-production: Centre National de la Danse – Pantin (Fransa)
Premier: CND, Pantin (2005)

When Mustafa Kaplan and Filiz Sizanli who were renown for their duets in the contemporary dance
scene in Europe for many years retreated to their personal research for a while, their path
converged again in this piece which consists of two solos. They both question the motives behind
maintaining the body as a site of self exploration. Thus, they move away from the "determined"
energy of their earlier works. They focus on the "indeterminacy" of the formation, behavior, and
appearance of the body contours. Thereby, they commit to the body as the only substratum, which
can not be deserted, and which should be cultivated with (choreographic) labour.

*Solum (Lat.): 1. (adv) alone, only
2. land, country, soil, ground/bottom, floor, foundation.

Françoise Kubler: Vocals
Armand Angster: Clarinet
Gilbert Yammine: Qanun
Mario Caroli: Flute
Yalda Younes: Dance

Zad Moultaka is a leading Contemporary Music composer from Lebanon. He writes unclassifiable
choruses and creates a music without borders. He delves into ancient manuscripts. His response
to a highly original commission from the Beiteddin Festival was his work ‘Zarani’, which was
released in 2003 and which is a reflective work based on a new interpretation of traditional, with the
presence of a piano giving the possibility of counter-responses and extensions. The work
immediately caused a considerable stir; provoking more new commissions from, ironically enough,
contemporary music ensembles such as Ex Tempore in Belgium, Ars Nova in France, in spite of its
more obvious links with so-called ‘traditional’ music.

Yalda Younes

Dancer Yalda Younes performes at the concert the piece NO, written by Zad Moultaka in honour of
the assassinated Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, created in Beirut on 2 June 2006, to mark the
first anniversary of his murder.

Project initiated by: Julie Nioche and Virginie Mira
Dance and choreography: Julie Nioche, Filiz Sizanli, Mia Habib
Costume: Nino Chubinichvili
Musician: Alexandre Meyer
Scenography: Virginie Mira
Light: Laure Couturier
Technical Director: Sylvain Giraudeau
Production: A.I.M.E (Association d’Individus en Mouvements Engagés) 2007-2008
Co-production: Ménagerie de verre (Paris), Le Centre d’art contemporain Le Consortium / dépt
nouvelles scènes (Dijon)
Support: CulturesFrance, French Cultural Institute Istanbul.
Thanks: French Cultural Institute (Oslo), Studio Wee Cie Francesco Scavetta (Oslo), Çatı Contemporary
Dance Associatıon (Istanbul), Istanbul University.

Three Girls's Matter is a stage in the development of Julie Nioche's larger project Matter, which will
incorporate the solos of Bouchra Ouizguen from Morocco and Rani Nair form Sweden in addition to these
"three girls". The project is focused on the movement of female bodies in an environment invaded by
water. The spectator is immersed in the same space as the six performers wherein s/he observes a
trajectory traced by bodies, which modulate as the dance and the state of dress progress. With each
appearance, the clothing decomposes, changes until its disappearance or undergoes a total
transformation. The constantly self-recomposing bodies allow the spectator to finish building the different
bodily forms in his imagination. Thus immersed and prompted to examine the body-water infiltration
theme, the spectator explores the porosity of his own body. Choreographer and dancer Julie Nioche
strives to produce a performance focusing on the paradoxes of femininity explored through her own story
and that of the other five dancers. She creates environments in collaboration with Virginie Mira that
depicts the metamorphosis of each of the dancers using water. Set designer Mira endeavors to build a
space that shapes the body and that is altered by that body. Clothing is used to tell the story of each of
the performers from a social, symbolic, and personal angle.

Project initiated by: Julie Nioche and Virginie Mira
Dance and choreography: Julie Nioche, Filiz Sizanli, Mia Habib
Costume: Nino Chubinichvili
Musician: Alexandre Meyer
Scenography: Virginie Mira
Light: Laure Couturier
Technical Director: Sylvain Giraudeau
Production: A.I.M.E (Association d’Individus en Mouvements Engagés) 2007-2008
Co-production: Ménagerie de verre (Paris), Le Centre d’art contemporain Le Consortium / dépt
nouvelles scènes (Dijon)
Support: CulturesFrance, French Cultural Institute Istanbul.
Thanks: French Cultural Institute (Oslo), Studio Wee Cie Francesco Scavetta (Oslo), Çatı Contemporary
Dance Associatıon (Istanbul), Istanbul University.

Three Girls's Matter is a stage in the development of Julie Nioche's larger project Matter, which will
incorporate the solos of Bouchra Ouizguen from Morocco and Rani Nair form Sweden in addition to these
"three girls". The project is focused on the movement of female bodies in an environment invaded by
water. The spectator is immersed in the same space as the six performers wherein s/he observes a
trajectory traced by bodies, which modulate as the dance and the state of dress progress. With each
appearance, the clothing decomposes, changes until its disappearance or undergoes a total
transformation. The constantly self-recomposing bodies allow the spectator to finish building the different
bodily forms in his imagination. Thus immersed and prompted to examine the body-water infiltration
theme, the spectator explores the porosity of his own body. Choreographer and dancer Julie Nioche
strives to produce a performance focusing on the paradoxes of femininity explored through her own story
and that of the other five dancers. She creates environments in collaboration with Virginie Mira that
depicts the metamorphosis of each of the dancers using water. Set designer Mira endeavors to build a
space that shapes the body and that is altered by that body. Clothing is used to tell the story of each of
the performers from a social, symbolic, and personal angle.

Dance and choreography: Mia Habib
Costume: Mia Habib
Light: Inger Johanne Byhring
Photography: Petter Goldstine
Choreographical consultant: Ingunn Rimestad
Music: "Habibi", funk from the Brasilian "Favala" Cidade de Deus, and Bredt anlagt stadionmusikk
by Sort Mel
Production: Dance House, Norvay
Premiere: 2005 May

Missing In Action is an exploration of the body’s kinaesthetic experiences of power and oppression.
It shows the vulnerable yet resilient nature of the body undergoing pain and stress, and depicts how
the body takes control during times of mental strain. It deals with how each individual is expected to
conform to a mediatically constructed and categorized image of reality. Habib has worked with
refugees in Norway in order to learn what happens when an individual loses his familiar context and
has to move to an unknown place and a completely different culture. Missing in Action juxtaposes
the images of the body as terrorist-stranger-oppressed to point at the human face of fear, and
implies that a person is much more than the sum of ideas and images s/he is thought to represent.

Christine Sehnaoui, Sharif Sehnaoui, Mazen Kerbaj and Michael Zerang

Mazen Kerbaj: Trumpet
Christine Sehnaoui: Alto sax
Sharif Sehnaoui: Electric guitar
Michael Zerang: Percussions