ZIYA AZAZI: DERVISH IN PROGRESS

Dance performance – Ziya Azazi in the dervish dance and the whirl of beauty!

Part of At.šiška – Austrian and Slovenian Focus on Contemporary Performing Arts

CONCEPT/CHOREOGRAPHY/DANCE: Ziya Azazi
MUSIC BY:  Mercan Dede
LIGHT: Celil Gode
COSTUMES: Ischiko
SCRIPT: Isin Onol

Based in Vienna, dancer/choreographer of Turkish/Syrian origin Ziya Azazi (1969) has been exploring since mid-1990s the experimental dance rotations and repetitions that are mostly known in the dance of the Sufi religious order, Dervishes. It is the Dervish dance that Azazi has acquired as his personal, artistic, conceptual and physical basis, which he builds on in a series of performances. His dance is an impressive encounter of tradition and contemporaneity, the ancient practice of Sufi dance giving the impression of a contemporary dance reference from the times of Modernism when ritual ethnical and dance motifs were a regular feature of modern dance: from  Ballet Russes to American modern dance. Azazi has introduced the dervish dance among contemporary dance practises.

From the 8^th century onwards, ascetic communities were trying to prevent the menacing decay of religious values. Their members were wearing woollen penitential robes (Suf) and preaching the real meaning of Koran verse. Because of their clothing, people soon began to call them Sufis. Members of Sufi orders and solitary wandering beggars are called Dervishes, which is a word of Persian origin for beggar. Sufism was founded by Hasan Al Basri (643−728) who is supposed to have said, “Whoever knows his Lord loves Him, and whoever knows the world does without it.”

ZIYA AZAZI  /  http://ziyaazazi.com

This event is made possible by INTPA – INTERNATIONAL NET FOR DANCE AND PERFORMANCE AUSTRIA of Tanzquartier Wien with funds by BMUKK and BMeiA.