This new work by Noura Seif Hassanein and Salma Abdel Salam is inspired by an Egyptian dance called shamadan symbolising spiritual enlightenment. Its legacy has evolved since the 19th century, and here provides the basis for three stories. With candlesticks balanced on their heads, their tassels elegantly rustling, nine dancers slowly move. The ritualised performance, with a score composed by the sound artist Ismail Hosny, leaves behind ceremonial artifices and deconstructs stories, bodies and movements. Through its imposing presence and cohesion, the group achieves a solemnity that dance is often unable to convey. The piece breaks down the barriers between 1920s folk dancing and the aesthetics of contemporary dance, its collective movements forming a single body that is neither idealised nor an object of fantasy: a body in harmony.
En coréalisation avec le Mucem.
