Hooman Sharifi (IR/NO) / Impure Company
sacrifice while lost in salted earth
What does sacrifice mean in today's society?
Using the sounds of the ancient Iranian Tambour played live by Arash Moradi and 8 dancers from Iran now living and working all over Europe, choreographer Hooman Sharifi uses the revolutionary Le Sacre du Printemps from 1913 and Iranian language and music as inspiration to tell a story of small everyday sacrification. The Iranian translates the spring sacrifice of the past into the present. What is the meaning of sacrifice in our, in many ways, challenging times?
Julidans
Main program
Run time 90 minutes
Location Internationaal Theater Amsterdam
Venue Grote Zaal
sacrifice while lost in salted earth
For his version of the Sacre, sacrifice while lost in salted earth, choreographer Hooman Sharifi works exclusively with Iranian dancers/makers. Dance and dance performances are prohibited in the Islamic Republic of Iran and all these artists are developing their artistic body of work in exile. The individual decisions on what they are sacrificing is of great importance – each individual owns physical materialisation of these sacrifices. They take a great space on stage and slowly out of their individual actions a collective, a society, grows.
In today's society, Sharifi concludes, the idea of one person sacrificing themselves for a whole community no longer works. Collective sacrifices are needed. And everyone must consciously choose to sacrifice themselves. In Sharifi's sacrifice while lost in salted earth, the dancers sit on the stage singing.
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When the music - specially rewritten for the tanbur, a Persian string instrument with only three strings - stops, the dancers stand up one by one for their solo. But as soon as the music starts again, a collective dance bursts out, of all dancers together. In the end, it is an ultimate collective sacrifice, based on individual choices.
Hooman Sharifi is a Norwegian choreographer with Iranian roots. As a teenager, he started his dance career with hip-hop, and he has trained in classical and modern dance from his twenties. Drawing from different styles and cultures, Sharifi's movement language is physically challenging, intense, and powerful. In his work, he explores the underlying feelings of power, political systems, and violence. In 2000, Sharifi founded his own company, Impure Company, which aims to stimulate social and political engagement through art.
REVIEWS
Theaterkrant, about While They Are Floating (Julidans, 2018)
'In While They Are Floating, Sharifi does not lose himself in dramatic illusions, liberating fiction or a political reveille. He uses the stage as a game board, where the dramatic nature of the political facts take shape without staging a battle between supporters and opponents and where the characters could be anyone.'
Credits
choreography, light and direction Hooman Sharifi
music Arash Moradi
with Hooman Sharifi, Ali Moini, Ehsan Hemat, Tara Fatehi, Armin Hokmi, Rosa Moshtaghi, Sorour Darabi
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with support from the Norwegian Embassy
production Impure Company
coproduction Festival Montpellier Danse 2022, Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Julidans (Amsterdam), Dansenshus (Oslo)
