Dance immemorial
What is the problem with the term ‘contemporary’? ‘Contemporary’ according to whom and compared to what dances? The colonial-modern aesthetic framework disciplining and regulating the dance art sphere presupposes the existence of contemporary dance in its opposition, exclusion and negation of ‘other(ed)’ dances – the ones ‘assigned to an outside of the genealogy of contemporaneity, as an object of classification and exhibition for the ethnographic or the folkloric, or as a commodity for touristic consumption’ (Rolando Vázquez).
In our lecture performance, we will introduce some dances and rituals that have been practised in the Iranian plateau since pre-Islamic times, such as Sama سما, Hatan هتن, Afar آفر, and Ghare Pire Zhan قره پیره ژن. Together we will scrutinise the asymmetries between contemporary dance and other ‘non-contemporary’, ‘primordial’ dances.
born in Tehran, Iran, started dancing in a country in which it is still prohibited. Ahmadzadeh studied directing at the art university Soureh in Tehran, contemporary dance pedagogy at MUK in Vienna, and Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her contemporary dance company ATASH عطش, founded in 2012, explicitly addresses socio-political issues and cultural hierarchies.
is a researcher in gender studies, particularly focusing on the intersections between decolonial feminisms and critical migration studies. Vlachou is a passionate advocate of collective, processual, creative, and slow research that takes as its entry point embodied everyday experiences and memory. Institutional affiliation: Linköping University, Department of Gender Studies, Sweden.
Credits
Performance Desi Bonato
In English