Displacement / FOCUS: SYRIA

“I'm not looking for a past that no longer exists, and I don’t want to create a future without memories”, declares the up-and-coming Syrian choreographer who has been living and working in France since 2010. “What interests me is the heritage and identity of the Syrian body-how to render it visible and how it is being affected within its complex context of revolutions, wars, conflicting ideologies, the desire for freedom, destruction and immigration.” In this, his most recent work, Alzghair starts out with musical and movement motifs from traditional dances. Through the dynamic of Syrian culture and tradition, he explores how these were formed and to what extent they will change under pressure from the radical changes his country is experiencing.

The body, the locus par excellence of experience, expresses the traumatic realities of life for the Syrian people: the body at a fixed point for centuries, now restricted, trapped; the suffering body; the body-in-waiting-undecided between movement and immobility; the body in action; the body in flight; the body displaced or exiled. Before all else, Displacement allows this talented young choreographer to address his own dilemmas. Caught between two countries, but also between art and reality, he manages to highlight what’s happening ‘there’ ‘here’.