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  • NL premiere

Hmadcha

Taoufiq Izeddiou - company Anania
Date
Sat 25 May 2024 21:15
Location
Stadsschouwburg Grote Zaal
Duration
70 min
Language
French
Country
Morocco/France
Price
€25,50 / €18,-
Themes
Non-western, Who owns the story
Edition
SPRING 2024
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A new creation by one of the most important Moroccan choreographers of today. During the uncertain time of the pandemic, this Marrakesh-based artist gathered a group of dancers. Like in the old Sufi brotherhood tradition, they search for rhythms and melodies, to ecstatically dance out their anxiety and ritually re-emerge from the crisis.

Video

The trilogy THE WORLD IN TRANCE emerged in response to the shared experience of the pandemic, death, confinement, and a contracted world focused on basic survival. The trilogy, exploring the creative dimension of trance and a fundamental quest for transcendence, unfolds through three creations. The first installment, HMADCHA, a piece for nine dancers, draws inspiration from the trance rituals of the confraternity bearing the same name. This group employs music, dance, poetry, and celebration to evoke trance individually, beyond religion and words, solely through the expression of the body.

HMADCHA addresses the void created by the threat of the invisible, initially embodied by an unknown virus that simultaneously invaded every body worldwide. This unfamiliar force immobilized souls and bodies, inducing a collective lethargy. As a dancer and choreographer, I sought to extinguish lethargy’s flame, tearing down the wall it erected, facing the invisible and the void.

This wall, at times radiant, can illuminate us to the point of blindness, detaching us from our contingent existence and imbuing each person with personal meaning—a father, a power, an invisible ruling society, the Unknown. Dance, with its universality, shapes this unknown into form, meaning, and even soul. It is this soul that HMADCHA aims to convey.

Inspired by the Sufi brotherhood’s spiritual celebrations founded in 17th-century Morocco, the piece explores the universe of Hmadchasen, combining wind instruments, percussion, music, poetry, rhythm, and trance in individual and group spiritual quests. The creation process involved synthesizing influences from Zar, Dervishes, Voodoo, and the exhaustion of dance into a crescendo of trance.

HMADCHA, beyond being a choreographic masterpiece, symbolizes the “rescue” of contemporary dance in Morocco amid a pandemic-induced economic halt. Involving multiple generations of professional dancers, the piece serves as a testament to the resilience of contemporary dance worldwide, transcending economic challenges and showcasing its endurance despite the pandemic’s impact.

After this performance, there will be an Aftertalk moderated by Myriam Sahraoui.

https://www.izeddiou.com

Award

  • Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres , France 2019.

Review

Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant wrote about Hmadcha: “a beautiful trance between nine male dancers”. Read the review here.

Franien van der Putt wrote on Theaterkrant about Hmadcha: “Taoufiq Izeddiou is a renowned choreographer, dancer and festival leader who has been active in France and Morocco for more than 20 years. Hopefully we will get to see more of his subtly critical work in the Netherlands in the future.” Read the whole review here.

In Hmadcha the choreographer creates a community where everyone finds their place. "It's a utopia where everyone, with strong individualities, matters. I believe in the sincerity of dance. A tired body is very poetic because it can't cheat or lie"

Maryse Bunel, Relicto magazine, 24 january 2023

Eight or so dancers redraw this world of stripped-down, uncluttered living, and seek to create a society based on heterogeneous rhythms and music, ranging from electroacoustic to piano. The choreographer draws on the past to speak of the present. As a dancer, choreographer and teacher, the work of Taoufiq Izeddiou and his Ensemble is part of a kind of resistance. "Something is brewing. In cadence, they hurry. Certain gestures burn beyond the furrow. They would be considered lost in other places..." he writes, reminding us of Rimbaud in Une Saison en enfer.

Brigitte Rémer, UBIQUITE CULTURES, 20 novembre 2021

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Artist

Taoufiq Izeddiou – company Anania

Credits

Dancers : Saïd Ait Elmoumen, Abdelmounim Elallami, Moad Haddadi, Saïd El Haddaji, Taoufiq Izeddiou, Mohamed Lamqayssi, Oualid Dkouk, Sanga Ouattara, Hassan Oumzili

Choregrapher: Taoufiq Izeddiou, Choregrapher

Sound design: Mohamed Lamqayssi & Saïd Ait Elmoumen

Light design: Ivan Mathis, light design 

Stage manager: Marine Pourquié

 

Production ANANIA DANSES /Coproducers :

Festival On Marche à Marrakech / Théâtre Jean Vilar à Vitry-sur-Seine / Théâtre du Bois de l’Aune à Aix-en-Provence / Châteauvallon Liberté Scène Nationale, France / Pôle Arts de la Scène de la Friche Belle de Mai à Marseille / Le Tangram Scène Nationale d’Evreux / Ballet du Nord CCN des Hauts-de-France à Roubaix

 

Photo credits: Agnès Mellon

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