Dervish In Progress workshops with Ziya Azazi
4:30 – 6pm each day
9/28 – LPAC Boyer Studio (003)
9/29 – LPAC Troy Studio
9/30 – Matchbox Tarble Commons
10/1 – LPAC Troy Studio
plus
10/4 final workshop
1 – 5pm – LPAC Troy Studio
These workshops suggests a space for the participants where they can challenge their limits through whirling, stimulate their ability for the thrift of bodily energy, and through these abilities reach their goal movement within their own genre, spending less energy, with a higher level of awareness. Whirling is not the main objective of this workshop. The greater goal is to improve one’s physical, emotional and mental awareness through whirling and the exercises prior to that. It leads the participants to perceive and accept what is befalling throughout whirling, and reach an innovative movement by means of whirling.
More about Ziya Azazi…
Ziya Azazi was born in 1969 in Antakya, Turkey. Since 1994 he has been based in Vienna, Austria. He holds Austrian nationality and speaks Arabic, English, German and Turkish. From the late nineties up to the present, Ziya Azazi’s dance practices have been primarily based on experimental whirling and repetition, which reflect his personal, artistic, conceptual and motional analysis of traditional Sufi dance. He searches for the simultaneous representation of contradictory perceptions of physical awareness and a high state of ecstasy, experimenting the intensities of speed and tension made possible through whirling. He aims at transforming the usual whirling dervish image and the classical Sufi dance into a spectacular form, thus proposing possibilities for personal ritual, that do not rely on the boundaries of existing belief systems. His work searches for the Dervish at a high level of speed, tension and emotion, and creates a space for the viewer to encounter and experience these moods. Through his performances, Ziya Azazi seeks to represent the moment of realisation when the Dervish begins to enjoy his/her achievement through the joyful and ecstatic repetition of whirling: the looping and spinning which leads to trance.
In addition, please join the artists for discussions around showings of David Zambrano’s SOUL PROJECT (9/25 and 9/26). Saturday night (9/26) will be preceded by an artist conversation in Troy Studio, Lang Performing Arts Center with David Zambrano, nora chipaumire, and Ziya Azazi at 6pm, led by Charmian Wells.
There will also be an informal sharing of and conversation around each artist’s process, moderated by Charmian Wells featuring David Zambrano, nora chipaumire, and Ziya Azazi
at 1pm on 9/27 in the LPAC Troy Studio.
All events are free and open to the public without reservation. Space is limited and available first come, first served.