A pledge for the here and now

Ballettanz 2 Dec 2002English

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‘I will love you’. She falls and hurts herself. ‘I will love you’. She stumbles again. But she still loves. Loves and hits rock bottom, over and over. She loves the imperfect one. And she is imperfect in return. She is human. Hooman Sharifis new piece evolves around how much she can take.

Iran-born, Norway-based choreographer Hooman Sharifis new piece “Then such silence since the cries were last heard” is lit solely from the floor. The music is close to home. Gypsy music. Once he became a teenager, Sharifi fled from Iran. His directing attempts to force real life events into the framework of the theater. At crossroads he tends to reject the theatrical framework if there is a chance to mediate the real life factor.

This factor is established in the rehearsal process, from a foundation of written material based on personal and political observations. What sets the politically conscious choreografer Sharifi apart, are his requests for the audience to react visibly and physically to the performance. Running around, committing themselves to the flow of the event, the audience participated passionately in Sharifis solo ‘suddenly, anyway. why all this? while I ...’

In this first duet of Sharifis, the works full potential does not surface, but the different sections are in themselves prove of an extraordinary choreographic mind that combines the ability and vulnerability in risking absolutely everything. In “Then such silence since the cries were last heard”, relationships are his real-life material. Staging them, the choreographer points at the connection between a couple of lovers, and a people at war. Sharifis duet with the strong Oslo-based dancer Kristine Natalie Slettevold elaborates on man’s spiral of revenge. The dynamics of violence are outlined in a verbal dialoge where every murder is explained by another one, therefore each killing has its historical vengeance.

Two elderly share a meal in a longish filmsequence that stands apart from the rest of the action on stage. Sharifi and Slettevold enter the stage ritualistically, taking off their sandals. Both move independantly of the others eye contact, they are never synchronized exept for the part where they take off and on their shoes. This ritual connects the two on a physical level and establishes the couple’s common spirituality as well.

Throughout the work former hip-hop’er Sharifi makes an effort to visualize his doctrine that art equals politics, and in this duet it means that people are dying as long as we nourish a human standard of revenge. But Sharifi does not simply pledge for peace. His pledge is for the here and now, and his artistic statement reminds everyone of us that we are responsible. Equally responsible for how much love there is as for how many killings we accept.