Dance Right Now
Anda #14, June 8, 2024 - Recent dance I've loved recently
Story
“Dancer-choreographer” is one of my lives yet to be lived, along with café owner, wandering healer, and graphic artist. Y’know, those paths you can’t take right now, but hope to in a different time or life.
Maybe you’ve traveled those paths briefly or superficially. You wistfully imagine going further, deeper, but you know that they would be detours this time around. Or maybe they live only in your imagination.
So in this life, I’m merely an enjoyer of dance. Here are some of the dancers and dances I’ve enjoyed recently.
What are your lives not-yet-lived? Please share in the comments!
Yoann Bourgeois
Revealing impermanence and the movement inherent in everything, Yoann Bourgeois is a French dancer, choreographer, and artist who also trained in circus arts. Bourgeois builds all of the machines and structures that appear in the dances. More on YouTube.
Lee Mingwei
Transforming ordinary actions like writing, sweeping, mending, or breathing into rituals of care, Mingwei engages dancers with minimal instructions that encourage an improvisational choreography of attention, listening, and responsiveness. More on YouTube.
Hamza Saqer, Dabka dancer, Gaza
“Everywhere and everywhere, we deliver our message of our heritage.”
Hamza Saqer
Many people around the world experienced Dabka (also Dabke), a Levantine dance form, for the first time after October 7th. Hamza Saqer is a young dancer living in Gaza. Not only has he kept dancing in the rubble, but he and his friends are teaching displaced children to dance and have been involved in food relief efforts. He also participates in the famed Free Gaza Circus formed to bring some joy to the children of Gaza. Hamza is currently trying to get his family out of the war zone.
Hervé Koubi - Sol Invictus
French-Algerian choreographer Hervé Koubi creates for dancers adept in contemporary, street, and urban dance, capoeira, and martial arts. He also draws on sufi ritual. Sol Invictus is his latest work. More on YouTube.
Sol Invictus means the ‘unconquered Sun’. “I want to talk about light, solidarity, and those bonds that unite us,” says Koubi. “Here, the sun and the dance will emerge victorious.”
Brigita Krašovec
Brigita Krašovec is a 20-year-old Slovenian gymnast, dancer, and choreographer. She’s also obsessed with Billie Eilish. Here she is rehearsing! I love how she’s speaking of the interwining of brokenness and power. Find more on her Instagram.
Dancing Pina - a documentary
This is more of a heads up. Dancing Pina is still making the film festival circuit and has not been officially released, although it is available on DVD. The documentary is a thrilling tour of how two groups of dancers, one based in Germany and the other a pan-African troupe assembled in Senegal, are embodying and discovering fresh interpretations of the work of Pina Bausch.
Buy the DVD (if you still have a player), or just don’t miss this when it starts streaming!
Want more? Please join me and the Jaya Kula community for satsang & kirtan every Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific. Come in person to 1215 SE 8th Ave, Portland, OR, or join Jaya Kula’s newsletter on Substack to get the Zoom link for satsang. You can also listen to my podcast—Satsang with Shambhavi—wherever podcasts are found.
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Hairs standing on the edge. grace,grit, and gorgeous movements. Yay to you dancing person. Much loving.
Wondrous. Thank you.