di Sarah WHITEHEAD

Collegamenti rapidi:

- Open Doors

28/30

Sufi Dance

The demonstration taken by Geyvan McMillen, a pioneer of Turkish contemporary dance, was inspired by Sufi meditation and the dances of the dervishes. It opened with a demonstration of how the external movements of our body can correlate with the our internal. Everything inside us is moving and by relaxing and feeling all joints and muscles in our body we can achieve such a correlation.  

The climax of the work shown by the dancers was when all assembled on stage and began spinning to the music in resemblance of the customary worship dance done by dervishes to attain a closer spiritual connection, right hand directed toward the sky, pointing to god, the left hand toward the ground.  

This piece was adapted to  more contemporary movements as each dancer finished individually, slowly ascending to the floor. The effects of watching this for the audience were almost hypnotic as the simple  lulling twirling action led the individual dancers to stop unnoticed until the number of spinners gradually diminished to just one. Such an exercise portrays how McMillen has exposed in his masterclass the cultural and spiritual ways dance is used in the world and how, by correlating certain movements to a performance, the effects and influences can be preserved and shown to an audience.

In this demonstration, the audience were invited to sit on the stage at the start. Such an arrangement gave us a closer, more intense view of the dancers. This was particularly true for on piece which involved one girl dancing. The dance itself was had an intensity and force similar to a warrior dance  before attack which was alluded to by the way the girl lunged close to the audience making eye-contact. The fact that we were able to sit on the stage created the sensation the we were part of the scene the girl had created.

Again, all pieces shown in the demonstration held the characteristic freedom and limitless which surrounds 'open doors' and signaled the wide range of influences of the Arsenale della Danza.