Julidans: Shiraz Armin Hokmi (IR)

A small step, and a world that slowly starts moving

Shiraz is inspired by the legendary Shiraz Arts Festival (1967-1977) in southern Iran, where artists from around the world experimented with new forms of theater, music, and dance. Choreographer Armin Hokmi draws on the spirit of that festival, not as a reconstruction, but as a living question about dance, place, and cultural memory. The performance, the first in a series, places Armin's love for dance at the center.

Six dancers move like a constantly changing organism: bodies find each other, fall apart, and form ever-new constellations. The choreography starts from a strikingly simple basis: a small, swaying step, fueled from the pelvis. Right, left. Right, left. From this minimal movement, a rich landscape of shifting patterns slowly unfolds. Small changes take on great significance: a new formation, a different tempo, light that suddenly changes color. What at first seems almost imperceptible suddenly becomes intensely palpable.

That tension between the known and the intangible is no coincidence. Just as birds in a flock constantly react to one another, so too do these bodies move in a collective flow. Gestures seem recognizable, yet they slip away time and again before they can be captured. Recognizable, but just out of reach.