With works by Nasrin Torabi & Ruby und Rayboom
The Urban Double Bill presents two performances by urban dance scene artists one after another. On the up-and-coming platforms Performance Session as well as Now & Next, Nasrin Torabi and Diana Schöne aka Ruby already presented excerpts and work-in-progress showings of their choreographic practice, plucked from their shared collective Hood of Sisters (HoS) as well as from their solo repertoire. Düsseldorf dancer and choreographer Rymon Zacharei aka Rayboom, too, showed numerous own works and works in progress at tanzhaus nrw.
In DER PASS, Rayboom deals with the document that distributes freedom of movement globally, in an extremely disparate way. Therein, he merges urban and contemporary dance forms into an intense examination with the topics of entry, departure, and the freedom of the right to stay. Searching for possible connections of dance traditions from Ukraine and Iran with house and hip hop, Nasrin Torabi and Ruby take on their family histories and living realities in Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot – Postmigrant Realities.
DER PASS (the passport)
“The passport represents a human’s noblest part. It also does not spring into existence as easily as a human. A human can be made quite everywhere, recklessly and without any sensible reason, but never so a passport. But it will be recognised if it is good while a human may be quite good yet will fail to be recognised.” (from Flüchtlingsgespräche/ Refugee Conversations, Bertolt Brecht)
What does it mean to have fled one’s homeland? What are the consequences in the city where one lives? What leads people to settle into a new home, and what role does the passport play in this?
The term “pass”, or, in English, “passport”, from the Latin passus, stands as an official document that enables us to take a step elsewhere. To many refugees, owning a passport is not a matter of course. Due to violent expulsion from their own country, due to war or flight, people become incapacitated when losing their valid documentation. The presence or absence of passports determines refugees’ everyday lives in a special manner, such as in questions of visa, departure, entry, or residence permits. Choreographer and dancer Ryon Zacharei aka Rayboom, who came to Germany as a child with his parents as a consequence of the Iraq war, combines his own experiences and research with a performance of movement and sounds in the tension-filled interstice between different cultures. Urban and contemporary fuse into an intensive debate on the topics of identity and homeland.
Little language, age recommendation: 11+
choreographer and dance: Rymon Zacharei; beatbox and sound design: Carlos Howard
funded by NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste
Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot (Snow White and Rose Red) – Postmigrant Realities
On a quest for possible connections, Nasrin Torabi and Ruby embark on an artistic exploration of Ukrainian and Iranian tradition as well as of urban dance styles. In doing so, their own family histories and different living realities also inform the piece. Nasrin, born in Berlin, discovered Iranian culture through her father during her childhood and has always stood between two worlds. Ruby arrived in Germany aged 12, leaving behind a part of herself in Ukraine. The two dancers use the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red to navigate the complex relation between cultural heritage, family history and traditional dance as well as their post migrant present as dancers within the urban dance scene. The recourse towards the fairy tale also serves to reflect their roles as women in society and dance, as well. They paint a picture of urban dance cultures that are open and variable – and in which their personal, familial, and cultural (movement) heritage may claim a place, even receiving it.
Ruby and Nasrin have been collaborating since 2020, and they organise battles, jam sessions, and workshops together. They are cofounders of the dance collective Hood of Sisters (HoS), set up in 2020, which collectively creates open spaces as well as exchange and networking opportunities for women* and youths in the urban scene. As up-and-coming artists, they work on lending urban dance styles more visibility in a stage context. They show their works on stages at venues such as tanzhaus nrw, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Cologne Künstler:innen Theater, and TanzFaktur.
Duration: ca. 30 – 40 Min.
Language: Individual fragments are in German, Persian, English and Ukrainian. However, these are not necessary to understand the piece.
Choreography, dance, composition: Nasrin Torabi & Ruby (Diana Schöne), dramaturgy: Yeliz Pazar; music: Vunky Lao; photos: Eva Berten.
Supported by the NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
DER PASS and Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot – Postmigrant Realities are supported by:
