Armin Hokmi , Of the Heart

A dance from the heart. Gesture by gesture, dancer Katherina Jitlatda Horup Solvang forms sharp angles, broken lines and sudden breaks. The precision is extreme, almost dizzying. The rhythmic-electronic music of Tehran-based musicians Ehsan & HEICH creates the moment in which a body wants to move and dance before it knows what form this dance should take. Of the Heart is the fleeting encounter between dancer and dance. A finely woven solo by choreographer Armin Hokmi who already guested at tanzhaus nrw with Shiraz back in October 2025 and who continues his sensitive line with Of the Heart.
Between folkloristic traces and traditional echoes, Armin Hokmi searches for a movement vocabulary that defies the grasp of definite interpretation. As a study of a barely comprehensible struggle with music, Of the Heart begins and unfolds as a physical act. Something that does not impose but rather offers.

“Sequences […] swell and enrich one another
in high graphic rigour, while
they connect futurism with folklore and
universalism. They demonstrate, to
perfection, what minimalism could look
like today and draw a picture
of an intimate cycle through which
lines and forms of dance history
thrust, among them a
trace of Nijinska and expressionism” (Thomas Hahn – tanz, October 25)

“Nothing is left to chance, neither the bends of the knees, nor the transitions that break with the music by ehsan & HEiCH, nor the depth of the pliés. And yet, everything seems to emerge, surface, slide beyond all expectation. It is a pure study of gesture, as we love them, where the choreographer enjoys exploring all the possibilities provoked by a constraint: that of the fold.” Cult.news

Armin Hokmi (Oslo / Berlin) works in the fields of dance and choreography. He started his artistic career in independent Iranian theatre in 2009. He later continued his education and work abroad, gathering experience in various performative practices and media. He holds a bachelor’s degree in acting from the Norwegian theatre Academy (2015 – 2018) and graduated in the master’s course Solo / Dance / Authorship at HZT Berlin (2019 – 2021). Armin Hokmi is an associated artist at Montpellier Danse throughout the 2024 – 2026 period. With passion and precision, Armin Hokmi develops movement languages in his choreographic work that oscillate between familiarity and strangeness – horizons in which different reference frames meet, contrast, and transform.

Duration: 35 mins.