DERVISH IN PROGRESS

Workshops provide the participants with an opportunity to get to know their bodies, their boundaries, their fears, in short, themselves. Whirling is not the main objective of these studies but a mere means to reach it. Whirls help unfold the true energy of the participants by shaking their physical and mental states that they have so far been accustomed to.

Methods:
–   Warm-up: Studies start with stretching and breathing exercises. At this stage, mind is readied for the next stage by concentration.
–   Awareness: This stage helps participants be aware of the venue and their bodies moving in this venue by ground works and basic acrobatics.
–   Whirling: At this stage, a higher level is targeted both physically and mentally. The participants, whose awareness of the venue and their bodies has changed through repetitive whirls, now need to face with this extraordinary state. This facing requires the participants to become acquainted with their environment, their bodies, and their minds once again.

 

 

ZIYA AZZAZI

Ziya Azazi is a dancer, choreographer and a "Dervish in Progress". He shared his experience and knowledge with the public in academic and non-academic environments through performances and workshops in all 5 continents.

Ziya Azazi was born in 1969 in Antakya (TR) and is based in Vienna since 1994. From the late nineties up to the present, Ziya Azazi’s dance practices have been primarily based on experimental whirling and repetition, which reflect his personal, artistic, conceptual and motional analysis of traditional Sufi dance. He searches for the simultaneous representation of contradictory perceptions of physical awareness and a high state of ecstasy, experimenting the intensities of speed and tension made possible through whirling. He aims at transforming the usual whirling dervish image and the classical Sufi dance into a spectacular form, thus proposing possibilities for personal ritual, that do not rely on the boundaries of existing belief systems. His work searches for the Dervish at a high level of speed, tension and emotion, and creates a space for the viewer to encounter and experience these moods. Through his performances, Ziya Azazi seeks to represent the moment of realisation when the Dervish begins to enjoy his/her achievement through the joyful and ecstatic repetition of whirling: the looping and spinning which leads to trance.

MORE: http://ziyaazazi.com