Işın Önol

Premiered in Valladolid, Spain in May 2010

As most of the choreographical work of Ziya Azazi, Ember is a work in progress based on repetition and experimental whirling. It is particularly concerned with self destruction, the pain of the awareness of mortality, inevitable ending but also the continuous cycle of life. The piece depicts the lifelong battle with individual boundaries, leading one to a growing awareness of the diminishing possibility. Life becomes an irreversible circle, an unavoidable trap.

Ember, provides no easy answers. Instead it suggests the viewer to consider: what is beginning and what is end, where does life start, where does it end, where does fire stand in this cycle; for a beginning or an end?
Ziya Azazi practices contemporary interpretations of traditional Sufi dances. His work reflects his personal, artistic, conceptual and motional analysis. The realisation of simultaneous states of physical awareness and meditation constitute the fulcrum work. His dynamic, metamorphic dervish solos transform the classical Sufi dance into a spectacular form, suggesting the possibility of joy as pure ritual, without the constraining 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. In Ember, by using fire, he intensifies the complexity of witnessing the dualities of living: joy and pain, beginning and end, presence and absence, life and death…

Trapped in Fire was first performed in 2004, as an experimental piece in collaboration with Peter Leitner from the Fire Department of Vienna, on the occasion of the Anniversary Celebration Ball.

Choreography / Performance: Ziya Azazi
Dramaturgy: Isin Onol
Music: Mike Ottis
Stage design: Peter Leitner & Ziya Azazi
Light design: Lutz Deppe
Costume design: Ischiko
Stage management: Ali Can Güzel
Flame effects: Robert Nagel

Camera: Giovanni Bonatelli
Editing: Germano Milite

Special thanks to:
Ali Can Güzel, Dorothee Gussenbauer, Ischiko, Peter Leitner, Carles Treviño

Coproduced with:
Ziya Azazi & Office, Vienna/Austria
Freeart, Barcelona/Spain
Festival Mediterrana, Manresa/Spain

Recorded in:
Festival Oriente Occidente
Piazza del Mart, Roverreto/Italy

10 September 2011