Palestinian dance artist Khaled Barghouthi and Palestinian-American dance artist Samar Haddad King (Artistic Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre aka YSDT), will show work, discuss their process, and teach a workshop at The Whole Shebang in Philly. They will be joined by Associate Artistic Director and performer of YSDT, Zoe Rabinowitz. These events are sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, Philly BDS, JVP-Philly, Christian-Jewish Allies and Tikkun Olam Chavurah.
November 18th, 8pm
Studio Showin...
Palestinian dance artist Khaled Barghouthi and Palestinian-American dance artist Samar Haddad King (Artistic Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre aka YSDT), will show work, discuss their process, and teach a workshop at The Whole Shebang in Philly. They will be joined by Associate Artistic Director and performer of YSDT, Zoe Rabinowitz. These events are sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, Philly BDS, JVP-Philly, Christian-Jewish Allies and Tikkun Olam Chavurah.
November 18th, 8pm
Studio Showing and Discussion, details TBA
$10-25 sliding scale, pay what you can
November 19th, 11am-2pm
Workshop, details below...
$20-35 sliding scale, pay what you can.
The workshop will begin with a technique class offered by Samar and Zoe, followed by an Improvisation class with Khaled. Participants are asked to participate in the full 3 hour workshop...
Technique
Focusing on core strength, alignment, and creative expression this class offers an environment of technical and artistic exploration for dancers of all levels. Drawing on classical and contemporary dance techniques as well as the related arts of Yoga and Pilates, this class challenges participants to connect to their core in order to find an authentic and organic source of movement. Dancers are given the freedom to investigate movement phrases through choreographic and improvisational tools that allow them to inhabit their own movement more fully and to find new solutions for problems of phrasing, intent, and technical ability.
Improvisation
This class will focus on how and where the performance in improvisation begins; how to instantly compose and decompose the movement materials that your performance consists of; discover what the inspirations are for your performance; learn how to become a part of the performing ensemble. These are ambitious proposals to be researched within such a short time, but we will touch on all of them in different ways. One goal of this class is to explore the difference between instant composition and improvisation and it will consist of two parts: First, a warm up through improvisational tools to cultivate consciousness of the moving body in relationship to the music and the space. Second, compositional exercises focusing on the questions where does the performance start and how does a movement idea end?
Khaled Barghouthi was born in Ramallah, Palestine. He studied contemporary dance at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp from 2010-2013, and is a prospective student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts for 2017.
Khaled started dancing at the age of 19th after he was invited by the KVS in Belgium to take part in their summer workshops in Palestine. He received a scholarship to continue his dance studies in Belgium from the Belgian Development Agency, becoming the first Palestinian from the occupied territories to study dance with a group of internationally known choreographers and dancers.
In 2016 Khaled was awarded three different production awards: Arts Council UK to create a work in collaboration with the British poet and artist Camilla Nelson; the Cultural Resources Production Award for his creation Intifada#3 in Palestine; a residency through the CUNY Dance Initiative at Lehman College for his project MarchIn in collaboration with the american dancer Zoe Rabinowitz.
Khaled's research in dance is focused on the embodiment of the social/political reality of space, and how the performance space transforms once the audience's relationship to it is questioned.
Khaled has worked with companies and choreographers such as Eastman, Damien Jalet, Koen Augustine, les ballet C de la B, City Dance Washington, Willi Dorner and others. His dream is to start an academic dance program and a dance company in Palestine.
Samar Haddad King, Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre and co-director of min tala, a pan-Arab dance company, graduated cum laude with honors in choreography from the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in New York City under the tutelage of Kazuko Hirabayashi.
Her work has been commissioned in the U.S. by the Ailey School, Configuration Dance, Hubbard Street 2––where she was the recipient of the National Choreography Competition––among others, and has performed at various venues such as NYC’s Joyce SoHo, HarlemStage, Citigroup Theatre, Chicago’s Harris Theater, Jacob’s Pillow and many notable international festivals.
In 2015, she was the recipient of the Prix des Jeunes Créateurs Palestiniens pour la Diversité des Expressions Artistiques. She recently completed research with curator, dramaturge, researcher and writer, Sandra Noethe with support from the Goethe Institute (Palestine) on the developing contemporary dance scene in Palestine and the creation of a more sustainable environment for young artists.
She recently finished choreographing the opening of the Palestinian Museum and the play Azza under the direction of Amir Nizar Zuabi. They are currently collaborating on new productions set to premiere in 2017. Samar is based primarily in Palestine.
Zoe Rabinowitz is an independent dance artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her choreography has been presented at the Detroit Dance City Film Festival, Fleet Moves Dance Festival in Cape Cod, and Harrisburg Dance Festival; throughout New York City at venues such as Lincoln Center, New York Theatre Workshop, and West End Theatre; and abroad at the New Dance Festival in Daejeon, South Korea.
Zoe is the Associate Artistic Director and dancer with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, a contemporary dance company located between New York City and Palestine since 2005. As a performer, she has worked with artists such as Joanna Mendl Shaw/Equus Projects, MBDance, Urban Bush Women, Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, and Anne Zuerner, with workshops and performances throughout Japan, Jordan, Palestine, South Korea, Tunisia, and the United States.
Zoe has been awarded funding from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, and residencies from the Omi International Arts Center (2014), CUNY Dance Initiative (2016), and Marble House Project (2016). She is a graduate of the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in New York, with additional studies at De Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands.