Με το σόλο ANNNA για τη χορεύτρια Anna Pehrsson, η Alexandra Waierstall δημιουργεί ένα σωματικό τοπίο όπου η κίνηση υφαίνεται σαν μια μεγάλη ανάσα με συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενες σχέσεις ήχου και σιωπής, γρήγορες εναλλαγές μετατόπισης του σώματος καιακινησίας,όπου αναδύονται διάφορες,αλλά ποτέ οριστικές, εικόνες και χώροι. Με την Anna Pehrsson, τον μουσικό Volker Bertelman (Hauschka) και την εικαστικό Μαριάννα Χριστοφίδου, η Alexandra κινείται μέσα από μια αρχαιολογία βαθύτερων στρωμάτων φουτουριστικής ουτοπίας που είναι ακόμη ακαθόριστη. Σε κάθε χορογραφική προσέγγιση της δημιουργού, ο χρόνος είναι ακαθόριστος, ενώ το εδώ και το τώρα δημιουργούνται μεταξύ ασαφών υπαινιγμών γιατομέλλονμέσααπότησωματικήπαρουσίατης χορεύτριας. Με απαλές κινήσεις, σαν συνεχείς παλμούς, η χορεύτρια περνά μέσα από διάφορες καταστάσεις: τι θα μπορούσε να είχε συμβεί και τι πρόκειται να συμβεί; 

Η Alexandra Waierstall (1979) γεννήθηκε στην Αγγλία και μεγάλωσε στην Κύπρο. Αποφοίτησε με μεταπτυχιακό στη Χορογραφία από την Ακαδημία Χορού ArteZ του Anhem (Ολλανδία). Απέσπασε πολλα βραβεία χορογραφίας στην Κύπρο και στη Γερμανία, μεταξύ των οποίων και το βραβείο καλύτερου ανερχόμενου καλλιτέχνη το 2013, στο Ντίσελντορφ. Το χορογραφικότηςέργοεπέλεξανκαιστήριξανοργανισμοί και δίκτυα όπως: Aerowaves, Modul Dance, IDEE Initiatives in Dance through European Exchange (Πρωτοβουλίες στον τομέα τουΧορού μέσω Ευρωπαϊκών Ανταλλαγών) και Chin-A-moves.Το2012,υπήρξε ανάμεσα στους φιναλίστ για τα βραβεία Rolex Mentor και Protége. Η Alexandra Waierstall παρουσίασε το χορογραφικό της έργο στην Ευρώπη,τον Καναδά, τηΒραζιλία,τηνΚορέακαιτην Κίνα.Η Alexandra Waierstall ήταν για το 2014-2016 Factory Artist στο Tanzhaus NRW στο Ντίσελντορφ της Γερμανίας. 

The fact that I’m taking part in the Cyprus Contemporary Dance Platform is quite unexpected. I’m not a “normal” dancer (according to the festival’s standards), but I’m very happy to be part of the festival. As it is officially the first time I participate as a choreographer, I have ten minutes. I will do my best to communicate, within this timeframe, my sense of alertness about he times we currently live in, as well as my need to enter into a dialogue with the Plat- form it self. I have a lot of questions about my role as an artist and the role of art in general, especially the role of this “incomprehensible” dance as my dad likes to call it.  

A space of movement in constant change. Empty spaces, splashes of color, moments of convergence. Landscape, a glance, a touch. A whiff of remembrance in time and space. 

Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC), one of the leading dance companies in the world, is widely identified with the work of Artistic Director Rami Be’er whose exclusive and unique choreographic character has become the company’s trademark both in Israel and abroad. 

With its technically strong and physically eclectic cast of dancers and its dynamic sensibility, KCDC characterizes Israeli dance at its best and performs regularly in the most respected theaters and at leading festivals worldwide. 

KCDC was founded in 1973 by the late Yehudit Arnon who laid the foundation for today’s thriving International Dance Village which was developed and continues to evolve into a first-class center for dance under the leadership of Rami Be’er and KCDC’s management and staff. 

KCDC is situated in a beautiful location at the International Dance Village in Kibbutz Ga’aton, Israel.  The International Dance Village is the heart and home of the company and is comprised of a total of nearly 80 Israeli and international dancers.  These dancers make up KCDC’s Main Company, KCDC’s Second Company, and KCDC’s 5-month & 10-month international study abroad dance program Dance Journey.   KCDC also hosts an annual Summer Intensive for both international and Israeli dancers as well as year-round courses. 

Choreography, Stage & Lighting Design: Rami Be'er 

Music: Faultline, J. Carpenter's, A. Thersi, S. Endersen & C. Wallumrod & H. Sten, A. Desplat, Bjork, F. Buttons, Krieg und Frieden, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, O. Arnalds & A.S. Ott, Blonde Redhead, D. Labrosse & I. Mori & M. Tetreault, Elvis Presley, P. Jeck, Kid Koala, Primus, The Knife, Murcof, E. Karaindrou, Micachu & The Shapes & London Sinfonietta, O. Yoshihide 

Sound Editing: Rami Be’er, Alex Claude 

Costume Design: Rami Be’er, Lilach Hatzbani 

Rehearsal Director: Nitza Gombo 

Dancers: 

Shani Cohen, David Ben Shimon, Martin Harriague, Su Jeong Kim, Hagar Shachal, Niv Elbaz, Rony Ben Simon, Ilya Nikurov, Megan Doheny, Anastasia Cheshun, Jin Hwan Seok, Shelly Lemel, May Asor, Albert Galindo, Lea Bessoudo, Nat Wilson, Jungwoon Jung 

Artistic Director: Rami Be’er 

Executive Director: Amira Teomi 

Founder: Yehudit Arnon (1926-2013) 

International Director: Yoni Avital 

Rehearsal Director: Nitza Gombo 

Technical Director: Diego Fernandez 

Sound & Lighting: Lior Cohen 

Performance Manager: Zadok Zemach 

Wardrobe: Ofra Sharon Heimann 

THE ROOTS: THE HIP HOP SHOW WHERE ATTOU GETS BACK TO BASICS Marie-Christine Vernay, Libération – September 2013  

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“Kader Attou is a tough nut. However, it’s not the punches he took when he was a young boxer, that forged his character, nor the acrobatics he performed during his time at the circus school in Saint-Priest, in the suburbs of Lyons where he grew up like many others in his family of Algerian immigrants. His desire for social success has always been associated with his need for a poetical universe that could contain a bit of his own life and a lot of the lives of the others that he met along his way as an artist: from Mexico to India via Algeria, keeping always to the housing estates of major cities. Going on 40, he steps out of the ring, and out of the ranks, backed by a professional career that started with other dancers, including Mourad Merzouki and cie Accrorap.  

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For any of those who thought that hip hop would be just a passing fashion, that would dis- appear from the choreographic landscape as soon as the kids from the suburbs had picked up their sheets of cardboard, The Roots, the new show by Kader Attou, director of the Centre chorégraphique national (CCN) in La Rochelle since 2008, offers us a lesson in tenacity, and sums it all up. Even in his early more fragile productions, it was clear that this choreographer had a sense of composition and especially a certain way of establishing connections between his dancers in a space where bonding and togetherness pre-vail. The eleven dancers that are the bearers of The Roots, plus Kader Attou, form a sort of chorus from which individuals emerge, each one as interesting as the next, as each has his own style, his own physique, and his own technical specificities. Each one puts his signature  

to their own hip hop and the performance, full of surprises, could wind up with an even freer free style. Pure delight!  

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The tableaux, so cleverly crafted – like The Raft of the Medusa sometimes supported by a single leg or hand - are so elegant that they instantly remind us that hip hop is not a question of muscle, but above all, of balance. Everything is refined, touches of a nostalgic opening solo in an unsteady armchair, or an aerial tap-dance on a table with quivering scorpions...  

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The basic figures, that Kader Attou has not eliminated from his vocabulary, and that he links up in a perfect syntax, re-gain all of their initial vigor. The Roots, is not a nostalgic production, it is a dance for tomorrow, where relationships between men (the show is all masculine) find a new way of being, of be- ing together without harming each other and, if possible with enjoyment. The choreographer also makes fun of himself, quoting himself with a lot of humor. The Roots is a true show, but in no way showy. The audience is on its feet. It’s no surprise that the show in question has 90 dates for the coming tour.”  

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Kader Attou 

Director of the CCN of La Rochelle and the Poitou-Charentes region, artistic director, dancer and choreographer of the Accrorap dance company.  

Today’s hip-hop creative works, independent and new dance scene creations, convey an image of French culture throughout the world. Kader Attou can claim to be an integral part of this new dance scene. He is one of the major representatives of French hip hop, and Accrorap is an iconic company. 

With Contemporariness, blending of cultures, and humanistic commitment, Kader Attou signs a dance of his times, where encounters, dialogue and sharing are the driving forces and creative sources.  

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With the excitement of the discovery of break-dance in 1989, and the rst shows of Accrorap, a desire was born to examine in depth the question of meaning and develop an artistic approach. In 1994 Athina marks the debut of Accrorap on stage at the Dance biennale in Lyon. Created in 1996 Kelkemo, an hommage to Bosnian and Croatian child refugees is the fruit of a powerful experience in the Zagreb camps in 1994 and 1995. Prière pour un fou (1999), a pivotal piece in the choreographic universe of Kader Attou, attempts to re-establish the dialogue that the Algerian drama was making increasingly and painfully less probable. Then Accrorap broad- ened their scope inventing a dance that is rich and full of humanity with Anokha (2000), at the crossroads between hip hop and Indian dance; East and West. Composed of sketches where per performance,emotion and musicality intermingle, Pourquoi pas (2002), enters a universe of poetry and lightness. Douar (2004), created within the scope of the year of Algeria in France queries the issues of exile and boredom, echoing the concerns of young people in neighborhoods and housing estates in France and Algeria. Les corps étrangers (2006), an international project - France, In- dia, Brazil, Algeria and the Côte d’Ivoire – evokes the human condition and searches for possible meeting points between cultures and aesthetic styles to construct, via dance, a space for communication to query the future. Petites histoires.com (2008), acclaimed by the critics and public alike, tells of Everyman’s France through burlesque sketches while maintaining a sensitive and committed approach.  

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In 2008, Kader Attou was named Director of the CCN (National Centre for Choreography) in La Rochelle and the du Poitou- Charentes region, thus becoming the first hip hop choreographer rto lead such an institution.  

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Trio (?) (2010) takes us back to the world of the circus. Symfonia pie ni ałosnych (2010) is a per- formance of the entire Symphony No.3alsoknownastheSymphony of Sorrowful Songs by the Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. This creation explores all compositional aspects, is carried away by soaring vocals, penetrated by melodic forces to join the message of hope.  

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In 2013, Kader Attou returns to the source of hip hop, to his very rst sensations: The Roots is a human adventure, a journey, a dive into his poetical universe. Eleven of the most skillful hip hop dancers perform the piece; they form a group that is in complete symbiosis.  

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Created in August 2014 for the 10th edition of the Nuits Romanes in Poitou-Charentes, Un break à Mozart, born of the encounter between the CCN of La Rochelle and the Champs-Elysées orchestra, presents a genuine dialogue  

between dance of today and music of the Enlightenment with the major musical work: Mozart’s Requiem.  

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In September 2014 for the Dance biennaleofLyon,KaderAttoucreated OPUS 14 for sixteen dancers, men and women, combining power, otherness, commitment and corporeal poetry in a funda- mentally hip hop piece.  

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With Un break à Mozart as a base, the premiere of Un break à Mozart 1.1 – a new creation by Kader Attou for 11 dancers and 10 musicians from the Champs Elysées Orchestra has performed in November 2016 at La Coursive in La Rochelle as part of the event “Shake La Rochelle !” the first edition of CCN’s Hip Hop festival. 

In January 2013 Kader Attou was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) and in the New Year’s honors list of 2015 was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the French Legion of Honour)  

LA CIE ACCRORAP  

In 1989 at Saint-Priest, Kader Attou, Eric Mezino, Chaouki Saïd, Mourad Merzouki and Lionel Frédoc created the company Accrorap.  

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From the collective of artists at the beginning, to the emergence of unique choreographic works, Accrorap is characterized by its profound openness: openness to the world through journeys conceived as instants of sharing, openness to other artistic forms, to other trends.  

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Kader Attou has enriched and ne-tuned his dance through the alchemy of hip hop, circus arts, contemporary dance and visual arts. From the local to the international scene, his works have travelled round the world.  

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Among others: Prière pour un fou (1999), Anokha (2000), Pourquoi pas (2002), Douar (2004), Les corps étrangers (2006), Petites histoires. com (2008), Trio (?) (2010), SymfoniaPiésniZałosnych (2010), The Roots (2013) Un break à Mozart (2014), OPUS 14 (2014) and Un break à Mozart 1.1 (2016).  

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Since 1989, the dance of the company Accrorap and of Kader Attou is generous and strives to break-down barriers and cross frontiers.  

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The work of Accrorap is the tale of an international collective adventure, where the concept of encounters is at the centre of the company’s approach and where journeys enrich re ection.  

Artistic director and choreographer: Kader Attou  

Cast: Babacar “Bouba” Cissé, Bruce Chiefare, Virgile Dagneaux,
Erwan Godard, Mabrouk Gouicem, Adrien Goulinet, Kevin Mischel, Artem Orlov, Mehdi Ouachek, Nabil Ouelhadj, Maxime Vicente  

Scenography: Olivier Borne  

Creation of the original painting: Ludmila Volf  

Original sound creation: Régis Baillet - Diaphane, along with additional music  

lights: Fabrice Crouzet  

costumes designer: Nadia Genez  

production  

CCN de La Rochelle / Poitou-Charentes, Kader Attou / cie Accrorap  

co-producers  

La Coursive - Scène Nationale de La Rochelle / MA Scène Nationale - Pays de Montbéliard / with the support of CHÂTEAUVALLON centre national de création et de diffusion culturelles during creation residencies  

Le Centre Chorégraphique National de La Rochelle et du Poitou-Charentes /
Cie Accrorap - Direction Kader Attou est soutenu par le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - DRAC Aquitaine - Limousin - Poitou-Charentes, le Conseil régional Nouvelle - Aquitaine, la Ville de La Rochelle et par l’Institut français pour certaines de ses tournées à l’étranger et dans le cadre des années croisées.  

The Imploding Portraits Inevitable-Series, which began with Shiny, Shiny... and False Colored Eyes, continues with Candy’s Camouflage. Projections of the feminine – or what one may take for it – are called up; deceptive stereotypes and fragile clichés are put to the endurance tests they deserve. 

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In Candy’s Camouflage" the colourful frenzy of the previous pieces dissolves into the black and white of Film Noir. What remains are the tools of camouflage and deception, which provide the possibility to create a new self again and again. 

An ode to weird- and messiness, to the controlled chaos of grimaces and erupting dance. Constant change, here, is the fundamental principle, mutation’s the game. Candy’s Camouflage is dreamlike, surreal, ambiguous. The magical mystery tour leads into the inner workings of the gender-circuitry, with a final collapse into futuristic abstraction.  

Notes on Candy’s Camouflage.  

Candy’s Camouflage is based on the practice of autocorpography, a self-embodiment that is as much self-surveying and -definition as it is self-publication. The dark shadows of the real bodies mix with the decolourised, silver tinted images cast onto the background wall. A dark eroticism is at play in this piece, a form of libidinal autonomy: Three human bodies, bathed in cool light, relating themselves to one another. To grasp yourself always also means to draw up a portrait of yourself. The Imploding Portraits Inevitable-Series, begun with Liquid Loft’s productions Shiny, Shiny… and False Colored Eyes, changes its shape with Candy’s Camouflage. It provides projections of the feminine, subjecting stereotypes and brittle clichés to a series of stress tests. Above all, it explores surfaces: the outer layer of people, the skin, as well as the fabrics one can use to cover, to cloak it.  

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Now, surfaces don’t have the best reputation. At least Pop Art, and before that, only Oscar Wilde, rehabilitated dealing with outer appearance, for a few years. But since then, those who view inner profundity as strictly separated from the outer shell have, again, regained the upper hand. Candy’s Camouflage can be seen as a statement against the division of surface and substance. The secure knowledge, that only via a precise analysis of the outside we can establish the necessary contact with the dreams, visions and desires of people, carries this evening.  

Film Noir is a logical point of reference here; at times the figures are almost swallowed by darkness before they - driven by a mysterious inner energy - start to twitch spookily, squirming in front of and below the camera. Everyone’s lost within themselves: as if they weren’t aware that they are watched and used, that they are about to become signs, signals. Hands tugging on clothes, laying bare body parts: Fingers feeling across written-upon skin, faces being studies in extreme close-ups, three artificial creatures think and move along to the flow of the fragments of music, to the strange mono- and dialogues they are forced to follow into unknown existences. Individuals turn into prototypes, which morph into clusters of humans, into intertwined and mixed up fantasy creatures. Matters build up from smoldering phases of silence and slow-motion matters build up, in ever stronger concussions, ever closer to an unexplained psycho-physical excess.  

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Like all pieces by Liquid Loft, this one is very musical in its nature – not only in the expansive field of its sonar web, ranging between ambient and noise, sinister drones and melancholic melodies, but also in respects of language, dance and video-styles. The splinters of language, song and noise are mostly of uncertain provenance, and yet they merge associatively, retracing “noir”-atmospheres.  

The cameras and spotlights remain flexible, are handled by the actors, are tilted, panned, set in direction and readjusted – or there are zoom-ins on the details of the images, on displays of oneself. In the visual montage, in blends and double exposures the movements are doubled or tripled, translated into complicated, kaleidoscopically multiplied views. The interplay of revelation and concealment is also based on a dramaturgy of layered clothing, changing or discarding dresses; wrapping each other in again. A constant struggle is orchestrated here: a wrestling with words, with poses and gestures, overviews and effigies. There’s failure and swearing, getting entangled (even literally in one’s clothes), running on the spot. A subtle grotesque in which silver synthetic fiber and drapery play essential supporting roles, takes shape. One is reminded of the amateurish glamor of Kenneth Angers’ short, although much more colorful celebration of starlet’s wardrobes: “Puce Moment” – not the least because of the referential use of the quoted songs in the reverb drenched, shadow cushioned music of a bygone era, which seems to rise from the subconscious like distant memories.  

The dense mesh of light and shadow, of figures, costumes, sounds, voices and movements becomes differentiated in the projections, where rooms become deformed and bodies assembled the wrong way. The reciprocal effect of the plasticity of the three dimensional happening on stage and its transformation onto the screen behind the actors is crucial. First and last, Candy’s Camouflage is, after all, a drama of gaze and voyeurism, an ambiguous meditation in which comedy lies close to despair and popular sayings (Wir Wiener Waschweiber würden weisse Wäsche waschen – We, Viennese laundry women, would be washing white laundry) is put to feminist reflection.  

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One of Warhol’s divas, Candy Darling, serves as the namesake of this piece: This tragic, gone-to-soon searcher of her own identity, a free radical of female emancipation is the perfect figurehead for this undertaking, which so intensely deals with distortions and inscriptions, with mauled skin; in short: the strained woman. And there’s Lucinda Williams analyzing the spirit of prostitution from the inside: „Come to my house of earth / if you would like for me to gather old time feelings back / Come here to my house of good, rich earth / if you would like for me to teach your wife a thing or two...“  

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In Candy's Camouflage, relishing in soul searching, blueprints of euphoria, longing, anger and madness set against each other, juggling with statuesque images of women that range from trash-goddess to Muslima to oriental queen.  

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The performers feel their ways jumping across the epochs, from the mythological Victim-Perpetrators of the tragedies of Antiquity to the murderous strategists of Film Noir, and from Warhol’s bored Chelsea Girls to Punk and Indie Rock’s Riot Grrrls. Men remain absent, they are not needed here, the environment belongs to the women – the femme fatales and the childlike strange, the dreamily raptured and the dramatically unbound.   

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Text: Stefan Grissemann   
Translation from German: Oliver Stummer  

Liquid Loft is supported by: MA7 Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien (Cultural Department of the City of Vienna) and BKA Bundeskanzleramt Kunst & Kultur (Austrian Federal Chancellery Arts & Culture)  

Dance, Performance: Stephanie Cumming, Katharina Meves, Karin Pauer 

Choreography, Artistic Direction: Chris Haring 

Composition, Sound Design: Andreas Berger  

Light Design, Scenography: Thomas Jelinek 

Costumes: Julia Cepp 

Theory: Stefan Grissemann 

Assistance Rehearsals: Luke Baio  

Texts: by the performers 

Stage Management: Roman Harrer 

Videodocumentation: Michael Loizenbauer 

International Distribution: Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent, A PROPIC 

Production Management: Marlies Pucher 

As if being a string trio, the performers step on stage with their body-instruments, sit down, arrange scores, wait for silence. Ready: An almost soundless concert starts, a play of bodies following partitions. In the beginning plays the legendary Bacchanale by John Cage – seen, but not heard: withOut! – By playing without musicians, a direct link and visible connection from architecture of music to the dancing body is created, aiming to achieve movement being watched as music is listened to at a concert. 

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Philipp Egli from Zurich, Switzerland has been working for over 25 years in the field of contemporary dance and cultural education. He has initiated, elaborated and choreographed numerous works, has created dance in various spaces, counting nearly 60 choreographies until today. After having worked as a dancer with Cie. Philippe Saire and ROSAS (Anne Teresa De Keersmaecker) in Brussels, in 1995 he founded his own company MOLTeNi in Zurich. Philipp Egli is leading the dance company of Theater St. Gallen and, from 2000-2009 the theatre’s dance school. In 2009 Philipp co-led the Contemporary Dance department at Zurich University of the Arts. From 2012 to 2016 he co-led the legendary Swiss visual and mask theatre group Mummenschanz. In 2010 he founded his label egli_items aiming to promote further on experimental, contemporary dance, having the objective to design and create unusual, original choreography with a main focus on movement. 

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Concept and Choreography Philipp Egli
 
Dance Azusa Nishimura, Samuel Delvaux, Philipp Egli,  

Technic and Dance Christina Bauer
 

Music dramaturgy Petra Ronner
 

Outside eye Zoé Kilchenmann
 

Sound Silvio Buchmeier
 

Light Eric William Sauge
 

Production management Nicole Friedman, tanztotal  

Production egli_items, Zürich
 

Coproduction Zürich tanzt 2016
 

Subsidies and Sponsoring Kultur Stadt Zürich, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Migros-Kulturprozent, Ernst Göhner Stiftung  

Hybrid` directed by Motoko Hirayama explores the moment of emerging new species by crossbreeding、unlike ordinal collaboration with different cultures. Baraba Okuyama, a Butoh dancer (former member of Dairakudakan). Kotaro Mizushima, a contemporary dancer and Motoko Hirayama show a fantasy when an organic body generate its acceptance and repulsion by hybridization with the Basque` rhythmical sound by Oreka TX and the melodious Ainu song by Emi Toko and Fukiko Goukon. 

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The original version was 6 dancers, Oreka TX and Emi Toko. This premiered on March 2016 in New National Theatre (Tokyo, Japan), went on Basque tour in 4 cities (San Sebastian, Bilbao, Pamplona and Vitoria-Gasteitz) in the same year. Motoko recreated this piece for Pafos 2017 this time. 

Motoko as a dancer who controls both tranquility and uplift feeling freely on the stage is highly-praised by the audience. 

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Not only that, she has started work as a choreographer in recent years. In 2006, Motoko`s solo piece of classical ballet “Revelation” was performed by Prima Ballerina Svetlana Zakharova at ` Bolshoi Ballet`. She is a 2008 recipient `Asahi Performing Arts Award” for LIFE CASTING and won both `The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists` and `Takaya Eguchi Award` for The Rite of Spring in 2009. Motoko’s desire for creation expands her field wider. She also tried her hand at coaching National Synchronized Swimming Team and Figure skating team. Motoko leads the Japanese dance scene, continues to seek new ground, and never loses her adventurous, pioneering, and open-minded spirit. Associate Professor for dance at the University of Tsukuba  

Director, Choreographer, Dancer:Motoko Hirayama 

Dancer: Baraba Okuyama, Kotaro Mizushima 

Singer: Emi Toko, Fukiko Goukon 

Music: Oreka TX 

Musicians: Harkaitz Martinez de San Vicente Urriza , Mikel Ugarte,  Mixel Ducau, Juanjo Otxandorena, Iñigo Egia. 

Stage director: Dai Shibasaki 

Stage director assistant: Aiko Oguro 

Sound engineer: Mikel Fernandez Krutzaga 

Technical director: Yutaka Endo 

Lighting Designer: Noriyuki Mori 

Lighting operator: Carlos Solano 

Production Management: Igor Otxoa, Hitomi Tsuchida 

Supported by Japan Foundation, Art Council Tokyo, EU Japan fest 

Produced by European Capital of Culture-Pafos 2017, 20th Cyprus contemporary dance festival and NPO alfalfa 

KUKAI dance company and Oreka TX music band will release ROOTS specially for the Cyprus International Contemporary Dance Festival. 

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This both most international and multi awarded basque company and musical band have their roots in the basque culture, rhythm and dance, but they do reinvent and re-read them in a contemporary way. They like to say that they… 

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… “drink from the old drinking fountain,  

Drinking new water, 

water that is always new, 

from the old drinking fountain” 

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ROOTS because the performance will show the roots of the basque culture but with the branches open to the world and the innovation. Dancers and musicians will fuse together dance and music, understanding that there is music on the dance itself and that playing music is dancing too. 

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KUKAI Dance Company

The KUKAI Dance Company is considered to be a reference point in present-day culture in the Basque Country. Its director and choreographer, Jon Maya, has managed to create an original new style based on traditional Basque which is recognisable on the international scene. Kukai puts on contemporary dance shows based on traditional Basque dance – contemporary dance that takes the form of deep-rooted and ancestral dance combined with the most recent trends in performance. 

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Its dance-theatre productions, have gained widespread recognition throughout Spain. Among other awards, it has received the MAX AWARD FOR PERFORMING ARTS (the most important performing arts award in Spain) for the production 'HNUY ILLA', as a novel new show. To this should be added the interesting work it carries out merging its art with well-known choreographers such as Cesc Gelabert, Israel Galván, La intrusa Danza (Damián Muñoz and Virginia García), and Jone San Martín (Forsythe Ballet), among others. 

Choreographer: Jon Maya 

Artistic direction: Jon Maya & Igor Otxoa 

Musical direction: Harkaitz Mtez. De San Vicente 

Dancers:   Jon Maya, Urko Mitxelena, Nerea Vesga, Alain Maya, Izar Aizpuru and Beñat Salegi. 

Musicians: Harkaitz Mtez. De San Vicente, Mikel Ugarte, Mixel Ducau, Iñigo Egia and Juanjo Otxandorena. 

Lightining designer: Carlos Solano. 

Sound engineer: Mikel F. Krutzaga. 

Costume design: Ana Turrillas 

Production: Igor Otxoa, Nerea Ganzarain and Nagore Martinez.