Nomad

Premiere 4.6.2017, Jatka78, Praga (CZ)
Running time 1 hour. No intermission. 

Choreographer and Director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Composers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Felix Buxton, Kaspy N'dia
Additional music Yarkin, The Sufi Vocal Masters, Al Adhan, Al Qantarah, Fadia Tomb El-Hage, Oli Savill (percussion),traditional songs from the Amami Islands, Japan 
Sound designer Felix Buxton
Musician Kaspy N'dia
Costume designer Jan-Jan Van Essche 
Set designers Willy Cessa, Adam Carrée
Light designers Willy Cessa, Sam Mary
Video designer Paul Van Caudenberg
Co-producers: 420PEOPLE, Cultuurcentrum Berchem
With the support of The BNP Paribas Foundation, the Flemish Government and the Belgian Federal Government’s Tax Shelter programme

Cast
Oscar Ramos, Pol Van den Broek, Wang Qing, Kazutomi 'Tsuki' Kozuki, Nemo Oeghoede, Verdiano Cassone, Mabrouk Gouicem, Nick Coutsier, Stephanie Amurao, Jonas Vandekerckhove, Mohamed Toukabri  

In his full-length performance Nomad, the multi-awarded choreographer and internationally acclaimed director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui pieced together a mosaic drawn from the animate and inanimate elements of the desert. The desert is a metaphor: the deserted landscape stands for the ultimate freedom but also for the impossibility of survival. The residents, dancing refugees, have been left on another planet. They seem isolated in this environment, as today’s world must often appear in the eyes of minorities. Even though the desert is a dangerous place, we also get a glimpse of fluidity and adaptability that thrive in the harshest of conditions. One senses the spirit of togetherness, of friendship and symbiosis, key to survival and evolution in an arid world that would be insurmountable alone. There is the beautiful transience of sand dunes and winds that change direction and shape and speed in the twinkling of an eye; the intense physical and emotional thirst, the yearning for water and safety, for consolation that guide both animal actions and the human quest for spirituality. The choreographic sequences are based on Arabic motifs such as the flower of life. These drawings, based on mathematical formulas, give a very organic impression. The soundscape completes the universe: it draws on Sufi music and merges it with piano pieces composed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.