Wujoud wa Hodoud (COPY)

Wujoud wa Hodoud ( Phase 1)

An original, contemporary, interdisciplinary, performative work

The Duet

About/Statement — Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh

I am an active performer, choreographer, cultural organizer and researcher with a focus on both movement and contextual analyses.

In August 2017, after coming back from a-two-year study of anthropology in Europe, reconciling my feelings about my heritage, acknowledging of the multi-culture that composes my identity, I felt a strong inner impulse to create a dance to tell my story.

“This dance work is telling a story and it is a truthful story.”

A few weeks later, I was joined by my brother, Anas, who is also a multi-disciplinary performer and choreographer. With intense and eager interest, he encouraged me to discover our unique dance language – and its power to repeat.

This is the birth of “Wojoud Wa Hodoud”.

The word “Wojoud” meaning “Existence” and the word “Hodoud” meaning “Borders” in Arabic, together draw personal stories of land, nation, division and struggle into the body and voice of two brothers.

“The Duet”

It is a forty-minute contemporary dance duet that combines technology with the human form, as well as scripted intentionality with spontaneity, into a kinetic narrative of the human condition.

For this production, Abd and Anas team up with visual artist Ren. The indeterminate or ‘chance’ aspect of the work is explored as the performers dance through "shapes" and "lines” created by an extensive fiber-optic installation. What has resulted in the space is intentional, and at the same time, spontaneous, connecting the dance piece with day-to-day randomness of life and the dynamics of conscious and unconscious creative adaptation of life defined by borders.

Duet Timeline

Initiation: August 2017

Experiment (8/6/2017) --- Two months into practice ---a two-minute trailer

First (work in progress) dance presentation (11/8/2017) --- a three-minute trailer

November 8 2017 17:00-19:00

Location: French Institute, Amman, Jordan

Description: dance performance followed by a Q&A and discussion

Performer: Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh, Anas AbuNahleh

Photoprapher: Mohammad Nabeel alsarafndi

Second (work in progress) dance presentation (12/7/2017) --- a one-minute trailer

December 7 2018 18:00-20:00

Location: French Institute, Amman, Jordan

Description: dance performance followed by a Q&A and discussion

Performer: Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh, Anas AbuNahleh

Sound Assistant: Mohamad Asem AL Khoja

Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) performance (3/25-26/2018) --- a three-minute highlight video

March 25-26 2018 20:00-22:00

Location: AUC Falaki Theater & Gallery (Cairo, Egypt)

Description: emerging Arab choreographers curated by Nedjma Hadj Benchelabi

Performer: Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh, Anas Nahleh Sound Assistant: Ren

In the design process of the installation, techniques including learning from performance arts, thread and rope modelling,cardboard modelling, 3D modelling are used. After performer experience evaluation, further experimentation with material and technology were conducted, allowing more engagement and the possibility of designing choreographic sequences of light and shadow.

Group Version

About/Statement — Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh

“It is a dance creation featuring moments in eight young dancers’ lives told through movements, sound and installation.”

“Wojoud Wa Hodoud”, started as a duet of the story of Abd and Anas, after 12 months of development, evolved into an investigation of the embodied past of eight Arab performing artists of Jordanian, Palestinian, Syrian heritage living in Amman, observing the acquired habits from the childhood to adulthood, from past to present. It is also an examination of their dispositions, habitus and their struggle to describe themselves in the community, in ways which encompass both their idiosyncratic qualities and their group memberships, both of which can shift according to time and circumstance.

“The dance creation reflects the stories of 8 dancers, their constant struggle of assimilating into different cultures, finding a balance between them and balancing their identities within.”

“Wojoud Wa Hodoud” is a process developing a method of dance making inspired by the exploration of the objective and subjective state of perceiving oneself as who I am and as relating to being a member of different groups which may be relying on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the common land in history, shared experiences, and defined by the existence of borders. Through the process of choreography of movement, our concept is represented by “motifs”, which are repeated actions gives the first element(s) of form to the dance.

One shape emanates from our deeply embodied movements from a traditional dance native to the Levant is chosen to represent our concept and used as the basis for our motif. The motif serves as the force with which a body moves, for structuring the dance piece. Throughout the process, we conscientiously select and refines movement, aiming to create cohesion in the work. At the same time, a spatial, temporal and emotional dislocation is created in the process, as a practical exploration of de-composition and de-construction, aiming to experience motif-driven sequences, transitions, repetitions, variations and formal structures differently.

Notably, the dance making is independent from music. As a result, in performance, with experimental sounds and audio noises produced live with the dance movements, music is neither followed or rejected by the movements.

For seventy minutes, Wojoud wa Hodoud constructs its own world, enclosed within fiber-optic installation, its inhabitants bring a unique energy with so much earnestness and sincerity.