FLYING SOLO

Once a year RIGHTABOUTNOW INC enables one maker the chance to create a solo with artistic guidance and production support by RIGHTABOUTNOW INC. As part of this international exchange program and development program – the solo premieres at the RIGHTABOUTNOW festival and the Flying Solo festival in Manchester.

TREASURIES OF MYSTERIES BY MAKER SHEYDA DARAB

Sheyda Darab’s latest dance theatre solo ‘Treasuries or Mysteries’ taps into the wealth that is in our deepest depths. From the treasures we keep hidden, to treasures we show and the treasures we see in others.

Flying Solo Winner Sheyda earned her stripes in the dance world as a dancer at among others Danstheater Aya, Scapino Ballet, Nike and Juste Deboute – as well as maker for Dansmakers, Korzo, Theater of Jungen Welt and X Pats Casablanca. She choreographed for the Amsterdam Fashion Week Mercedes-Benz and teaches locally and abroad – from Belgium to China at Lucia Marthas, Codarts and the Amsterdam Academy of the Arts among others.

Sheyda approaches Hip Hop Theatre as an extension of the word. By combining self-written poetry, spoken word and the 12th century poem ‘The Treasury of Mysteries’ by Iranian poet Nizami Ganjavi – the dance theatre maker is out to start a dialogue with herself and her public.

In ‘Treasuries of Mysteries’ she invites us to a contrasting quest for the treasures in image stills, slow motion, storytelling, music and explosive dance – leading up to a new movement language in which various street and club styles like Hip Hop, Krump, House, Waacking and elements of Popping, Sabar and Butoh become one.

Sheyda – ‘I dance from my inner being like a poet to make viewers think from this ‘intrinsic flow’. This enables me to translate the same message in a quick ‘battle run’ as well as a longer dance theatre play.

In addition, I am looking for ways to reveal the hidden treasures that are hidden in each and every one of us. This prevents ‘box thinking’ based on one element and enables us to integrate everything we can be as human beings.

For the established order and the Dutch public the first that comes to mind when thinking of Hip Hop Theatre is often acrobatics. I try to unveil these types of prejudices as well, hoping Hip Hop Theatre will take on as a mature genre in the Hip Hop battle culture, the choreography world, but also on TV.

I see fusion as the foundation for innovation in the choreography landscape and hope that one day I’ll be able to open a ‘House of Hip Hop Theatre’ to represent this idea. With that in mind, I am the embodiment of this fusion. Simply Sheyda – that’s me.