Our identity and our life stories are everything that was right before now. Memories, smells, colours, sounds; everything we sense. Our thought, our soul, our body. The nostalgia about the country that is yours when you are forced to live so far away. When everything that is SO FARAWAY all the time is SO NEAR.

With the title SO FARAWAY, SO NEAR, EUTOPIA presents two dance performances in May about the “escaped body” and the histories behind.

About the performance

The context for the Syrian dancer and choreographer Mithkal Alzghair’s award winning performance is war, migration and revolution. In DISPLACEMENT he is questioning his identity and heritage in relation to the life in exile. The result is a strong physical expression that processes the conflicting feelings that exits in the hope. The hope of escaping in contradiction to the uncertainty and the concern it is to know that it will be impossible to return. Mithkal Alzghair will define the identity of the “Syrian body”. The body that is based on a heritage that is both traditional, lived and constructed but at the time is being influences of political, social, military and religious conditions.

DISPLACEMENT is a tri performance where Mithkal Alzghair together with two other dancers show how the Syrian reality that is filled up with conflicts, creates a hope of freedom. A freedom they cannot get because the Syrian people is caught in the crossfire between departure and arrival. They are just there in between.

After the performance May the first there is an artist talk with Mithkal Alzghair where the audience can get a bigger insight in the Syrian dancer’s and choreographer’s story.

About Mithkal Alzghair

Mithkal Alzghair is a Syrian dancer and choreographer. He has studied both in the East and in the West. At first in Syria at Higher Institute of Dramatic Art in Damascus and thereafter in France at The National Choreographic Centre of Montpellier.

Mithkal Alzghair has danced under several choreographers. Latest he has worked together with the Italian company In-Occula on the European project CRACK.

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Choreography: Mithkal Alzghair

Dancers: Farah, Shamil Taskin, Mithkal Alzghair

Dramaturgical advice: Thibaut Kaiser

Co-production: Godsbanen i Aarhus, Musée de la danse – Centre chorégraphique de Rennes Et De Bretagne, AFAC, Les Treize Arches-Scène Conventionnée de Brive

With support from: Centre Nationale de la Danse – Pantin, Francem Studio Le Regard du Cygne, Théâtre Louis Aragon, Scéne Conventionnée Danse de Tremblay-en-France.

Food from Smag à la Gellerup

Before the performance from 4 pm it is possible to enjoy a different meal at the square upon EUTOPIA Stage. Smag à la Gellerup offers food trucks from several countries in a cozy atmosphere of May the first.