Score for a dance performance by Roshanak Morowatian

In the dance performance Alphabets of Flesh, choreographer and dancer Roshanak Morrowatian makes you feel what it is like to be a body in diaspora. Together with dancer Mami Izumi, she envisions the fragmented experience of time and space of people who have left their native land. The here and there and the now and then merge into memories and dreams.

What remains of your ancestry if you are displaced? What experiences – also from generations before you – are stored in your body? In a sensory journey through movements and images of the diaspora, Morrowatian searches for the feeling of home. Where and with whom is home? Can your body be your home? Do you need the past to define the ‘now’?

With dance, language, music and video art, Alphabets of Flesh creates a temporary home in which differences are embraced and uprooting is a source of strength.

Alphabets of Flesh will premiere on October 5, 2024 at the Nederlandse Dansdagen in Maastricht

Concept, direction and choreography: Roshanak Morrowatian in collaboration with Mami Izumi

Dance: Roshanak Morrowatian & Mami Izumi

Director: Nilay Ceber

Composition: Rutger Zuydervelt

Lighting design: Loes Schakenbos

Videography: Laisvie Andrea Ochoa Gaevska

Scenography: Isa Kasten

Costume design: Mieke Kockelkorn
Art Direction & Photography: Afagh Morrowatian

Production: Stichting Rover

Co-production: ICK Dans Amsterdam, Korzo, DOX, Parkstad Limburg Theaters & Le Gymnase CDCN
Made possible by: Performing Arts Fund NL, Province of Limburg, Fonds 21, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst & NORMA fonds

Photos by Afagh Morrowatian