The Concentric Project was a commission by Breaking Walls Dance Festival (Cairo, Egypt). The task was a simple yet daunting one: Create an original show with Cairo-based performers of varying skills and styles, from start to finish in approximately 3 weeks. I was walking into a situation where there was a strong desire and long-established history of artists/art in Cairo (and my educated guess is Egypt-wide) to create work about political upheaval and fighting oppression. Revolution and resistance were regular topics of conversation within art spaces, and with my ensemble. Eventually I began to think “could we create a show that is just about… us? About who we are and what we care about? And about how we move? What if it were not only fun, but ESSENtial to create from this place… from a somatic, embodied, self-realized place?” It started to feel like a challenge, one which I invited the ensemble to join me in taking on. Several of the performers (all of them my dear friends now) asked throughout the process “But what is the piece REALLY about?” And I continued to answer that it is about you. That what if all of you from different backgrounds and styles and training and interests (from former-professional football players to classically trained ballet dancers to b-boys to Sufi movement practitioner) could co-create a space where you can be one and together; where you are seen with your individual bodies and as a whole? Eventually, these many concentric circles (individual, group, community, and wider out) lent itself to the name of the piece.

Performer/Co-creators: Rasha Elsheikh, Meret Arnold, Ahmed Hussein, Adam Selim, Ahmed Huras, Esraa ElAssal, Ahmed Maraie, Mahmoud Sami Gomaa, and Ouf Mohamed

Sound Designer: Claudio Curciotti

Produced by Breaking Walls Festival, a project of Hazem Header and Nüt Dance Company (Cairo, Egypt)