KHAOS

KHAOS

In Greek mythology, Khaos is the origin of everything, the empty unfathomable space at the beginning of time. Khaos is the goddess of creation and the chasm between heaven and earth. It is the primordial mass of the universe, composed of the four elements of nature: fire, water, air and earth. Each of the four elements has its own unique properties that work simultaneously to create a unified universe. Without chaos there is no creation, no organization, without silence there is no sound and without darkness there is no light - one requires the other. That one gap between opposites that Khaos lives in.

Saeed Hani aims to create a universe beyond reality with seven dancers from different backgrounds. He gathers his elements and creates superimposed images to simulate reality and the chaos we live in.
In this piece, he composes images by combining contemporary dance and physical theatre with visual art, especially installation art. The images relate to his essential themes to appeal to the audience's imagination, create chaos of the senses and disperse their feelings and thoughts in space by using the six essential elements of abstract art: Line, Texture, Shape, Form, Colour "through scenography, skin and light".


On stage, we will see a battle between opposites that we constantly deal with and are necessary for balance in our lives: emotional vs. logical, self-confident vs. insecure, fear vs. serenity, strong vs. submissive, etc. Nude art will be the central part of this work, because in the beginning, the body was not naked, it was just there. It was just there. Nudity is Saeed's statement against customs and traditions that underestimate our human nature's beauty, power, and reality by seeing the body only as a sexual object.

 

 

ENSEMBLE

Ana F. Melero

Ana F. Melero was born in Seville, Spain. She started to develop her professional career in Leeds, UK, with Phoenix Dance Theatre as an apprentice dancer, performing works by Itzik Galilj, Caroline Finn, and Sharon Watson. There, she works with Möbius Dance, led by Gianluca Vincentini, for two seasons.

 

Nowadays, Ana is a freelance dance artist based in Madrid, in this years she works with choreographers such as Sol Picó, Isabel Vázquez, Victoria P.Miranda, Saeed Hani, Giovanni Zazzera, Manuela Barrero, and Xián Martínez. She also worked as a dancer for Ópera in Teatro de la Zarzuela and Teatro de la Maestranza.

 

KHAOS is her second project with Hani Dance. She is also developing her choreographic interest with Colectivo Banquet, touring pieces for nonconventional spaces in different festivals in Spain. She trained in contemporary dance at Conservatorio Profesional de Danza María de Ávila, Madrid, and graduated with MA in Contemporary Choreography from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds.

Hector Ferrer

Hector Ferrer Fernandez was born in 1993 in Barcelona Spain. He started dancing at the age of 10 pursuing his studies at the Conservatoire of Barcelona “Institut del Teatre”. He moved to Madrid to continue his formation with Victor Ullate and later on moved to Stuttgart to complete his diploma at the Stuttgart Ballet Akademie, the John Cranko Schule.

Since 2013, he has been dancing professionally for different dance institutions such as Opera Ballet van Vlaanderen or Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin.


During these years he has been performing works from Pina Bausch, Maurice Béjart, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edward Clug, Sharon Eyal, Andonis Foniadakis, William Forsythe, Akram Khan, Jîri Kylian, Kurt Joos, Jean Christophe Maillot, Hans van Manen, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite among other choreographers as well collaborating and being part of different creations in Belgium, France, Spain, and Germany.

Nowadays he is a freelance dancer based in Belgium working on different projects across Europe

Esther Moreno Suarez

Esther Moreno, born in Spain, is currently based in Berlin as a freelance artist. She describes herself as a thoughtful, and sensitive performer who usually uses improvisation skills to find new nuances in her language. Mover, and contemporary dancer with an urban dance background.


In 2008 she began studying these different disciplines, to some years later complete her contemporary dance education at  "Centro Andaluz de Danza" (CAD), in Seville, Spain.


Esther has 10 years of experience working as a performer and dance teacher. Two years ago, she opened her career to the field of choreography, and music production too.


While still working as a performer, with great interest in different cultures and exchanges and the desire to keep expanding her vision, she is now developing her first choreographic works and projects in this interdisciplinary direction, where movement and music composition became two fundamental pillars for her work. (Recently funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the NEUSTART KULTUR program, DIS-TANZEN aid program of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland).

Gabriel Lawton

Gabriel Lawton is a contemporary dance artist based in Berlin, Germany. Australian-born, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Contemporary Dance Performance at The Boston Conservatory in the US before establishing himself in Berlin.

 

Gabriel has worked on projects throughout Germany and Europe, touring internationally. In particular, he seeks out projects in which his role is as generative as performative and is most interested in work which refuses to be bound by the traditional limits of any single media.

 

Some of his fondest work in recent years has been with Tomer Zirkilevich, Jasmine Ellis, Johannes Bönig, Yael Cibulski, Sommer Ulrickson, and his ongoing collaboration with Saeed Hani, friend, and director of the Luxembourg and Trier-based Hani Dance.

Alberto Chianello

Alberto Chianello is an Italian dancer who started dancing at the age of 12 until he perfected his training in the equilibrio dinamico ensemble project in Apulia, where he began his career as a dancer, joining the company directed by Roberta Ferrara. 

 

Over the years he has worked for the Hannover State Opera for the "think big" festival and collaborated with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for "Cyrano film" and various tours of Italy.

 

Ileana Orofino

Ileana Orofino completed her dance training at the Luxembourg City Conservatory of Music before joining the London Contemporary Dance School in 2014. After graduating in July 2017 and working as an independent dancer, Ileana joined People United Company in September 2017 for a new creation Wandarer, which is presented at the National Arts Festival in South Africa in 2019.

 

In 2020, she becomes one of the founding members of the first dance collective in Luxembourg (LUCODA), which enabled her to realise her first site-specific piece, The Visit - Nimm mich auf im Zauberwalde, as part of Esch 2022.

 

Among other interests, her enthusiasm for the world of stop-motion grew, and in 2021 she won first prize in the Crème fraiche competition with the short film My Eyes in collaboration with artist Deborah Velazquez.In 2022, she assists several Luxembourgish choreographers and artists such as Georges Maikel for his piece My Cat Is a Unicorn and Saeed Hani for his research on Walls and Borders INLET. Most recently she performed with the collective VEDANZA Artists International alongside Emanuela Iacopini, Yuko Kominami, Saju Hari, Frey Faust, and Tomas Tello in We Thought We Knew What We Were Doing.

Kenjo Shinohe

Kenji Shinohe is a Japanese choreographer and dancer, based in Wuppertal. He has danced Ballroom dance with his grandmother since early childhood. He studied dance philosophy & art history at a Japanese university and then has MA. In 2015, He got a scholarship from the International exchange student program to study at Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen, Germany. After graduating there in the summer of 2019, he was dancing for NEUER TANZ in Düsseldorf. Since 2020 he is working internationally as a freelance choreographer and dancer, being active in the performance scene in NRW.

Being awarded the first prize and the audience award at „contact. energy 16" in the 5.Internationales Tanz Theater Festival 2016 in Erfurt, Best Newcomer solo prize at 10.Internationales Tanzfestival SoloDuo NRW in Köln 2018 and Best Solo Prize and Audience Award at SzólóDuó International Dance Festival 2019 in Budapest.

Kenji is interested in bringing together body movements in relation to structures of music and approaches to extending dance expression through the idea of metafictional techniques. His choreography pieces are invited and performed in many theaters in over 13 countries and 40 cities.


TRAILER

 

TEAM

Choreography: Saeed Hani
Dancers: Ana F. Melero, Alberto Chianello, Esther Moreno Suarez, Gabriel Lawton, Hector Ferrer, Ileana Orofino, Kenji Shinohe
Costume Design: Christian Brand
Light Design: Marc Thein
Stage Design: Saeed Hani
Music: Jakob Schumo
Trailer: Blackgate Media
Photos Dancers: Bert Van Pelt
Production: menschMITmensch e.V. | HANI DANCE asbl | Mierscher Kulturhaus

 

 

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS & Co-Producers: