Day 4_Aerowaves Dance Festival Luxembourg

Gio Lourenço « Boca Fala Tropa » / Armin Hokmi « Shiraz » 

19:00 Gio Lourenço « Boca Fala Tropa »

From a body with varied tempos and movements of the Kuduro, Gio Lourenço (Angola, 1987) constructs a biographical itinerary where the body becomes an allegory of memory. The Kuduro appears in the 1990s, in Luanda, in a context of civil war. The specific codes of this style of music/dance reached Portugal through the body and the K7 of those who moved between these two countries. It is during his adolescence, at the end of the 90s, while he already lives in Portugal, that Gio Lourenço meets this universe and becomes Kudurista, discovering a broken body – his own – where memory reinvents itself in gesture. « Boca Fala Tropa » proposes an artistic territory displaced from a concrete geography – the transit between Angola and Portugal – starting from the stages and codes of the Kuduro to cross elements of individual memory, and it’s inevitable fictions, with elements of the collective memory.

Artistic direction: Gio Lourenço 

Text: Gio Lourenço and Cátia Terrinca 

Dramaturgy: Cátia Terrinca 

Support for creation: Neusa Trovoada and Sofia Berberan 

Interpreters: Gio Lourenço, Xullaji and Vânia Doutel Vaz (on video)

Videographer: Michelle Eistrup Sound Design Xullaji

Light Designer: Manual Abrantes 

Support for the movement: Vânia Doutel Vaz, Fogo de Deus 

Body assistance: Sofia Neuparth 

Scenography and costumes: Neusa Trovoada 

Video costumes: Magda Buczek Ulla Jenner costumes 

Photography: Sofia Berberan 

Executive production: Paulo Lage Production Medusa Material 

Support: Bolsa de Criação O Espaço do Tempo e BPI – Fundação La Caixa, Alkantara, c.e.m.-centro em movimento, Casa dos Segment, Fonden FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design, Companhia Olga Roriz e Fundação GDA

Biography

Gio Lourenço was born in 1987 in Luanda, Angola, and grew up in Portugal. He benefited from a grant from the National Center of Culture to train in dance and performance at the CEM. He attended the theater and animation course at CERCICA. Actor resident at the Teatro GRIOT, he acted in plays by Zia Soares, Rogério de Carvalho, Nuno M. Cardoso and Guilherme Mendonça, among others. His performance « Preta » was presented at the Dutch Pavilion of the 17th Venice Biennale, where he also developed the project « Memória Botânica » in partnership with Sofia Berberan. He also participated in the project « Charging Change » by visual artist Michelle Eistrup (Documenta 2022). He participated in the films The Place You Occupy, by Pedro Filipe Marques, Storms: Essay of an Essay, by Uli Decker, The Isle of Dogs, by Jorge António, Arriaga, by Welket Bungué, Films and Mobile Phone, by Adriano Luz, and Inconvenient Truth, by Pedro Sebastião and Paulo Cuco. On television, he participated in Ecuador, Inspector Max, He is She and Café Kwanza. He participated as a dancer in several videos.

Intermission —————————————————————————————————————————————————————

20:00 Armin Hokmi « Shiraz »

How do you pay tribute to ten years of artistic work and creativity brought to a halt? Is there a way to revive a festival through a dance performance? Armin Hokmi and the team answer these questions with intelligence and flair in « Shiraz ». It is almost like watching a sunrise or sunset: over and over again, this mysterious, captivating work reveals further nuances for the viewer to appreciate.

Six performers weave a pattern of movements, coiling and uncoiling to the pulsating beat of a captivating soundtrack, tracing fluid trajectories that bring them together in ephemeral constellations. With an unwavering affinity for the impulses arising between the dancers, « Shiraz » brings to the forefront the collective work of remembering and dancing together. A practice of love.

The point of departure for this work was an inquiry into the Shiraz Arts Festival. A historic event which took place between 1967 to 1977 in the south of Iran. The particular interest in this historic event lay in how the festival constituted a meeting place for performing arts from different genealogies, and aimed to transcend reductive modalities in regard to framing, presentation and orientation of artists and art works. « Shiraz » transposes this historic event to our contemporary times in the form of a revival, a tribute and a fictitious arena.

Concept and Choreography: Armin Hokmi

Dance and Performance: Daniel Sarr, Luisa Fernanda Alfonso, Aleksandra Petrusevska, Efthimios Moschopoulos, Johanna Ryynänen, Emmi Venna, Charlott Madeleine Utzig, In alternation with Xenia Koghilaki

Music: EHSXN, Reza R

Scenography and light concept: Felipe Osorio Guzmán

Lighting designer: Vito Walter

In conversation with: Emmi Venna

Costumes: Moriah Askenaizer

Consultation and archival study of the Shiraz Arts Festival (1966-1977): Vali Mahlouji

Co-production: Festival Montpellier Danse 2024, Rosendal Teater (Trondheim), Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), Black Box teater (Oslo), Tanzfabrik (Berlin)

Supported by: Arts Council Norway, Nordic Culture Fund, FFUK, Nordic Culture Point, The Finnish Cultural Foundation

Research period supported by: Dis-Tanzen

Residency support: Montpellier Danse, Tanzfabrik (Berlin), Lake Studios (Berlin), Uferstudios (Berlin), DAVVI Center for Performing Arts Hammerfest

Thank you to: Anne-Cécile Sibué, Rasmus Jensen, Diletta Sperman, Ellen Söderhult, Theatre Haus Berlin

Biography

Armin Hokmi works with dance and choreography. He began in 2009 as a performer in the independent theater scene in Iran and later continued to work and study abroad in multiple performative practices and mediums. He holds a B.A. in acting from Norwegian Theatre Academy and has received his M.A. in Solo/Dance/Authorship at HZT Berlin. Armin is an associate artist at Montpellier Danse 2024-2026. As a dancer and performer he has worked with artists such as Mette Ingvartsen, Kasper Ravnhøj, Hooman Sharifi and Phillip Zarrilli, among others.

Armin Hokmi’s dance and movement language is an interplay between a sense of familiarity with known forms, and practices that elude recognition, cultivating a horizon where different references converge and contrast. Captivated by dances that have been neglected and deemed unworthy of historical significance, his choreographic practice navigates through time and space, changing through a constant unfolding of the dance into new trajectories. 

Main organiser(s): TROIS C-L, neimënster 

Duration:  40' & 40'

Aerowaves 2025 Pass

Aerowaves festival pass 

22 euros for one evening 

36 euros for two evenings 

48 euros for three nights 

56 euros for four nights