Media(soon)


Ayur


Modernity was significant in shaping societies, and deciding what is to be defined as knowledge: in this process indigenous and popular knowledge were often consistently destroyed. Yet, these erased narratives still influence the present, towards local and global contexts.  

Ayur is the second part in a trilogy focusing on the semantics and mythologies of the Imazighen, the indigenous people of North Africa. The whole trilogy centres on female figures, as guardians of the transmission of Amazigh knowledge. In Ayur, Radouan Mriziga honours the idea of transmission by creating a solo for the Tunisian choreographer and dancer Sondos Belhassen, who has been his dance teacher while he was living in Tunis. A work where the choreography emerges between the rhythm of the body and the one of the text, written with the poet Lilia Ben Romdhane and rapper Mahdi Chammen “Massi”. Ayur is the goddess associated in Punic Carthage with the moon. 

Ayur is an invitation to perceive a choreography based on poems and raps as scores. Words and expressions as tools of symbolic, rhythmical and compositional meaning, not intended to explain the movements or suggest a linear narrative. The poems and raps hold their own meanings and nuances in the Tunisian language, and through the choreography, the gaze, the translations and rythms collectively build new narratives for each person individually. 


CREDITS 

Concept and Choreography  
Radouan Mriziga

By and with
Sondos Belhassen

Support to the Research on Amazigh
Hajar Ibnouthen

Texts 
Lilia Ben Romdhane
Mehdi Chammem « Massi »

Music
Mehdi Chammem « Massi »

Costumes
Anissa Aida

Space
Radouan Mriziga in collaboration with Flayou

Architect
Flayou

Video
Pragma Studio

Artistic Assistant  
Maïté Minh Tâm Jeannolin

Production
Dream City 

in co-production with
L’Art Rue
Moussem
Festival de Marseille
A7TLA5

Distribution
Something Great


Production Assistant
Synda Jebali

Traductions
Marwa Manaï
Lilia Ben Romdhan
Mahdi Chammem

Supported by
Fondation DOEN
i-Portunus
Mairie de Tunis

Technical partner
SYBEL Light & Sound

Thanks to
DEBO
Cyrine Boujila
Nawal Laroui
Leila Sebai
Manel Mahdouani
Mohamed Khalfallah
Zoubeir Mouhli
Wajdi Borji
Mehdi Ben Temessek
Ghilen Agrebi


Photographs: Ayur © Dajana Lothert