After the success of Mourning, which won the Zwaan* award for the most impressive dance production of 2010, Muhanad Rasheed is once again working with the International Danstheater in the 2011/2012 season. Just as in Mourning, the choreographer stays close to home, and his personal emotions and experiences from his home country of Iraq form the source of inspiration for this performance. But while Mourning painted a picture of the rituals surrounding death and funerals, Henna displays the rituals of life and marriage. Henna shows the positive side of life, but points out that these happy moments can have consequences too.
Henna is all about choices and their consequences. These effects are inevitable, because they are rooted in the traditions of the culture in which you grew up. The rituals of Iraqi marriage are not simply reproduced in the performance. Instead, Rasheed uses movement, traditions and ideas to create a dreamlike mood, allowing the audience as it were to get inside the head of the wedding guests. What is shown on stage is a memory of the event, in which emotions are processed through the medium of dance.
Choreography and lighting: Muhanad Rasheed
Concept: Muhanad Rasheed and Duraid Abbas
World premiere: 17 March 2012, Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
