Selected Projects

Shiraz (2024)

«Shiraz» is a choreography for six dancers, weaving together a fabric of movements and gestures. Their insistent energy, moments of convergence and passage through ephemeral constellations are what takes center stage in this performance. A pulsating dance imbued with a sense of enchantment and longing, coiling and uncoiling to the pulsating beat of a capturing music.

The starting point for this piece is the Shiraz Arts Festival. A festival for live arts that took place between 1967 and 1977 in south of Iran and radically rethought the relationship to the audience and modalities of framing art works. Armin Hokmi, together with the team, places it into our present day in the form of a revival, by giving it a new appearance through a dance performance. «Shiraz» is both a homage and a fictional setting. It seeks to reimagine the ambitions of the festival and its love for the live arts, their autonomy as art forms and their common roots across geographical borders.

Shiraz is created out of a devotion to a notion of dance and choreography that emphasizes their power to ignite joy, bring about experiences of delving into sensuous worlds, and their ability to transform perception and our modes of affective engagement with live performance. 

Named after a city, "Shiraz", the piece as well proposes a relationship between a dance and a locale as it investigates the ways in which dances are recognized, categorized and localized. Shiraz is interested in the power of fabulation. The dance in Shiraz bears the marks and traces that materialise in a particular language. It is at once close to known forms and to gestures that escape classification and recognition, bringing into play questions of authenticity and representation. 

With an unwavering attachment to the indeterminate impulses that arise from the encounter between the dancers and the elements of the piece, Shiraz brings to the forefront the collective work of remembering and dancing together. A practice of love.

Calendar:

2026:

March 10-11 : POLE SUD CDCN Strasbourg

March 13: Le Carreau - Scène nationale Forbach

March 17-18: Maison de la Danse Lyon

March 21: CNDC Angers

March 25-28: Théâtre de la Ville Paris

March 31 - April 1: Festival À Corps 2026 - TAP Poitiers

April 9-10: CCN de Caen

April 23: Opera Limoges

April 28: Pavillon Noir - Aix en Provence

2025:

October 24: International Dance Festival of Tirana - Albania

August 21-22 : Dansens Hus - Oslo, Norway

February 20-21 : Rosendal International Theatre - Trondheim, Norway

February 6-7 : Plateforme Parallèle - Ballet National de Marseille, France

2024:

November 20-21 : OB/SCENE Festival Seoul, Korea

November 6-7 : euro-scene Leipzig, Germany

October 24 :  Oktoberdans 2024 - BIT Bergen, Norway

September 20-21 :  Dansehallerne - Copenhagen, Denmark

August 29 :  Brådjupa Blekinge Dansfestival - Karlshamn, Sweden

July 2-3 :  44th Montpellier Danse Festival - Montpellier, France

March 16-17 : Moving in Concert by Mette Ingvartsen - NYU Skirball, New York

Premiered: February 29, 2024 at Tanzfabrik Berlin

Credits

Concept and Choreography: Armin Hokmi

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

Music: EHSXN, Reza R
Scenography and lights: Felipe Osorio Guzmán, 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

Touring supported by: Goethe Institut, Nationales Performance Netz (NPN) 

Research period supported by: Dis-Tanz-Solo
Residency: 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

Press

"Filigree. Rigorous. Precise. Subtle. Focused."

- Inky Lee , Tanzschreiber

"… a hypnotic atmosphere that points to a fragile, yet determined orientation towards the possibilities of the living arts. This is a self-critical work of love. "

- Inky Lee , Tanzschreiber

"Il avait dit accorder sa pleine confiance en la danse, Armin Hokmi, au travers de cette expérience qu’il nous a offerte, à nous, tous ensemble encore, en témoigne absolument.

Encore une autre voie vers la Beauté." Offshore Revue 

"Armin Hokmi. La révélation de MontpellierDans c'est lui" Noisette Philippe

"Dans cette création, la danse est dégenrée, mêlant danseurs et danseuses dans une harmonie parfaite."Cult.news

"Un vrai travail d’orfèvre de l’espace fait de cette création un bijou chorégraphique." Dansercanalhistorique.fr

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International Dance (2022)

is a dance performance that attempts to give form to the imaginative experience of a genre. Genres are never fixed containers, but frames that hold together often disperse expressions, similar to how viewing and experiencing dance operates. Genres and framing are integral to experience, without which we tend to lose ourselves.

The term ‘international’ is a tangle. In this context, it refers as much to a mode of coming together, as it is posing questions around whether “international” produces certain forms of aesthetics. Consider international, independent from nation-states and their respective socialites. Imagine that international isn’t about different nations at all, but instead constitutes a terrain wholly of its own. Not in the sense of international waters with its agreed-upon rules, but an environment in which we all are equally lost.
This dance is composed of swarms of ideas, emerging meetings and pulsations. It’s a groundless experience to sink into, resonating with embodied melodies. In this land, movements continue beyond kinetic capacities, allowing us to be changed through the event of being together. Figures are produced oscillating between somewhat unknown sensations and temporary gatherings. Questions arising concerning aesthetic experience and the cultures through which they emerge.

Credits

Concept and Choreography: Armin Hokmi | Dance and Performance: Aleksandra Petrusevska, Johanna Ryynänen, Diletta Sperman | Scenographer: Klara Krämer

Warm thanks to: Theaterhaus Mitte and Schöneweide, Nikolas Zöckler, Felipe Osorio Guzmán, Kiana Rezvani, Ellen Söderhult and Maikon K.

Made possible with the financial support of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and Fonds Darstellende Künste.

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Symposium:On the idea of international in arts (2023)

With Shahram Khosravi, Vali Mahlouji, Fariba Vafi, Sarah Lookofsky, Jörg Sternagel and Armin Hokmi

A day where we dedicate some time to think together, take on questions and converse over the notion of 'international' in arts.

'International' is a prominent convention of exchange, production, displaying and circulation in the arts. Respectively, it has gained attention and value in regard to artistic collaborations and representation. However, in spite of all, the idea of international remains as a precarious construct, formed out of different interpretations of various interest groups, such as governments, public, and institutions. International, has perhaps seen some of the light of its historical grounding fade, and has instead turned into much of an operational mechanism within the cultural and artistic sphere.

This makes it imperative to look at its coordinates for us here and now. What frames, concepts and models inform how the idea of ‘international’ is practiced in our fields? How are artists and artworks exhibited, contextualized and looked at across borders? How are structures – education, exhibitions, festivals etc. – that generate the possibility of exchange beyond the European borders are advocated for?

Credits

Supported by Arts Council Norway

Initiated and organized by Armin Hokmi Kiasaraei

In collaboration with Black Box teater,Norma T

Thanks to Andrea Skotland,Mette Edvardsen,Anna Penkova

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Public Dance, Permutable Stage (2022)

We walk together and arrive at different gates, to enter a place we know so little of. There we find ourselves bouncing between memories of lost worlds and recognitions. We begin to fantasise and bind the inconsistencies of our imagination, our bodies move with tenderness, slightly scared and at points fierce. We move from here, little crooked, hesitant perhaps. With questions of different ways of hosting dance and its presence within the public in mind, the starting point for this work is the past year’s journey at the time of a pandemic. A journey into searching for dances and imaginary future publics and stages in neighbourhoods, empty landscapes and new small temporary gatherings. This process evolved into this solo work. Public Dance, Permutable Stage uses speech, movements and images for exploration of fictional landscapes, speculative public dances and movements of masses as possibilities for emergent imaginaries with the audiences.

Credits

Choreography and Performance: Armin Hokmi | Outside eye: Ewa Dziarnowska | Dramaturgical support: Nicholas Zöckler

Warm thanks to: Aleksandra Petrushevska, Cristian Duarte, Johanna Ryynänen, Therese Bendjus, Miguel Pereira, Ananstasiia Ashman, Feride Akgün, Klara Krämer, Andreas Müller, Everyone from Neue Nachbarschaft at Strandbad Tegeler See for support and rehearsal space – Seeee.de, Livia Hiselius

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Passages (2019)

is a silent ride carried out with a van with audience as passengers; sharing the physical and imaginative boundaries of private and public spaces through the architectures, rhythms, and daily events of the city. It offers a space of attendance to the implications of our surroundings, their embodied thought and what establishes our sense of being in the world. Passages loans from subtle placement of events and estrangements of what already is, bringing simple twists to the perception of these spaces. This is an invitation to attend and listen to the daily structures of our experience of passing through. Passages builds on the notion of the body as a dynamic integrator. Having movement as its starting point it concerns itself with how and on what layers do we embody the physical world; The projections, senses of interior, exterior and extending the body to its surroundings.

Credits

Concept and Choreography: Armin Hokmi, Kaja Mærk Egeberg, Rasmus Stenager Jensen, Patryk Wasilewski

Supported by Arts Council Norway and Prague Quadrennial 2019

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Everything Round is the Earth (2017)

Our social stock of knowledge, a sum total of ‘what everybody knows’, our assemblage of maxims, morals, myths, our language and signs and so forth is what we consciously or unconsciously carry with us during our daily practice of reality constituting. We produce recognizable and intelligible scenarios, which we treat as real.

Are we able to distinguish our blends of guidelines which we borrow or reenact from our culture? Or the temporality of being ourselves and being in the world? Who knows, it seems that the reality of our everyday life appears as finite provinces of meaning; then are we at all able to experience the world not only available to oneself but also to others? Is that a farfetched idea in comparison to a rational move; solely in movement by the highest orders of interests? Does our desire to sense our worlds as factual unable us to relate and move?

“You are standing. The table is standing. The table is not standing, it was placed there. You are lying. The corpse is not lying, it was placed there. If you couldn’t stand and if you couldn’t lie, you couldn’t say: the table is standing, and the corpse is lying : if you couldn’t lie and stand, you couldn’t say : I can neither lie nor stand.”

Credits: 

Concept, Direction and Performance: Armin Hokmi, Patryk Wasilewski, Karoline Clasen Holland
Lights and Scenography: Klara Kraemer, Patryk Wasilewski
Music: Armin Hokmi

Write to: letsdance@arminhokmi.com