NEIGHBOURS

ENG

To what extent are 'neighbours' different, but more importantly, in what do they meet?

Rauf 'Rubberlegz' Yasit and Brigel Gjoka, dancers from very different backgrounds, create a fascinating cocktail of styles and possibilities in Neighbours. In this emotional work, the dancers explore what makes neighbours different and special. But above all, what binds them.

Brigel Gjoka and Rauf Yasit come from Albanian and Kurdish cultures respectively. The dance traditions from which the two dancers work bring depth and relief to the performance Neighbours. Gjoka's background in contemporary dance gives his movements an amazing dynamism and suppleness; breakdancer Yasit constantly defies gravity with his moves.

The sheer variety of what they show in solos and duets is impressive. Often they dance together, their arms intertwined, inextricable, like a puzzle that has to be taken apart. A new choreographic language, somewhere on the crossroads of urban, classical and contemporary dance, emerges from diversity. At first abstract, later with more and more references to the cultural traditions from which they originate. The live music by the Kurdish musician Rusan Filiztek effortlessly connects what borders keep separated.
    
The makers of Neighbours got to know each other when they worked together in A Quiet Evening of Dance (2018) by William Forsythe, ‘a game of Twister for advanced players’ (Het Parool). Forsythe turned the ballet world upside down in the 1980s and beyond with deconstructions of classical ballet steps and poses.
In A Quiet Evening of Dance, Forsythe opened his toolbox, as it were; all the elements that make his style unique were present. It inspired Gjoka and Yasit to draw on his work in Neighbours, for which Forsythe himself provided advice.