“I feel there is a possibility to reverse this history of colonizing the female body and make it speak it out from one’s own voice and experience,” Nora Amin stated after watching “Dansöz” by Tümay Kılınçel. After the performance on 14 February, the two talked about the word “Dansöz”, the so-called oriental dance and facing racism in dance.
A central motif of “Dansöz” is belly dance, the history of which is marked both by exoticized images of women as well by reinterpreting these images from a feminist viewpoint. In her solo the Berlin choreographer and dancer Tümay Kılınçel develops an artistic positioning in relation to belly dance. Playfully engaging with language and image, she investigates the potential of a resistant body. How can the image of the body in belly dance be socially emancipated, how can it beturned into an instrument of empowerment?
Nora Amin is a choreographer, performer, theatre director and writer working in the intersection between racism, sexism, trauma experiences and healing through performance. Her latest book is “Weiblichkeit im Aufbruch” (Matthes & Seitz, Berlin).