Dancing Under Crossfire

2009-11-25T09:22:00.001-08:00

20 minutes showing at Dancing on the Edge festival, Holland. This work in progress preview is of a longer documentary project on the journey made by the members of Iraqi Bodies from Baghdad to Amsterdam.

This short cut is an introduction to the experience of this journey, to the young men that made it and their award-winning performance, ‘Crying of my Mother’.

The longer version of this film will explore the journey more fully. It will trace the common experience of exile; the fissure of a youth from its homeland, the absurd cruelty of the current situation in Iraq and the creative response to this from the members of Iraqi Bodies.

Dancing on the Edge

2009-11-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

Dancing on the Edge and Cinedans have asked us cut a 20 minute version of the film for the festival in Holland at the end of November. We have been busy in the editing room and are sending this short version of the film soon.

For details of the Dancing on the Edge festival and a schedule see here

Filming in Amsterdam

2009-08-26T02:36:00.000-07:00

The crew of Dancing under Crossfire are heading to Holland to film the closing chapter of Iraqi's Bodies piece 'Crying of my Mother'.

This might well be that last performance of the piece and the last chance you will get to see the performance before the worldwide release of our documentary (hopefully) so if you are in the Netherlands check out tour dates here

The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture

2008-12-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

The crew of Dancing Under Crossfire would like to thank The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture for their production prize.

see here for the list of winners this year

AFAC list

2008-12-22T07:38:00.001-08:00

The Poster for the performance 'Crying of my Mother'

2008-12-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

There are future dates for this performance across Europe and in Beirut in 2009. Keep checking for updates.

Trailer

2008-12-15T04:15:00.001-08:00

FILM

2008-12-02T04:42:00.003-08:00

Our documentary traces the movements of a dance troupe during the preparation of their performance, ‘Crying of my Mother’. We will take part in rehearsals and share stories over coffee. We will move with them as they perform in four cities, Baghdad, Amman, Damascus and Amsterdam where they now live in exile and where they work and perform today.

Three bodies in the absolute, three bodies empty with the energy to prove that the same body that is assaulted, repressed by culture, thrown in jail, chained and tortured, dumped on the street, covered with newspapers wet with blood, is the same body that forms visual war poetry and seeks to understand the multitude of human problems faced in modern Iraq, the violence, the greed and the malignity of it all.

This film is a window to the maze of the reality of the Iraqi situation and the absurd violence that takes place there. It explores a unique expression of an identity in crisis and will highlight to an audience, all too familiar with the daily images of catastrophe, a different interpretation of what it means to be Iraqi since 2003

IRAQ

2008-12-02T04:42:00.001-08:00

It is very difficult to put our hands on all the details of Iraqi pain. It is even harder to find a key or a clue or an equal to it, at least for us. We, ‘the last generation’ have witnessed three wars, a siege and the crushing of the world’s most fierce dictator under the wheels of the world’s strongest tank. We are at the crossroads of two powers as they crash into each other. The American tank with its spectrum of a cultural system, its lifestyle and the hangman’s rope that stretches out to all those who dare step out of that one house, that one neighbourhood, that one party, that one authority, that one art. It is always hard to be at this crossroads when it is such an unstable meeting place.

Our film talks precisely about this crossroads.

IRAQIS BODIES

2008-12-02T04:39:00.001-08:00

The absurd cruelty of the current situation in Iraq is expressed in the name, lives and performances of this contemporary dance troupe from Baghdad. This unique collection of artists was formed in 2001 and lived worked and performed in Baghdad. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 diversity in thought and expression got harder. One of the four members was shot and the troupe decided to leave the country to wait for Iraq to return to a more tolerant country.