Le chant de l'exil

As part of the 'Armenian Days,' this song of exile leads us into a nostalgic dance and a timeless journey

“The Song of a Refugee” erases the borders between space, musician and dancer.
We are inspired by national music where the motives of “immigration” are part of everyday life. Longing is a process in which people found hope. Now, alienation is the loss of hope that urges the vagabond to search for a new land and new aspirations.
“The Song of a Refugee” is a musical genre among Armenian national songs. It is not only about geographical migration, but also about loss and longing for the homeland. This is one of the most honest genres because the pain is so strong that it cannot be falsified. The alienation, by force and not by choice, is transpired into the song.
The movement is inspired by the motion of the stone, which in its dryness leads to a type of dance thinking, where the roughness and tension of the body's style dominate.

Sound plays a crucial role in the dance: it originates from the movement, the performer, and the materials surrounding the performer. In dance thinking, the body undergoes self-awareness - simultaneously hardening and softening in both dry and soft thinking. The song transforms into movement, the movement transforms into sound, the sound transforms into a pause, and the pause becomes a movement without a beginning or end.

This performance was inspired by the “Horovel” artwork by Heriqnaz Galstyan.
“I am speaking of alienation in my own way. The flail (an agricultural instrument) becomes a symbol of the motherland and people who leave their motherland, considering it small for themselves, even though they are attached to it with strings and that attachment with different kinds of strings turns into another carpet which reflects us…” Heriqnaz Galstyan