Ali Moini - Cie Selon l'Heure (Iran-France)

MARIA MATOS TEATRO MUNICIPAL

15 and 16 May at 9.30pm 21h30 (Tue, Wed)

^{Portuguese Premiere}

_{TICKETS ONLINE}

_{Technique: Puppets and dance Language: Without words For audiences over: +8 Running time: 55 min.} 

^{Workshop with Ali Moini: 8 to 12 May. Info here}

Man anam ke rostam bovad pahlavan - It is through Rostam that I inherit my glory: Ali Moini chose this Farsi proverb based on the Persian mythological hero, in order to expose how anyone can usurp someone else’s success by appropriating their qualities and strengths. The Iranian dancer performs a striking ballet, with the use of an incredible mechanism of strings and pulleys linking him to a metallic life-size puppet.

Ali Moini is on stage with a metallic puppet that looks like a skeleton. Wearing a special suit, the performer hooks clasps on it that are connected to a multitude of strings. While doing so, the life-size puppet gradually comes to life thanks to a set of pulleys that reproduces the dancer’s moves. Thus, each dance movement finds its echo in a dismantled and chaotic version in the movements of the metal, initially fleshless puppet. Here, the mechanism does not just function as a translator but also as the manipulator of the life between the artist and his double, which causes even the meaning of the respective roles to fade. A true dialogue starts between man and machine. This 'one-man' show touches on the notions of identity and deals with the notions of object and subject, leader and follower, authenticity and duplicity…

After My Paradoxical Knives which saw him tied to a bunch of knives, and Lives which used rubber bands and magnets, the dancer goes deeper in his research on movement, by creating a doppelganger. The soundtrack was composed by electronic music duet 9T Antiope, which accompany live the work of Ali Moini.

"The project is a platform where through a 100% mechanical pulley system, a human size marionette and me/performer have the possibility to interact. The machine works as a transmitter/translator of movement, with which I will work on demands, agreements, affection, intersections, differences, transportation, hybridization, accompaniment, anger, violence, manipulation… between me and a double of me."
-Ali Moini

^{"(…) He becomes this time the instrument of an amazing machinery, mesmerizing by its visual
impact and its connexions between death and life, built by Julien Peissel.
Face to face, Ali Moini, in a costume linked by carabineers and pulleys to a complex string system, and a metal marionette are staring at one each other. Each movement from the dance gets its echo in the dismantled and chaotic version of the dummy’s move. Notions of double, mirror, questions of empathy and rejection, fantasy of death and torture, get hooked to this infernal mechanism (...)."
-Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde}

^{"(...) A performance do artista iraniano Ali Moini foi um verdadeiro momento de graça e poesia, ao atuar com o seu alter ego com uma destreza notável. Ligados por uma rede densa de fios, Ali Moini e a sua personagem de metal desenvolvem um trabalho de diálogo. Um trabalho tornado possível pelos movimentos, pela fluidez e pelo vai-e-vem dos corpos. Tudo num ambiente muito sóbrio, que conferiu ainda mais magia a este momento aéreo e fora do tempo."
-Ouest France}

^{"Ali Moini created a double-puppet with its size, with metal segments. A very complex set of strings allows movements homologous to those of the artist himself, and also to his artifact. The objective is very good, reopening all the questions about the representation of himself in the world, for others, but also for himself. And the principle of separation, which haunts the modern idea of dance, since Kleist's flashy treatise on puppet theater. Ali Moini's physical evolutions are made very meticulously, by the complexity of his mechanism."
-Gérard Mayen, Mouvement} 

^{"(...) Man anam ke rostam bovad pahlavan could be the creation of a meat mobile by Calder, with apparent mechanisms, but unforeseen gestures. Before our eyes, a strange, almost incestuous, but certainly impressive duet takes shape, because between them the gesture is palpable. "
-Céline Gauthier, Maculture.fr}

_BIO

Ali Moini was born in 1974 in Shiraz (Iran). He is a singer, dancer, actor and composer. By the age of 17 years old he integrates Youth Orchestra of Shiraz and at the same time takes classes in composing music and Iranian traditional singing. Two years later he studied opera singing for 2 years. He joins Mehr Theater Group in 1997 as an actor and music composer of the company. He plays in several works of the group which the most important one was Dance on Glasses that has been performed more than 70 times in iran, and about 80 times in Europe, South and North America. He is bachelor in theater acting from Soureh High Educational University in Tehran.
In 2009 he finished an intensive advance course in Lisbon, at Forum Dança, called Choreographic Creation and Research on Contemporary Dance Program (PEPCC) sharing his researches with creators and thinkers such as André Lepecki, Deborah Hay, Emmanuelle Huynh, Jeremy Nelson, João Fiadeiro, Julyen Hamilton, Lisa Nelson, Mark Tompkins, Meg Stuart, Loïc Touzé, Vera Mantero... In this context, he created his solo My Paradoxical Knives that was presented on some of the most prestigious European scenes, such like Tanzquartier Wien, Théatre National de Chaillot, Montpellier Danse, Fondation Cartier, BAC Genève, among others.

In 2012 Montpellier Dance Festival offers him to coproduce the group piece “it shocks me but not you”. An extract from this show, the solo talking in/to myself, is presented that year at the Festival d'Automne in Paris.
In 2013, his collaboration project with Fred Rodrigues, Lives, is selected by Hermes Foundation to be part of New Settings program. Ali concluded in 2013 CNDC ESSAI master. In 2014 and 2015 he is performer for Hooman Sharifi's show Every order eventually looses its terror.
In 2016 he creates at Montpellier Danse Man anam ke rostam bovad pahlavan. In the spring of 2017 he began a research period with the support of the Institut Français, Tanzhaus nrw Dusseldorfe and EMPAC to create Gaugemancy, scheduled to premiere on 2 October 2018 in La Passerelle Scène Nationale de Saint Brieuc.