ICK FEST X MEERVAART

March 1 & 2, 2025

The annual ICK FEST at the Meervaart is coming up on March 1 and 2, 2025. Join us for an inspiring weekend of dance, with the première ofMYSTIC by Shailesh Bahoran, interactive workshops, contemporary dance on the big screen, surprising pop-up performances, and more! Of course a party on the dance floor cannot be missed, because what is an ICK FEST without getting to dance ourselves!

PROGRAMME

Saturday, March 1^st - 20:15h: MYSTIC – PREMIERE
Shailesh Bahoran, ICK Dans Amsterdam, Illusionary Rockaz Company, Amsterdams Andalusisch Orkest and Meervaart.
Visit the world premiere of choreographer Shailesh Bahoran's performance MYSTIC. In this performance, Bahoran gives space to the wordless universality of the mystical. With roots in hip-hop culture, a cross-pollination with contemporary dance and music, Shailesh offers a view on the blurred edges of physical reality. Together with the dancers of the ICK-Ensemble and the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra, Shailesh embarks on an adventure that reaches beyond cultural boundaries.

Saturday, March 1^st - 19:00h: POP-UPS
ICK en ICK-SUPPORTED ARTISTS | ICK-ENSEMBLE, ICK-NEXT, MELISSA DIKTAS, ROSHANAK MORROWATIAN
A series of pop-ups will surprise you with work by established and emerging dance makers. An experimental preview of the new ICK performance WE, the LUST, a presentation of the new generation of ICK-NEXT dancers, a double bill by Roshanak Morrowatian and Melissa Diktas: be inspired by innovative creations and unbridled passion!

Saturday, March 1^st and Sunday 2^nd March: Interactive Dance Game REPLAY
Join our workshops! Experience how Artificial Intelligence can play a role in the future. Surrender yourself to the interactive REPLAY without shame, like participants before you: "As I go along, I become increasingly curious about the next instruction. It's as if the voice is teasing me. Around me, I sense rising energy, it's game on!”

Sunday, March 2^nd - 14:30h: Dance Movie BLASPHEMY RHAPSODY - CINEMATOGRAFICO
Dance and society are inevitably intertwined. In an empty theater, with challenges such as lockdowns and curfews, film director Arno Dierickx created a blasphemous cinematic interpretation of what a performance wanted to be.

Ongoing Photo Exhibition
Photographers, inspired by the creations of ICK makers, capture emotion and movement in their unique style and vision. Each image tells an intimate story and offers a powerful representation of the pure essence of contemporary performance arts.

Photo © Alex Avgud

ABOUT DOUBLE BILL PREVIEW

During the pop-ups, you will get to see a fascinating double-bill preview by Roshanak Morrowatian and Melissa Diktas. Where Roshanak delves into the fragmentation of time and space experienced by people who have left their native land, with Melissa Diktas you will experience the power of survival, the stories of the oppressed in our society translated into one body.

Alphatbeths of Flesh – Roshanak Morrowatian
In the dance performance Alphabets of Flesh, choreographer and dancer Roshanak Morrowatian makes tangible what it is like to be a body in diaspora. Together with dancer Mami Izumi, she depicts the fragmented experience of time and space of people who have left their homeland. The here and there and the now and then merge into memories and dreams.
What remains of your origins when you are displaced? What experiences - even from generations before you - are stored in your body? In a sensory journey through movements and images of the diaspora, Morrowatian searches for the feeling of home. Where and with whom is home? Can your body be your home? Do you need the past to define the "now"?

Alphabets of Flesh uses dance, language, music and video art to create a temporary home where differences are embraced and uprooting is a source of strength.

photo © Afagh Morrowatian

___

The Untamed Creature in a Flowered Dress – Melissa Diktas
An endless battle fought by an indomitable creature in a floral dress.
Accompanied by the Dahul. The drum that makes the ground move. Collectively pounding the ground, letting it be heard that it was there, is there and will always be there. Representing immortality. She who represents existence.
We celebrate, fight, be carried away, stop, rise up, we pass on, we are conscious, unconscious, being fed, nourished, keeping the danger always in sight. The oppressed wrapped in a body. What if every day you are exterminated, executed, and oppressed. What does something that is always in survival look like?

Experience the power of survival and expression in "The Untamed Creature in a Flowered Dress" by Melisa Diktaş. An immersive performance that embodies the essence of struggle, survival and resilience, wrapped in the rhythms of Kurdish movement language.

credits:
Dance, Movement: Melisa Diktaş
Direction: Melisa Diktaş
Production: RIGHTABOUTNOW INC.
With thanks to Mestizo Arts Platform, ICK Dans Amsterdam, Cinedans