For me, it's about finding your inner artist and changing your reality.
I had a vision to combine the Thousand and One Nights with a Cirque du Soleil-ish vibe.
I wanted to use mostly Jehan's music because I really felt like the marriage of the arts
was happening.
I work in planes.
I start by, what's the raw movement?
How do we tell a story with this raw movement?
How do we make it dynamic?
And then, where do we put our soul?
Two very distinct things that are going on on Broadway.
When they say aerial for Spider-Man, they're talking about an actor wearing a harness being
pulled from offstage either by mechanical means or by a human flyman.
That's not what I do.
What I do is the human body holding itself up, climbing and wrapping their body onto
a circus apparatus so that our industry has exploded as far as aerial arts goes.
And that's not always a good thing.
You're talking about people climbing 20 feet in the air, hanging onto a piece of fabric.
That is dangerous, and if you're not guided by a professional, people get hurt.
In my history as a teacher, as a director and choreographer, I've never had anything
more than a bruise on a student or an actor.
Middle Eastern dance is exploding, not only in America but worldwide.
And it is part of the new fitness craze, which is wonderful, but its roots are not as a dance
of fitness.
I mean, there has to be some soul and culture behind it, because otherwise it's just a
series of movements that don't give you a spiritual awakening or a healing experience.
I believe that the dance form is much better suited to an environment outside of a gym
because then you get the whole experience, the whole cultural experience, and the spirit
and the beauty and the grace.
Cirque Aravesque, A Caravan of Dreams is playing at the Manhattan Movement and Arts
Center this fall, Fall 2010.
Please come see us.
