Nesma
A Spanish dancer and choreographer, Nesma began to study oriental dance in Madrid and then in Paris. From 1993 to 1998 she lived in Cairo, where she had great success and gained a profound knowledge of dance, but also of the music and the culture of Egypt. She broadened her career with the National Ballet “Reda” and she became one of the closest collaborators of the great choreographer Mahmoud Reda. In 1998 she returned to Spain to create her own school and a prestigious company, Nesma Al-Andalus Danza, with which she presented her works in important theatres in Europe and the Middle East. Nesma is pioneer in the creation of a dance style inspired by the legacy of Al-Andalus.
Muwashahat
- Company: Nesma Al-Andalus Danza
- Direction & choreographies: Nesma
- Music arrangements: Irene Shams
6 dances & 6 musicians | Duration: 1 h 20 min.
“A thousand-year journey around the Mediterranean
in the footsteps of Al-Andalus poetry”
As the famous Spanish Arabist Emilio García Gómez said, “Of all the inventions that we owe to the culture of Al-Andalus, the Muwashahat is undoubtedly the most original”.
Nesma presents a new choreographic creation, inspired by the history of Al-Andalus, telling the journey of Andalusi poetry from the ninth century to the present day.
Born in the mix of cultures at the height of the intellectual flowering of the Arab world, the brilliant Andalusi civilisation left an indelible mark on the Iberian Peninsula and across the Arabic world. In addition, it served as a channel for transmitting oriental wisdom to the West. Despite all the upheavals of history, its cultural legacy continues to fascinate. Nesma creates on the stage an innovative, neo-Andalusi spectacle, interpreted by six dancers and six musicians with musical arrangements by the Spanish singer and composer Irene Shams. Using a very personal perspective, from a crossroads of cultures, Nesma brings all the exuberance of her neo-Andalusi choreographic language, at once emotive and contemporary, to take the audience on a journey in the footsteps of the muwashah, an original and revolutionary poetic form which was born in Al-Andalus and which gave rise to a musical tradition. Nesma and her company embody on the stage the muwashahat (plural of muwashah), from the splendour of the Omeya Caliphate of Cordoba, its exile and journey across the Mediterranean, from the Maghreb to the Middle East, and its renaissance.
Nesma shows us an important page in Spanish history, which is also a mirror of our current challenges: respect and dialogue in the face of confrontation; solidarity in the face of forced migration; historical memory in the face of blindness. Above all this is a work which illustrates the importance of arts in society, cultural diversity and freedom of expression.
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