This dance performance by Humans & Soil is a work in progress, with the aim to tour in 2025. Its name stems from the Kurdish notion: ‘No friends but the mountains’, which emphasize Indigenous peoples’ search for sanctuary from war and injustice. It is a performance with an emphasis on demanding justice for all disregarded lives with a connection to earth such as; non-human animals, nature and women of oppression. We do so by revitalising Indigenous knowledge, approach to ecological feminism and respect to nature.

This project intends to work long-term, inviting artistic and academic networks to nourish the need for passing on Indigenous knowledge without geographical limits or borders. We include aboriginal practices, ecofeminism, dance and music that may reveal the truths about governmental domination over Indigenous bodies. With this performance, we want to dance for those who are silenced speaking in their own language, or sing their own songs.

The aim is to explore dance practice as a unifying force between humans and nature. If we were to be free, what would we want our world to look like? Will we have the ability to see what is invisible, or hear what is unheard?

In this performance, we are exploring a body that comes from a world estranged from Mother Earth and that has overcome its human behavioural crisis by forming a bond with earth, river, and non human beings. Our process involves dance as a way to unify an audience/observer with the performance through ceremonial, Indigenous philosophy.

This project is critically looking over the usage of Indigenous knowledge for capital benefit such as new green energy projects, extraction of land for mineral production and deprivation of movement through earth. These practices reveal what has before been unseen, voices that persists in telling the truth about stagnation and disruption of the earth. The project takes a form of resistance and persistence of Indigenous embodiment.