Rrîtm

Rrîtm is a choreographic performance rooted in rhythm, memory, and resistance.
A mountain is built. A circle never completes. The audience is invited not just to watch, but to witness.

In a time when cultural memory is fragmented and politicized, Rrîtm gathers rhythm as a site of encounter.
Rooted in Kurdish diasporic practices, the work moves with intent, listening to what remains beneath language. Rrîtm is a performance-based project that unfolds through collective rhythmic practices, community engagement and staged performance

Rrîtm can be described as a raw, rhythm-driven performance shaped by memory and breath. Developed as place-specific, it invites audiences into a land-guided choreographic migration between repetition, rupture, and resonance. The place is a co-creator of the work, assembling itself as the audience is invited not just to watch, but to witness.Drawing inspiration from traditional Kurdish rhythms, communal dances,and embodied resistance, Rrîtm explores what remains when words are not enough. It proposes that a body is both relational and agent. It listens. It pulses.

The performance moves through circling, scattering, reversing, and building. At times, the dancers whisper rhythm, hold a beat with their bodies, or fall into silence. At other times, they gather together, disperse, or drift into asynchronous motion. A bicycle might return. A mountain might be built. The score is both durable and fragile—holding space for stories, memory, and shared timing.


Choreography and dance:
Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter, Paz Moreno, Stella Blanc, Hector Palacios
Music & Composition:
Hajar Zahawy
Producer:
Hanna Magdalena Gödl, Humans & Soil
Contact & booking:
info@humansandsoil.com

Trailer

Choreography and dance: Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter, Paz Moreno, Hector Palacios, Stella Blanc
Music and composition: Hajar Zahawy
Videography: Kenneth Ly

Dear Witness,

This piece began in fragments—objects, stories, rhythms. As we worked, we kept returning to the body’s relationship to time, to memory, and to repetition. Rather than constructing a fixed narrative, I wanted to shape a space where dancers and audience could meet in rhythm, in listening.

I’m drawn to the tension between structure and disorder, between movement that gathers and movement that slips away. This is a work that holds what is unfinished. It is porous. The absence of histrionics is a choice—it lets the body speak louder.

I believe we don’t always need to tell everything. Sometimes rhythm says enough.

Info

  • Dance and choreography:
    Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter [SE/KRI], Stella Blanc [SE], Paz Moreno [ARG], Hector Palacios [MX]
    Music: Hajar Zahawy [KRI]

  • - Performance Area: 8x8 meters or larger
    - Audience Setup: Flexible (in-the-round, L-shape, linear) standing, sitting, or dancing
    - Suitable for: Museums, parks, forests, studios, black box/theatre
    - Performers: 4 dancers
    * we offer 2-3 days of workshop at your venue to offer local movement practitioners to take part in the performance, read more below
    - Setup Time: ~4 hours (can adapt to constraints)
    - Travel Team: [4 dancers including 1 choreographer]
    - Technical rider available upon request
    - Languages: Movement-based; no translation required

  • For contact with our producer or choreographer, please email us at: info@humansandsoil.com
    Instagram: @humansandsoil @marit.shirin

  • We offer the possibility to include local participants in the performance through a 2–3 day workshop with dancers or movers from the area. This cultural exchange supports our intention to connect to a relational body and relational dance, rooting the work in the local context and creating a unique iteration of the piece each time.

    In connection to the performance we offer a verbal presentation of the project up to 45 minutes, where the choreographer presents the background of the project as well as the themes of diasporic dances from Kurdistan in which this performance inhabits. We are interested in cultural exchanges with local/indigenous artists and elders who may be open to be included in conversations around movement, identity, resistance and activism - to give voice to plural worlds on dance and ancestrality.

  • This performance is a co-production with Norrlandsoperan, Ubmeje/Umeå Sweden.

    Supported by Nordic Culture Point, Swedish Art Grant Committee, Dans i Västerbotten, Danscentrum Norr, Danscentret i Österbotten, Stockholm University of the Arts, Scenkonstbiennalen 2025, Gaaltje - South-Sámi Centre in Staare.

    Trailer by: Kenneth Ly
    Photographers: Arnaud Beleen, Hector Palacios & Kenneth Ly

  • 30-31st of May 2026:
    Showing and community-sharing in Hattfjelldal/Aarborte, Norway/Sápmi and Dearna/Tärnaby in Sweden/Sápmi

    3rd June 2025:
    Pre-premiere at Scenkonstbiennalen 2025/Scenetjeahpoebiennale 2025. Produced by Gaaltije, Saemien Museume in Staare/Östersund

    2026 Fall season (TBC)
    Norrlandsoperan, Ubmeje/Umeå
    National tour [SE]

    More information on touring dates will be published in the fall 2025.

Photo by Arnaud Beleen
Dancer: Paz Moreno

Relational Encounters: Local Participation & Cultural Exchange

Dance as dialogue. Presence as connection.

Moments of listening, exchange, and embodied inquiry during a local workshop session in Brussels.

As part of our commitment to fostering embodied connection and cultural dialogue, we invite local dancers, movers, and performers to become part of our artistic process.

For each location we visit, we propose a 2–3 day workshop where participants can explore our movement language and join us in the performance. This collaboration is not only an invitation to dance together, but to enter into a shared space of relational listening, sensitivity, and shared making.

We see these workshops as a form of cultural exchange — a way of weaving local presence into the fabric of the work. It is an opportunity to form temporary yet powerful communities, where bodies speak beyond borders, and presence becomes a bridge.

Are you a presenter or venue?
Please contact us if you have an interest in incorporating local participation.
The workshops and rehearsal dates are flexible and can be adapted to your venue.

“There is something magical that happens when we witness you come together and dance - the rhythm lingers in the body for a long time after leaving the performance.”

- Audience member, Gaaltije Saemien Museume