KoRpuS is critically considered to be one of HaRaKa Platform’s most radical choreographic works. The stage is set as an installation, with a morgue-like bed, and a body laying on top of it, naked and covered by plastic. Behind this bed is a massive screen on the stage. The screen is playing a video that was filmed with a camera fixed to the dancer’s head prior to the performance, filming his viewpoint while dancing, but we never see the dancer. When the video ends, the stage is in pitch black darkness, and the dancer performs that dance in the dark, set to the ominous sounding second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. A performance that attempts to separate the dance from the dancer. What remains of dance if the regime of seeing is taken away from it? What are the other layers of a choreography that the audiences can perceive? KoRpuS received multiple awards for its radical propositions, and was presented at Cairo Opera House for its premiere, in 2008

يعتبر بشكل حاسم واحدًا من أكثر أعمال الرقصات الراديكالية للمنصة. تم تجهيز المسرح تركيب بالفراغ ، بسرير يشبه المشرحة ، وجسم ملقى فوقه عارياً ومغطى بالبلاستيك. خلف هذا السرير شاشة ضخمة على المسرح. تعرض الشاشة فيديو تم تصويره بكاميرا مثبتة على رأس الراقص قبل العرض ، تصور وجهة نظره وهو يرقص ، لكننا لا نرى الراقص أبدًا. عندما ينتهي الفيديو ، يكون المسرح في ظلام دامس ، ويؤدي الراقص هذه الرقصة في الظلام على موسيقى الحركة الثانية من سيمفونية بتهوفن السابعة. عرض يحاول فصل الرقصة عن الراقص. وماذا يبقى من الرقص إذا انتزع منه نظام الرؤية؟ ما هي الطبقات الأخرى لتصميم الرقصات التي يمكن للجمهور إدراكها؟ حصل العرض على العديد من الجوائز لاقتراحاته الجذرية ، وتم تقديمه في دار الأوبرا المصرية لأول عرض له في عام 2008

Adham Hafez performing KoRpuS
Photograph by Ikon Chiba

KoRpus, performed in Cairo and Alexandria in 2008, interrupted conventional frameworks for viewing and experiencing the body in time -- especially but not exclusively in Egypt, as indicated in the emphasis of the middle letter in the dual English/Arabic title KoRpuS/Jisssm. The movement study and performance intervened in what is visible and invisible. It also disrupted time in its assault on the dominant sensory hierarchies of vision, sound, movement, and touch, achieved by separating the senses and by pushing the audience to use one sense to imagine another. And while outside the theater, bodies were being wounded and torn apart (literally and figuratively) Hafez gathered people in one place to witness a sensory disaggregation.

Prof. Dr. Jessica Winegar, writing on KoRpuS in ‘Dissenting Bodies’, 2018

 

The stage installation as the curtains open for KoRpuS
Photograph by Ikon Chiba

 

Adham Hafez on stage performing KoRpuS
Photograph by Ikon Chiba

KoRpuS

Live performance, installation, choreography: Adham Hafez
Photography: Ikon Chiba
Light design: Saad Samir
Stage manager: Gabi Eissa, Maryam Saleh Saad
Music: Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Second movement
Production of HaRaKa Platform

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