Anahita Razmi
Domino dancing, 2014
Video
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
The videowork 'Domino Dancing' is showing a group of dancers participating in a Dance Marathon Party that was organized in a Tehran livingroom in January 2014. As the only party...
The videowork "Domino Dancing" is showing a group of dancers participating in a Dance Marathon Party that was organized in a Tehran livingroom in January 2014. As the only party music, the chorus line of Pet Shop Boys Hit "Domino Dancing" is repeated over & over again (All day all day watch them all fall down, all day all day, Domino Dancing). The dancing to these two lines goes on for hours, until - one by one - the dancers drop out of the race.
Dancing, mixed gender parties, western music & alcohol are officially forbidden in Iran, - still people gather in private homes to sidestep restrictions. The work is relating to that hidden way of rebellion, - but by using the format of a "dance marathon", the symbolic uprising is superimposed by an exhausting and demoralizing loop of ever- repeating body movement."Watch them all fall down" sings Neil Tenant over and over again, the forecast of the dancers dropping out, one after another, is inevitable.
Dance Marathons were especially popular in the US in the Twenties / Thirties. In a time of recession, they had little to do with exuberance - contestants mostly needed money and audience was happy for cheap entertainment. Within "Domino Dancing" this chosen format defines the video performance, building up bidirectional relations between dance as an expression of freedom and dance as a back-breaking sisyphean task.
Dancing, mixed gender parties, western music & alcohol are officially forbidden in Iran, - still people gather in private homes to sidestep restrictions. The work is relating to that hidden way of rebellion, - but by using the format of a "dance marathon", the symbolic uprising is superimposed by an exhausting and demoralizing loop of ever- repeating body movement."Watch them all fall down" sings Neil Tenant over and over again, the forecast of the dancers dropping out, one after another, is inevitable.
Dance Marathons were especially popular in the US in the Twenties / Thirties. In a time of recession, they had little to do with exuberance - contestants mostly needed money and audience was happy for cheap entertainment. Within "Domino Dancing" this chosen format defines the video performance, building up bidirectional relations between dance as an expression of freedom and dance as a back-breaking sisyphean task.
