Nejla yatkin biography examples
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'The Other Witch' explores socio-political and personal parallels between two modern dance phenoms—a century apart
Chicago had cast its spell on dancer/choreographer Nejla Yatkin long before “The Other Witch” called out to her imagination. Connections that gave birth to Yatkin’s newest multi-media, multi-lingual creation transcend international and historical boundaries, from World War I Germany to a remote village in East Anatolia, Turkey, to 20th-century Berlin and ultimately to its realization in Chicago.
“I am not reconstructing Mary Wigman’s work,” Yatkin explained in a recent phone conversation. Referring to the modern dance pioneer’s signature solo, “Hexentanz (The Witch),” she found herself captivated by the whole idea of “the other” as embodied in the history of shamanism and witchcraft, which fueled much of Wigman’s revolutionary vision as a feminist artist in early 20th-century Germany.
Yatkin identifies with Wigman’s expressionist ideology “as someone always
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Dance: Politics and Dance – Tenth Year of Freedom
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By Francine L. Trevens
ART TIMES February online 2011
| Nejla Y. Yatkin in Journey To The One, A Tango Photo by Lois Greenfield |
WHAT IS DANCE, actually? When younger, I thought it was movement to music. Now I realize it is movement to a message from inside your body. It arises from the same instinct that makes one paint or write, the need to express an emotion.
Still, most dance is set to or accompanied by music – though there have been some exceptions. One such occurred when I brought a classical music lover to her first dance performance. She was concentrating on reading the program to absorb all it could tell her. She blocked out the announcement made over the loudspeaker saying two dance numbers had been alternated in sequence, first in the printed program would be performed third instead.
So, when the first number ended, she said, “I could see all the things they said were in the piece – but what
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Dancing Around The World
What inom learned from traveling around the world for one year with a creative dance project
By Nejla Y. Yatkin
Most people travel around the world to get away from their jobs or they take off for a year to gain insights through travel. My work as a choreographer and dancer includes traveling to other places and creating with and for other artists, groups or institutions. I have traveled extensively collaborating on and creating different dance works my whole life, but inom never traveled and worked on the same planerat arbete continuously without returning home.
I am not a writer. I am a dancer. I feel at most home when expressing through my body. For me dance opens up my thinking and consciousness. We are essentially embodied creatures. Our bodies are essential to our consciousness, to our selves and to our perceptions of the world. We are not incidentally embodied; we are fundamentally embodied. Our consciousness is intimately connected to our physicality. If you