Canadian Premiere of BADKE Set for World Stage 2016

Harbourfront Centre's World Stage 2016 will present the Canadian premiere of Badke, a highly energetic, politically charged and stylistically diverse performance by 10 Palestinian dancers who integrate the movements of circus, capoeira and hip hop into traditional folk dance. Only four performances will be presented February 17 - 20 at the Fleck Dance Theatre.

The title Badke is a play on the Arabic social folk dance "dabke" and the production expresses the universal desire to belong through its fusion of the traditional and contemporary, and the local and global. These diasporic artists, who have trained outside of their home country, perform the traditional dance and infuse it with new proposals, vocabularies and ideas.

"Badke begins in celebration and one feels the joy of communal dancing; reminding us that dance is a universal, borderless language," explains Artistic Director Tina Rasmussen. "But as the aerobic, bacchanalian mood heats up, the tenor shifts and we begin to see isolation, anxiety, fear, and images of protest, persecution and people under siege. Given the recent terrors on the global stage, Badke is an accurate and artful reflection of our shared humanity."

Badke is a collaboration between Belgian choreographers Koen Augustijnen, Rosalba Torres Guerrero and Hildegard De Vuyst and the Palestinian performers who weave between solo dances and vigorous group pieces all set to an infectious party music score by Naser Al-Fares.

This is a co-production between the prolific and groundbreaking KVS (the Brussels City Theatre), les ballets C de la B, and the A.M. Qattan Foundation, which administers the Palestinian Performing Arts Network.