Last Things Remaining

Dance performance from Palestine

Rehearsed for months, this production is now highly topical: artist Mirjam Sutter and four dancers tell how Western and Middle Eastern perspectives meet and merge into a new form of artistic language. After the performances there will be an exchange and meeting.

Statement by Mirjam Sutter
Dear friends and acquaintances,

First of all, thank you for your concern about me and all the warm and friendly messages that reached me. 7 October would have been a beautiful morning had it not been for the background noise of sirens and the impact of bombs on the ground... Thanks to the help of a Palestinian family who organised a taxi for me, I was able to reach the airport. My flight was the last one from Tel Aviv to Switzerland. I arrived safely, but had to leave all my friends in the region behind. In November we planned 4 shows with our dancers from Palestine. One in Bern and three in Zurich. Everything is organised, but now we don't know how the situation will develop in the next days and weeks and if they will still be able to leave the country. Despite the many uncertainties, we start with our announcement of the upcoming performance "Last Things Remaining". The piece was created as a co-production with the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival this year in May/June. We believe that right now we need voices from Palestine who can talk about their lives and the situation they find themselves in every day. I am in contact with some former actors who live in Gaza and send me and Royston Maldoom messages from the hell they are facing. They are all afraid of death and don't know if they will survive the next hours or days. To give these people a voice, we are determined to perform "Last Things Remaining" against all odds. Palestine is currently a patchwork of shrinking enclaves, criss-crossed by walls, fences and checkpoints. To live in one of these enclaves requires a very important skill: resilience. Swiss-based artist Mirjam Sutter comes together with four dancers from the occupied territories to give this theme a performative expression with all its facets. Through a collaborative, creative process and a mutual exchange of ideas, Western and Middle Eastern cultural, social and political perspectives meet, dialogue and merge into a new form of artistic language to bring different visions of the current situation in the occupied territories to the stage.

Sponsors, Support: SIS / Internationales Kinder -und Jugendtheater Duisburg / Royston Maldoom / Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung / Stiftung Anne-Marie Schindler / Refbejuso / Ernst Göhner Stiftung / Swiss Representative Office Ramallah / private patrons / Stadt Zürich Kultur / Helferei Zürich / Tojo Theater Bern / Südkulturfonds / Pro Helvetia

Press contact:
Mirjam Sutter
mirjam@acces-a-la-danse.com
+41(0)79 717 58 60